Joe,
First of all, Joe, its good to see you posting more.
I think Boris had an advantage at SF against the Spurs because Pops plays small at that position with Fins and Ginobli. If you look around the WC, you'll see that no other team is so lacking in guys that could contend with Boris at that position. The Lakers could and probably would put Odom on him if they're at full strength. Beyond him they have Turiaf and Radmanovic - heck, Ariza could probably defend Boris fairly well. Utah - Kirilenko and Paul Milsap; Houston - Battier, Scola, Hayes and Carl Landry to pick among; Dallas - Josh Howard, Brandon Bass, Dirk; Denver - Carmelo, Najera, Linas Kleiza; NO - West(w. Ely taking over at PF), Julian Wright, Hilton Armstrong; Clips - TT, Josh Powell, Al Thornton; Portland - Channing Frye, Outlaw, Aldredge may well slide over with Oden playing. GS might be more vulnerable but Pietrus played Boris fairly well in the last game I watched. I didn't list the teams that don't figure to be in the playoff hunt but they are fairly well equipped to deal with Boris trying to make hay in the low post, too.
I agree more with your later statements about looking for opportunities to post Diaw when he has a size mismatch, but Boris does that quite regularly already - in fact he loves to pick off a guard going under a screen and bully him down low.
Now if we continued with that line of thought and played Grant Hill at SG we'd have a line up that few teams would match up favorably against - something I was hoping that D'Antoni would try even before we had Shaq. Fat chance, of course, as he's still infatuated with small ball...
Wow, I think you have accumulated way too many guys on that list that supposedly can guard Diaw. TT???, are you kidding, not near quick enough, ridiculous! Radmonivic???, he's terrible on D, preposterous! Josh howard is just not strong enough on the low block. Carmello, Kleiza, and Najerha, not a chance, terrible defenders. The guys who have done well on Boris, as I recall are:
odom down low(long arms, as long as boris doesnt get him 15' from the basket)
scola: stong and cagey, good down low, not so up high
Bass: physical, and smart, has all the tools
Chuck Hayes: an excellent defender down low
Battier: can guard any '3' one of the best.
Roy can do it, no doubt, aldridge will be on a PF not a SF
the rest have some defficiency in experience, size, or quickness. Oh yeah a healthy elton brand can guard him very well, shut him down. But brand plays PF.
The problem with running plays through amare is he doesnt pass well, not at all. If amare develops a decent passing game his offensive capability will be realized, if not, he will be much easier to defend with various double teaming schemes and flops. My concern with amare offensively is when the ball gets stuck with him, it becomes a problem. He has great difficulty getting rid of the ball against good defense without a TO or losing alot of time off the clock, and setting the suns up for a deperation shot as the clock expires. Amare does not read the double and punish it like a top notch big man(Duncan, KG, Rasheed, Dirk). In this area, he still acts like a very young player. Some think that amare needs to be developed, but most dominant big guys either have defensive instincts or they dont. Lamarcus aldrige has them, Elton Brand has them, Tim Duncan has them, KG has them, Bynum has them, Dwight Howard has them, chris bosch has them. The only big I can think of that came in and was poor defensively, and then got much better was Dirk. Dirk is a much better defender than he was, it took a long time and he still isnt that good a defender. But dirk uses his body/length way better than amare doesn down low.
