As Game One Unfolds At the Staples

The thing about Dwight Howard is that he's throwback to NBA days of yore. Until Dwight sank the Cavs, it was hard to understand given the past decade or so, perhaps even stretching back to pre Jordan days, why the preference to go big with draft picks still dominated mentality.

If you dismiss Jordan as a freak at the 2 position, the two most lasting trends in NBA teams have been the emergence of the truly powerful, power-forward, and the emphasis on Point Guards. This logic works perfectly if you look back to the Payton-Kemp Sonics vs. Jordan & Pippen Bulls finals won by Jordan in 6 games. You dismiss Jordan as a freak and try and emulate the Sonics.

The point guard has been the star of the past 5 years, with Tony Parker, Billups, Gilbert and Iverson as your shoot first style point guard, your Nash's and Kidd's as your pass-first style point guards and lastly your Chris Paul all rounder floor generals.

Then there's the Barkley lead school of uber forwards, culminating arguably in MVP's Nowitzki and Garnett. They rebound, and dominate the low posts, yet drop back to downtown and sink 3's.

But the Magic dismissed with the Power-Forward all-together. That's the luxury of Dwight Howard. Big enough, strong enough, dominant enough to require a double team, they are best off just running an isolation play permenantly. They go 1 point guard, 3 shooting guards and Dwight at center. Then they just pass around the 3-point arc until they get an open look. They spread the floor, that's Orlando's game summed up, and they can do it like no other team can, because they have the best center in the game.

And I thought, how the fuck do you defend against that? Best bet is to try and get Dwight in Foul trouble, but even their back up center allows them to play a slightly less effective version of the same game plan?

The Answer though is to adopt the Magic's perspective. Lakers can run two centers, Bynum and Pau Gasol, They can run them at the same time, if necessary they can go to three low-post players in Bynum, Gasol and Odom all much bigger than anyone in the Magic line-up bar Dwight. Then to spread the floor they have the reverse situation, they have Kobe who arguably could be called 'Mr. Tough Shot' next to Billups 'Mr. Big Shot' out west.

I was impressed by Brandon Roy's ability to seemingly be unfased by Houston's defence, but when it comes to experience, Kobe can probably take a Ron Artest & Battier double team and make 20 points worth of shots. Beyond the low post, Magic don't have a defender anywhere near the calibre of Battier or Artest. And they would be useful against a good field goal shooter like Paul Pierce or Ray Allen, not a guy that can create shots for himself out of nowhere.

The situation with the Lakers is reversed, instead of having a defensive liability in the low post, they have one out in the field, then they have 3 low post to midrange scorers, and players like Vujakic that can sink 3's off the bench.

So Lakers have a one man floor spreader in Kobe, and multiple threats in the low post, Magic have a one man floor spreader in Dwight, and multiple threats in the field. All things being equal - mathematically the Lakers are going to win offensively because the field goal percentage is where it will be decided, and the best 3 point scoring team in the league is only going to hit 34% of their shots.

Except History says that Magic have the Lakers number, the Lakers haven't beat them yet this season, and the Finals is a bad time to have to start beating a team. Furthermore Lakers were the 'giant slayers' when it came to ousting Cleveland and Boston at home, but that was last year, Orlando are the true giant slayers, I don't know how their record ended up worse than Cavs and Boston, because they must have dropped some stupid games along the way.

The tend also to just gather momentum over the course of a match, slow to start but good strong finishers. Lakers wins come all over the place. I actually think one of the factors that really decided the Cavs magic series was timing. It was all about when you had the lead, when you pushed etc. I think if the Magic push early in the 2nd quarter, they give the openents too much time to adjust, vis-a-vis game 5 against the Cavs. If they make their push in the 3rd quarter that's optimum, because that hits the right combo of the opponent thinking they have time to push back, but not actually leaving enough time.

From the other teams perspective, at least in the Cavs series, they would go out and build these seemingly dominant leads in the first quarter. I think building big leads early is exceptional in that it's bad against the Magic. Normally a team only resorts to 3's out of desperation or necessity, as in the only way to make up the point differential in the time remaining is to hit a bunch of 3's, you switch to long-range game to get you back in it. Putting the Magic into the long range game as early as Q2, puts them in their most dangerous game, that is rotating the ball between their 4 3-point shooters.

Furthermore it gives them each a few practice shots to get going, and once 2/4 or 3/4 have seen the ball go in the net, that is your defence shattered, you can't double team Dwight anymore and you don't know where the next 3 is coming from.

Once those shooters get going on the 3's they will have that up their sleeves for the 2nd half of the game. They'll shoot daggers into your heart.

The Lakers need to visualise these matches as a 800m-1500m foot race. You don't want to sprint out and play 'who hits the wall first' basketball, because shooting 3's is less energy intensive than driving the lane or backing down a defender for the low post plays. They want to tuck in just behind or just in front of the Magic, and then: LISTEN, WATCH, FEEL for when they try and make their move.

If you know you have a strong sprint finish, that is, you are a strength runner, then the longer you can keep your oppenent(s) from making their break, the more guarunteed is your victory. That is what the Lakers need to do with Magic, don't sprint the first lap, because Magic will just open up their stride a little and beat you down to the finish line.

Lastly:

With Dwight, Mike Brown was right, the league has no Ben Wallace these days, not even in Ben Wallace, so you are probably going to foul him to get the stops and send him to the line. What you don't want is to make a 3 point player out of Dwight and give him the And-1 plays. So you have to fall on his arms or some shit so he can't follow through on his scoring play.

The Lakers really should be the underdog/dark horse of this finals series, except they have the home court advantage, and the idiot media will overhype them on their win loss regular season record, which is bullshit, because the only regular season games that count in this series are the 3 against Orlando, for which their record is 0-3. In other words the Lakers should be the underdogs, but have lost the underdog advantage.