Nov 12th 2008 6:36PM by Matt Moore (author feed)
Filed under: 76ers, Celtics, Hawks, Heat, Hornets, Lakers, Raptors, Rockets, Suns, Trail Blazers, Eastern, Western
1. If This Doesn’t Stop Them, It’s Possible Nothing Will: The Lakers have been unstoppable. Unbeatable. Indestructible. And while they haven’t played a back-to-back yet, and they’ve played the Clippers twice, they were supposed to get challenged by Houston, only to beat them into oblivion. So the Hornets game is intriguing, but really, the Lakers are in another stratosphere right now. Another level. Another dimension. Another conceptual realm filled with butterflies and unicorns for Pau Gasol to ride on. Yet, if there’s any team that’s not afraid of the Big Bad Bynum and Black Mamba, it’s got to be New Orleans, which has already proven it can hang with the big boys. Tonight the Lakers defense, which has been using the strong-side overload faces a weapon that matches up perfectly against it in Chris Paul. Paul can find the open perimeter shooter, and from there, it’s up to Peja Stojackovic and James Posey to knock ‘em down. But in reality, the Lakers offense may be a bigger problem. Ranked third in efficiency, the Lakers are using a balanced attack from about seven different players to absolutely barrage their opponents. If the Hornets are going to have a chance they have almost no margin of error for turnovers and have to be able to challenge shots without picking up fouls, which no one’s been able to do against the Lakers yet. Epic showdown tonight.
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