Lakers Fans Wonder Whether Cleveland Is A Bad Matchup

The other way would be to express legitimate concern that the Cavaliers might indeed have their number. C.A. Clark from SB Nation’s Lakers blog Silver Screen and Roll chose option number two.

Last year, Cleveland was one of the best teams in the league, even winning the most regular season games. Then, they ran into an Orlando Magic team that was just a bad match-up for them. They couldn’t beat the Magic, because they didn’t have the personnel to deal with Dwight Howard and the duo of tall, athletic forwards Turkoglu and Rashard Lewis. Why am I bringing this up? Because I can’t fight the feeling that this describes the Cavs-Lakers this year. L.A. is a great team, definitely one of the league’s best. They could very easily end up with a record superior to Cleveland. They might even still be considered the better overall team, compared to the league in general. But, as these two games have shown, Cleveland has proven to be a bad, bad match-up for L.A. If the two teams meet in the Finals, and my life were on the line, I’m ashamed to admit which way I’d bet.

The biggest problem? Cleveland’s defense shut down the Lakers’ offense yet again. After a first-quarter explosion, the Lakers scored just 60 points in the final three quarters. Clark has run out of ideas to jumpstart the offense.

I can’t discount this result as just another game, because, for the 2nd straight game, I saw Cleveland shut the Lakers offense down, and for the 2nd straight time, I couldn’t think of a rational way the Lakers could adjust. If Cleveland isn’t required to double on one of the Laker big men, our offense isn’t going to work, and we’ve seen ample evidence that neither Pau Gasol nor Andrew Bynum can efficiently score in one on one situations against that team. If the Cavs can aggressively double Kobe without the Lakers finding open shots, the team will struggle to score, and that’s exactly what has happened in the pivotal moments of two different games.

I mean, I guess so. But here’s the thing: the Lakers weren’t really holding true to the Triangle offense even early on. Bryant took 16 shots in the first half and 31 for the game. You can’t begrudge him too much if his shot is on, but rather than let the game come to him, like LeBron James did, Kobe dominated the ball in the early going. Had Bryant taken more of a backseat and gotten his big men involved, they likely would have been in a better rhythm down the stretch and would have scored on the Cavaliers.

Again, it’s tough to blame Kobe, but maybe the Lakers’ offense would have functioned better if he took a different approach to last night’s game.