Empty the Bench

It wasn’t pretty last night for Kobe’s LA Lakers, losing in blowout fashion to the tune of a 126-98 final score in Phoenix. With the Suns holding down a commanding 2-0 lead in the series, the action shifts to Los Angeles for Games Three and Four. Can the Lakers win tomorrow night and get back in the series? ETB’s West Coast Bureau hopes so.

With his preview of what to look for in LA, lifelong Lakers fan Christopher Thell makes his debut on Empty the Bench, albeit with a heavy heart after what went down last night. Are Lakers fans still clinging to a shred of hope? Christopher, it’s all you….

It’s fair to say that last year’s Suns/Lakers series was one of the most entertaining match-ups of the playoffs. LA came into that series riding the wave of an 11-3 finish, confident they could beat the Suns. After accumulating a 3-1 series lead, they were one proper Lamar Odom box out away from sending the Suns home for the summer (it was Odom who failed to box out Shawn Marion, thereby allowing the Suns to retain possession of the ball and Tim Thomas to nail the last-second three that sent the game into overtime and put a dagger through the Lakers’ hearts).

Oh, what a difference a year makes. The Lakers limped into the playoffs this year with a horrid 4-8 finish that actually sounds better, if that‘s possible, than it really is. The Lakers have beaten only one team since the All-Star break with a winning record. The ever-petulant Smush Parker, the Lakers’ pathetic excuse for a point guard, was benched with two games remaining in favor of local boy made good, former UCLA standout Jordan Farmar, who no doubt has a solid future ahead of him in the league, but is merely a rookie, and was making his first two starts of his career after spending time in the D-League only a week before. Not the kind of tinkering you want to be indulging in when you’re about to face the team with one of the best point guards of the millennium.

Of course, Kobe is Kobe – hands down the best individual player in the game. Love him or hate him, his superiority cannot be denied. However, it will take a team effort to catch up with the Suns. Lamar Odom will have to be a monster from here on out–we’re talking averaging 20-15–and one more Laker-to-be-named will have to step up and play like man. Unfortunately, outside of Kobe and Lamar, this team is made of boys, so that may be asking a bit much.

If the Lakers are to have any chance of prolonging this series–much less win it–in addition to finding a third offensive option they’ll have to do three things very well:

1.) Play defense.
2.) Play defense.
3.) Play defense.

This has been the Lakers’ Achilles Heel all season.They can’t stop anyone. Ever. Hence why they struggled to a 42-40 record and why they struggle to beat teams with winning records. The Suns, meanwhile, led the NBA in assists, three-point shooting, and field goal percentage thanks to their fun-and-gun ways.

In order to slow the Suns down, the Lakers must create a wall around the paint. This starts with the guards not allowing the porous dribble penetration they have all year, and thus far in this series, and requires the LA big men protect the paint with ferocity while staying out of foul trouble. The Lakers, never adroit at defending the high pick and roll, the Suns bread and butter, must find a way to adequately dampen this threat, lest Nash and Barbosa shred them. In correlation with limiting dribble penetration, protecting the paint, and diffusing the potent high screen and roll the Suns so deftly employ, the Lakers must control the tempo. If they can keep the Suns under 100 points in LA, they’ll have a chance. And with the best closer in the game who you know should be good for at least a win strictly on his own accord, that’s all this very mediocre Laker squad can hope for. Here’s how the positional matchups are looking:

Point Guard: Steve Nash vs. Jordan Farmar
Match-up? Match-up? This isn’t a match-up; this is simply slaughter. The two-time MVP has his way with the rookie. There’s really nothing else that needs to be said. Farmar is going to continually be abused, and the only help they have to defend him, Smush Parker, has effectively quit on the team. The only hope the Lakers have is that Nash gets hurt, and even then, their seldom used back-up Marcus Banks is still better than anything the Lakers have to offer.

Shooting Guard: Kobe Bryant vs. Raja Bell
To say that these two don’t like each other is an understatement. Bell does as good a job as anyone on Bryant, and this is definitely a match-up to keep your eyes on now as Kobe steps onto his court. Bell will still try to be as physical as possible with Bryant and make him work as hard as he can for his inevitable points. Kobe could average 40 this weekend, and the Lakers might still be swept. While we know what an offensive juggernaut Bryant is, Bell has raised his scoring average to a career best 14.7, and must be accounted for from behind the arc. Kobe will get his points, but the key for the Suns is to keep tiring him out and make him work harder on defense than he would like to.

Of course, Bell won’t be alone in defending the Association’s scoring champion. Bryant is sure to see constant double teams. The question is, when Kobe does pass the ball to his sure-to-be-open teammates, will they have his back? So far, the answer has been an emphatic no.

Small Forward: James Jones vs. Luke Walton
The Lakers badly need their resident pretty boy to soundly win this match-up, as he should. However, Walton has yet to gain the stellar early season form he displayed after missing almost 20 games in the middle of the season with a severe ankle injury. Walton should be able to take Jones into the post and score, and he could be the third man the Lakers need to step up and provide some offensive help to Bryant and Odom. However, it’s just as easy to envision a scenario where Luke becomes comfortable as the invisible man (like he was in Game 2) and Jones, averaging only 6.4 points on the year, steps up.

Power Forward: Shawn Marion vs. Lamar Odom
This is an intriguing and exciting match-up, and one the Lakers must start winning if they are to have any chance of defeating the Suns. This is a contrast between Marion’s quickness, leaping ability, and three-point shooting and Odom’s size, length, and strength. Odom needs to start taking Marion down low more often, where he has a marked advantage in an attempt to provide the Lakers with some interior scoring and to get The Matrix in foul trouble. Curiously enough, these two potential future Olympians average very similar numbers, with Odom holding the edge in assists (4.8 to 1.7) and Marion taking the lead in scoring (17.5 to 15.9). They both average an identical 9.8 boards per game.

Center: Amare Stoudemire vs. Kwame Brown
Ouch. What else can be said about this mismatch? It’s true, Kwame is the Lakers best hope of providing some solid interior defense and inside scoring, but unlike last year when Brown came in healthy and confident, he’s literally limped into the playoffs on a bad ankle playing less than inspired basketball. Stoudemire, meanwhile, averaging 20-10, is a force to be reckoned with, and once again looks like the freak of nature he is. Brown can only hope to start slowing down Amare and make him work harder for his points by limiting his dunk and lay-up attempts, which, of course, is much easier said than done.

Outlook: As much as it pains this Lakers fan to say it, they’re going to win one of the next two, but Suns in 5.

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