Rafael Barlowe from NBA Draft Junkies and Jamie Sweet, Sean Grice and LakerTom from lakerholics.com sit down with Gerald as they recap the Lakers 115-104 loss to the Miami Heat in Game Three of the NBA Finals!
Don’t forget to Subscribe to our shows and leave us that 5-Star Review with your questions on Apple Podcasts or e-mail us at lakersfastbreak@yahoo.com!
Presented by our friends at NBA Draft Junkies, lakerholics.com, Pop Culture Cosmos, Zero Cool Films, the novel Congratulations, You Suck (available for purchase HERE), and Retro City Games!
Vibrant discussion among all participants. I think we talked Gerald off his ledge but nobody can talk LT down from benching the centers right off the bat after a loss, lol.
Kidding aside, I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of this and appreciated everyone’s input. Good stuff.
In my defense, I would remind everybody that Frank Vogel ended up making most of the changes at the center position I proposed, including replacing McGee with Morris and then replacing McGee with Howard. Interesting that you interpret my proposed changes as disliking traditional centers. The common thread seems to be the play of JaVale McGee, which I was happy with earlier in the season but not in the second half, the Bubble, or the playoffs.
As for starting AD, I do agree with you that there is a justification for using that as a late game weapon ala the Warriors Death lineup, which I’ve referred to many times in my writing. With two games to go, however, we may be at the point of inflection where Frank needs to go with our best five from the get to. There’s a strong argument in favor of that too for any objective thinker. It could be the difference maker, although we probably will win even if we don’t do it. The Heat just cannot match LeBron and AD.
We’ll see, I don’t think the 13 minutes of Dwight list the game for us in the same way the game and a quarter of JaVale in Houston was an obvious issue. The Miami beat our small ball line up, badly, so I’m not confident the answer lies there, either. I think we might see more size than we did in game 3 but mainly I feel that Frank, LeBron, AD and Rondo will work it out on and off the court.
Also, it’s a joke about your first reaction in a loss being ‘bench the centers!’. It’s funny in that’s its consistent.
All things being equal, why would you not want a center who could stretch the floor? Give me Shaq and I might feel differently. Otherwise, the game has changed because of the three and there are very few centers today who can impact the game without shooting from deep. And even most of them can be played to the bench against some teams.
By the way,
Lakers in five over the Blazers? Yes!
Lakers in five over the Rockets? Yes!
Lakers in five over the Nuggets? Yes!
Lakers in five over the Heat? Wait and see!