2013 CB Draft: Western First Round: Los Angeles(4) vs Golden State(5)

[dark_lord]

i submitted my vote.....Warriors

[nickagneta]

As much as I like this Lakers team, and let me be clear they are very good, this is a bad matchup (I think).

Who will defend Rondo.  Can Matthews do the job?

Dirk and Gasol will need to win their matchup to pull this one out.

Think I am going Warriors here. I just think the Rondo-Calderon match up is so lopsided in the Warriors favor it will overcome any "make Rondo and Derozan shoot from the outside" type defenses that the Lakers can throw at them.

Also, after years of languishing in Portland, I think LMA would be a beast in the playoffs for the Warriors.

[Rondo2287]

I voted Warriors

[BleedGreen1989]

I'm so taking all of you guys off my Christmas card list...

[fitzhickey]

I voted LAL

[Who]

I think DeRozan will see his playing time slashed in favor of Lou Williams in this series.

Which would make this the main lineup in the series.

G: J.Calderon vs Rondo (Jose defends B.Rush)
G: W.Matthews vs Lou Williams
F: Q.Pondexter vs B.Rush (Pondexter defends Rondo)
F: D.Nowitzki vs L.Aldridge
C: M.Gasol vs R.Hibbert

[BleedGreen1989]

I think DeRozan will see his playing time slashed in favor of Lou Williams in this series.

Which would make this the main lineup in the series.

G: J.Calderon vs Rondo (Jose defends B.Rush)
G: W.Matthews vs Lou Williams
F: Q.Pondexter vs B.Rush (Pondexter defends Rondo)
F: D.Nowitzki vs L.Aldridge
C: M.Gasol vs R.Hibbert

Something Who highlights while everyone else just screams "Rondo!" is that Calderon will not be defending Rondo all by his lonesome. It will be team defense cutting off lanes and switching on to Rondo with the likes of Pondexter, Matthews, or Delfino.

Also, something else not yet brought up is worst-case scenario Calderon can simply be pulled in favor of Delfino and would leave a line up of,

Matthews
Delfino
Pondexter
Nowitzki
Gasol

Still plenty of spacing and ample playmaking/ball handeling with Nowitzki and Gasol both very capable playmakers as well as Matthews and Delfino being very solid ball handlers.

[rondoallaturca]

Still not sure where this idea of a phantom Rondo feasting is coming from. Our team is one of the toughest matchups for him. If GS wins solely off of Rondo, he better be putting up a ridiculous HOF playoffs performance that carries this team all the way to the top of the championships. In which case we would be helpless no matter how good our team is.

[Roy H.]

Still not sure where this idea of a phantom Rondo feasting is coming from. Our team is one of the toughest matchups for him. If GS wins solely off of Rondo, he better be putting up a ridiculous HOF playoffs performance that carries this team all the way to the top of the championships. In which case we would be helpless no matter how good our team is.

Doesn't Rondo put up ridiculous HOF playoff performances fairly frequently?

I agree that this series is about more than Rondo vs. Calderon, but Rondo has been a very fine playoff performer.  Most recently, he averaged 17 / 7 / 12 over 19 playoff games.  The guy can absolutely win a series almost on his own.

[ronaldo943]

I voted Warriors.

[rondoallaturca]

I absolutely agree, Roy - although my user name should give away my Rondo fandom :p

That being said, our defense is elite against dribble penetration, and Rondo doesn't have many targets to hit on the perimeter. Who mentioned playing Lou instead of Derozan, but that's an even worse matchup for GS considering Wesley's size. There's no way Lou does enough damage on offense against Wesley's stellar D to make up for Wesley's ability to outpower Lou on the offensive end.

Again, GS was my favorite matchup coming into the West playoffs. They play into all our strengths on defense, and it's way too simplistic to simply say GS wins just because of Rondo. I'm one of his biggest fan but geez... As much as I love the dude, I have no idea how he can single-handedly push GS over LA considering the context.

[fairweatherfan]

I voted Golden State after a lot of consideration.  I think Dirk can still score at an elite level at his age, but I don't think he can score and defend a top guy at an elite level for 7 games.  And without SuperDirk, there's not much else there.

The Lakers' big edge in perimeter shooting gives them a chance if they can get red-hot from 3, but that tends to fall through more often than not in the long run.  Gotta give the edge to GS.

[rondoallaturca]

Also, for those of you who already voted for GS, could you please explain your reasoning? I'd just like to get the other side's perspective. With this year's league, I certainly didn't expect anything, but one of the few matchups I thought would clearly favor us was GS, but clearly that hasn't been the case. And this is with all due respect to Kane - he has a great team; unfortunately it just matches up poorly with ours.

[Rondo2287]

Also, for those of you who already voted for GS, could you please explain your reasoning? I'd just like to get the other side's perspective. With this year's league, I certainly didn't expect anything, but one of the few matchups I thought would clearly favor us was GS, but clearly that hasn't been the case. And this is with all due respect to Kane - he has a great team; unfortunately it just matches up poorly with ours.

No answer for rondo who will be the best player in the series

[indeedproceed]

Also, for those of you who already voted for GS, could you please explain your reasoning? I'd just like to get the other side's perspective. With this year's league, I certainly didn't expect anything, but one of the few matchups I thought would clearly favor us was GS, but clearly that hasn't been the case. And this is with all due respect to Kane - he has a great team; unfortunately it just matches up poorly with ours.

No answer for rondo who will be the best player in the series

That's a really good question. Rondo/Dirk/Aldridge/Gasol all have a case to be made I could see working out.