Laker vs. Heat Tonight is a Pivotal Game for Los Angeles

Big game tonight in the NBA as two star-studded, but very different teams take each other on for the first time this season. Los Angeles has struggled to get everyone healthy and on the court while Miami has been relatively healthy this year. Here are the keys to tonight’s game:

·         Defense.

I can’t stress this enough, the Lakers need to help each other out on the defensive end to have a chance to win tonight. Metta World Peace is a great defender, and has the strength to bang with LeBron James in the post, but he can’t stay with him on the perimeter, as James constantly drives in against bulkier opponents like World Peace. Earl Clark, on the other hand, is too much of a light weight to handle LeBron in the post. Help defense will be required, more than likely from Dwight Howard, but the other players have to rotate to help Howard. Make Miami take jump shots, and not layups and dunks.  Kobe Bryant will likely be covering Dwyane Wade in what is the most balanced matchup of the night and Bryant better be ready for the physical game Wade brings to the table. He’s not Kyrie Irving or Brandon Jennings (speedster point guards with good jumpers), Wade is a whole other beast. I expect Bryant to sag off of Wade, as he is not the best 3 point shooter (Wade knows this and his limited his outside jumpers the past couple of years. He has only taken 39 three pointers this season). Wade is fast, agile and can jump out of the building. Think of him as a 6’4’’ version of James, as he is physically gifted and has great vision and passing ability to accompany his drive heavy offensive game. If at all possible, the Lakers want to make Chris Bosh and Co. beat them, not James or Wade. It’s possible for the Lakers to play the old Kobe Defense teams used to do against them. Let James play one on one with World Peace and don’t send too much help D, while putting the clamps on the rest of James’ teammates, though I seriously doubt they go this route.

·         Rebounding.

The Heat are a notoriously bad rebounding team, they are 30^th in rebounds, and are 5^th in opponent rebounding. The Lakers need to take advantage and get second chance opportunities for themselves, while limiting the second chance opportunities for Miami. The Lakers way out size and out bulk the Heat with Howard in the middle, and complimentary pieces like the 6’10’’ Clark and Pau Gasol (who will play tonight). The Lakers are 8^th in rebounding, and 14^th in opponent rebounding. Los Angeles needs to come out crashing the boards with energy to have a shot at winning.

·         Sink their open jumpshots.

We know the offensive skills of Bryant and Howard will be the main work force for the Lakers tonight, but when Bryant, Howard and Steve Nash pass the ball, the role players need to be prepared to sink their jumpers. World Peace needs to be consistent from deep, as well as Antawn Jamison and to a lesser extent, Clark from mid-range. This extends to free throws as well; the Lakers can’t leave points on the board and expect to beat the defending champions.

·         Pound the ball down low.

Miami is a very undersized team. Their tallest player who gets regular minutes is Bosh at 6’10’’ and there’s no way he could handle Howard in the post, as Bosh only weighs 228 pounds to Howard’s 265 pounds. Miami’s starting center is Joel Anthony, who is also a bit undersized for the position (6’9’’, 245 lb). If the Lakers establish their dominance down low with Howard and Gasol, it could open up the game for shooters like Jamison and Meeks.

·         Last but not least: Limit turnovers.

Against most teams, turnovers will keep the Lakers down, but not out. Against Miami, turnovers will completely take Los Angeles out of the game. Miami is the best fastbreak team in the NBA, mostly on the speed and athleticism of Wade and James. Considering how much older and slower the Lakers are, they can’t afford to make this game a track meet. Grind out possessions and take care of the ball and L.A. has a chance.

The good news for the Lakers is Gasol is coming back tonight, but he will be coming off the bench. His size will be important for rebounding purposes and help defense. Gasol will most likely anchor the second unit when Bryant, Howard and Nash go out of the game late in the first quarter, early in the second quarter. The big story tonight is Kobe vs. LeBron, but if the Lakers let it get to that, they will lose tonight. A team game must be played in order to beat Miami. 

The More Things Change, the More Things Stay the Same

This has been the whole Lakers' team mentality during this run, save for Nash.

The Lakers have been seemingly cursed this season as they have lost 40 games of injury to their starters alone, but it was usually in balanced fashion, as in one perimeter player and one post player is out. Not for this stretch, as everybody over 6’10’’ not named Robert Sacre is injured right now (Pau Gasol with a concussion, Dwight Howard with a torn labrum, Steve Blake with a torn abdomen and Jordan Hill with loose fragments in his hip which will require season ending surgery). The Lakers are going with the smallest ball possible, as they have had stretches where Metta World Peace and Earl Clark/Antawn Jamison are playing center and power forward and this is a bigger problem than turnovers and bad shots combined. The positive news here is Clark’s and Hill’s Per 36 numbers are nearly identical, the only difference really being how physical Hill is compared to Clark, though Clark is far more versatile, as he can slide to the outside and defense perimeter players (like he did on Wednesday vs. the Spurs, as he took on Manu Ginobili).

Let’s get one thing straight: Defense wins championships. No team has a chance of winning it all if they allow 105+ points per game. It’s the reason why the D’Antoni-Steve Nash led Phoenix Suns never made it past the Western Conference Finals. The Lakers have some excellent man to man defenders with World Peace, Kobe Bryant and Howard but the team’s lack of defensive fundamentals is seriously disturbing; nobody on the team rotates to help the help defender, and on occasions, nobody rotates to help the initial defender. This is the cause of the uncontested shots most opposing teams have in or around the paint. The Lakers lack of trust in each other this late into the season is something to seriously be concerned about and it makes me question whether this team can ever make a deep post season run. D’Antoni may have fixed the offense, or better said, D’Antoni made it easier for Nash to fix the offense (103.2 PPG, good for 4^th in the league) as the Princeton wasn’t a system apt for Nash but D’Antoni hasn’t been preaching defense at all this season, save for the rare occasions when an opposing team makes an early run, only to have D’Antoni call a time out to get everybody organized. The Lakers defense is among the bottom of the league, as they surprisingly don’t allow more points than they score despite their 15-21 record. The Lakers allow 101.7 points per game, good for 26^th in the league, and that’s something that’s not even close to cutting it in this league. The one constant though out NBA history has been: the team that plays defense usually ends up winning it all. It doesn’t matter how offensively oriented the league has become; defense is still the most important aspect of the game.

I am hopefully Howard’s injury won’t keep him out for long, and Los Angeles can get back to having somebody back there to protect the rim, as having World Peace and Jamison back there made for a lot of easy layups and in the paint, uncontested jumpers. Howard’s presence alone is a huge difference maker (reference the last time LA played OKC), as guys generally change their shots as to try not to get swatted into the 10^th row. And while Gasol may be softer than marshmallows, he still provides some defensive value as his length is still there to help contest shots (though I still insist on trading him while he has value, especially now that Earl Clark as made a name for himself and Artest is reverting to last year’s horrid form). The Lakers are very fixable because of the talent the team has, but it won’t get done until the team itself does some serious soul searching and starts to work hard on the defensive end.

As an end note, kudos to Howard about a month ago for calling Kobe on his free safety style defense. Bryant told him not to do it again; Howard said he would do it again if Kobe didn’t rotate. It takes some serious guts to tell Kobe what to do on his own team, definitely the make of a Franchise Player.