I think we need to start another big. I know this is controversial, but I would keep Grant in as a starter, let Richardson come off the bench, and you have to put another big alongside Amare and Lopez. We are just getting slaughtered on the boards and the Lakers just tossing it in the middle for easy jumpers and lay ups. The Lakers are shooting over 58% for the series. You HAVE to switch something up! You have to! What you are doing is CLEARLY not working!
Yep. As i stated on page 2, we should brinch JRich off the bench where he cannot be guarded unless PJ reacts by bringing Artest off the bench also.....which would likely put Odum into the starting 5 where we would have a favorable matchup with G.Hill vs Odum(as well as getting Artest out of the lineup where he's really hurt us).
Right now the LAKERS bench is beating our guys.....JRich(in particular
),Duds,Barbs,Frye & Lou would absolutely go off on their guys IMO.
So who starts? We could do two things. Start Dragic at the 2 where he would guard Kobe(Hill moves over on Artest). Dragic is a better athlete than Hill and he's got better vertical speed IMO. I'm not saying Goran will do any better than Hill or Duds but this move is primarily about moving Richardson to the bench. I also think that with JRich looking hard for his offense it will take some of the pressure off Frye to score 20.
With Nash & Goran in the backcourt we can try to run some screens to try to get Nash some open looks.....he needs to score. I also think Hill vs Artest is a better matchup than having Grant chase Kobe around.
Or we could start (gasp) Frye next to Amare & Lopez. I think we can all agree that Frye has choked thusfar
...but IMO he'll shoot better at home on Sunday. Go bigger upfront(ask Frye to focus on rebounding, rather than scoring 20) and go with Nash/Hill in the backcourt. We have GOT TO close the gap on the boards because we simply don't have enough defense to stop the LAKERS weapons. Frye/Artest isn't a particularly favorable matchup but maybe Frye's length will bother him a tad.
It's been a great season no matter where we finish.....the LAKERS are a better team than we are. Kerr/Gentry has got this thing headed in the right direction by emphasizing defense,toughness etc...but we don't have the horses defensively yet. Amare? Nash?.... I've said before that these two men combined will never win a title and i'm sticking to it.....but thats another debate that always seems to divide us as a SUNS board(understandably so).
We can debate that after the season ends.
Point is Gentry needs to change it up in a big way IMO. Force the LAKERS to react to something because we have no chance if we stand pat and just tinker with double teams,zone's etc....
Extra points:
-Give Lopez heavy minutes in gm 3 plz(if he's not feeling any pain).He's got 5 months to rest up.
-If there's anybody out there who still believe's in the hogwash statistic that is plus/minus......Frye was a (-1) while JRich finished a (-12).