Game Preview Article: Los Angeles Clippers @ Los Angeles Lakers
The Lakers showed once again their in-game consistency problems on their last game against Phoenix. I remember that the Lakers blew a huge lead at Phoenix, then they almost lost at Minnesota and at Detroit, even though they had double digits leads at one point in the games, while on the other side, they were down by 20 points at one time at Charlotte. This time, on their last game, they got outscored by 9-24 against a struggling Phoenix team during the third quarter. However, I have to say that this game the Lakers's in-game struggles on their last game have a decent explanation, as they were in a horrible spot by coming back home after a long road trip. This is why I took the Suns last Tuesday.
For tonight, the Lakers have a good spot with a home-home spot and one day off to rest. I expect Kobe Bryant to have a better game tonight than his 1-8 FG and 8 turnovers performance against the Suns. They will be facing a Clippers team, who will be playing their fourth game in five nights! The bad news for the Lakers is that the Clippers quickly crushed the Rockets yesterday, who were playing without James Harden, by outscoring them 46-28 in the first quarter. The game had a very low intensity level and the Clippers were able to rotate their players very well due to their great roster depth.
It's clear that the Clippers will have a tremendous edge over the Lakers in terms of second unit, so maybe this poor spot of the Clippers for tonight isn't a big deal for them after all. Chauncey Billups seems to be the team's starting SG from now on and with Jamal Crawford backing him up, this is some great news for a Kobe Bryant bounce back game tonight, as Billups is far from being at his best right now with an evident lack of lateral speed, while Crawford's defensive skills are pretty much non-existent.
Therefore, we have all the right ingredients to have a very exciting game between these two teams!
Game Preview Article: Miami Heat @ Oklahoma City Thunder
Remember when Miami's Big Three started three seasons ago that they struggled against great half court defensive teams and so, they needed to score in transition (where they have been great since the start of this area) in order to be efficient on the offensive end? Well, forget those days as Miami has been able to put some great offensive numbers on their last six games, while playing almost exclusively on slow pace!
at Toronto: 86.98 pace / 114.32 offensive rating
vs Charlotte: 88.01 pace / 113.87 offensive rating
vs Houston: 93.75 pace / 123.29 offensive rating
vs LA Clippers: 87.09 pace / 131.27 offensive rating
vs LA Lakers: 85.73 pace / 127.88 offensive rating
vs Portland: 85.29 pace / 143.59 offensive rating
On these six games, we can only classify one of them as a fast paced game (against Houston), but besides that game, the Heat were able to score in an insane way despite playing primarily in half court sets! The biggest reason for that has been Lebron James, who has been shooting over 60% FG and scoring more than 30 points per game during this span! Miami only needed to raise their intensity in some key stretches to comfortably crush their opponents. On their last game against Portland, Miami had three monster runs throughout the game, as they started the game with a 15-4 run, then they started the second half with a 23-6 run and ended the game on a 16-2 run! If we combined these runs, the Heat outscored the Blazers by 54-12 during these spans! When you are shooting 110-142 FG at the rim (77.4% FG!), then you will score a lot of points!
On the other hand, Oklahoma City was on a similar mood as Miami by crushing everybody in sight. They beat Dallas by 21 points, Golden State by 21 points and then Phoenix twice by 31 and 28 points until they lost on their last game at Utah! The main reason for that was the fact that they were already focused in tonight's game. The Thunder was sloppy and their effort was questionable against a struggling Jazz team. Measuring effort levels is a silly and tough task, but there are three key factors that we can identity in order to measure their effort/focus level:
1) Rebounding: Utah won the boards battle by grabbing 60.8% of the rebounds and had a 16-7 edge on offensive rebounds
2) Turnovers: Oklahoma City committed 20 turnovers, with their starters committing 16 of them
3) Free Throw Percentage: even though they are by far the best team in the league on this area, they shot just 13-23 (56.5%) FT during that game
For tonight, we can certainly expect Oklahoma City with a maximum effort and focused on this big game for them. We are in front of the two best offensive teams in the league and in my opinion, the best teams in each conference, so this is a game that you can't miss!
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