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yinoma2001
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 Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 10:10 am Post subject: Do the Lakers win the 2004 Finals if Malone Didn't Get Hurt? |
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Thoughts?
I've been re-watching Malone clips from that season and man was he good at his age/mileage. I know our depth wasn't the greatest being top heavy and with 2 older guys in Malone/GP, but could we have beaten the Pistons if Malone was healthy?
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dcastillo
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 10:51 am Post subject: |
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| I like to think we do. Idk after reading Phil’s book though you can see it probably just wasn’t meant to be. Plus 4 finals in 5 years is a lot. Takes a lot out of you and with all the drama those teams had it was draining. |
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JUST-MING
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 11:10 am Post subject: |
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| Who would you rather defend Rasheed Wallace; Karl Malone or Luke Walton and Slava Medvedenko? |
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ThePageDude
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 11:28 am Post subject: |
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| Yes |
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ocho
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 11:34 am Post subject: |
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I dunno. That team had probably run its course. Would have been less of a blowout with Karl but I don’t think at 40 years old he would swing it back that much the other way. We had other problems.
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TooMuchMajicBuss
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 11:47 am Post subject: |
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I think we'd have kicked their butts.
Note: Biased AF |
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ThePageDude
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 11:54 am Post subject: |
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| TooMuchMajicBuss wrote: | I think we'd have kicked their butts.
Note: Biased AF |
Correction:
Note: Pissed AF |
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LakerSD
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 11:55 am Post subject: |
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I lean towards no. It’s awfully tough to rely on past their prime players and specifically being so top heavy too. Father Time tends to win.
Would be a shame to lose this season with LBJ performing the way he is. |
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ThePageDude
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 12:04 pm Post subject: |
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We'd have won in 6 or 7. Watch what Malone was doing in the Western Conf finals and how many tiers above Medvedenko he was in overall play.
For those who think Malone was washed up, he was still very effective, much like Kareem was in 1988. But that's besides the point - the point is how was Malone relative to Medvedenko in both individual and team play and it's no comparison. Malone took a lot of the season to start fitting in and was finally really clicking in the playoffs. |
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ocho
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 12:49 pm Post subject: |
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| ThePageDude wrote: | We'd have won in 6 or 7. Watch what Malone was doing in the Western Conf finals and how many tiers above Medvedenko he was in overall play.
For those who think Malone was washed up, he was still very effective, much like Kareem was in 1988. But that's besides the point - the point is how was Malone relative to Medvedenko in both individual and team play and it's no comparison. Malone took a lot of the season to start fitting in and was finally really clicking in the playoffs. |
It’s not to discount Karl. He was outstanding in those playoffs. His defensive assignments the first 3 rounds were Yao, Duncan, and Garnett. All in their primes. He was great and he would have made it a series. But we got demolished by Detroit. Our stars were a few weeks away from divorce. Malone was about to retire. Just don’t think it was our year. That Detroit team was really great.
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ThePageDude
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 1:09 pm Post subject: |
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| ocho wrote: | | ThePageDude wrote: | We'd have won in 6 or 7. Watch what Malone was doing in the Western Conf finals and how many tiers above Medvedenko he was in overall play.
For those who think Malone was washed up, he was still very effective, much like Kareem was in 1988. But that's besides the point - the point is how was Malone relative to Medvedenko in both individual and team play and it's no comparison. Malone took a lot of the season to start fitting in and was finally really clicking in the playoffs. |
It’s not to discount Karl. He was outstanding in those playoffs. His defensive assignments the first 3 rounds were Yao, Duncan, and Garnett. All in their primes. He was great and he would have made it a series. But we got demolished by Detroit. Our stars were a few weeks away from divorce. Malone was about to retire. Just don’t think it was our year. That Detroit team was really great. |
It's a good debate. My view is NBA teams are *really* really closely matched - where just a tiny difference things is the difference between victory and defeat. If we go by series record then Detroit looks like they're a full tier above us - I think that's really misleading, I think Malone's injury put us a tier below them. I think with Malone it would have been a series - and then it's a matter of belief who would have edged whom. |
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ReaListik
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 1:16 pm Post subject: Re: Do the Lakers win the 2004 Finals if Malone Didn't Get Hurt? |
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| yinoma2001 wrote: | Thoughts?
I've been re-watching Malone clips from that season and man was he good at his age/mileage. I know our depth wasn't the greatest being top heavy and with 2 older guys in Malone/GP, but could we have beaten the Pistons if Malone was healthy? |
Yes - if Malone, who up to that point had been an iron man in terms of health, had not gotten injured we would have beaten the Pistons.
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x75274
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 1:52 pm Post subject: |
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I lean heavily towards no and going into that series I thought like almost everyone, that LA was going to beat the snot out of Detroit especially after we had taken out SAS after being down 0-2 in the WCSF. Mailman was great/awesome in his role for us but he would have had raise his level to such an extent that far exceeded his role for us. Watching that series live and then hearing Kobe talking about the reasons why they lost to the Pistons, it was a fundamental issue of not being able to break the Pistons trap defense and score consistently and efficiently. Truth be told, I feel the Pistons had another gear they could reach that the Lakers could not because of their defense and the Lakers lack of preparation for dealing with the Pistons (with or without Malone). This is weird for me because the Lakers had just dealt with statistically the greatest Spurs version in term of their defense and beat the Spurs decisively, leaving no doubt who was the superior team.
I personally think the bigger what if is if you take the 2010 Lakers motivation and chemistry onto the 2011 Lakers version (especially you Pau Gasol excluding Andrew Bynum and keeping him at his 2011 level since he was better in 2011 than 2010) to go up against the 2011 Mavericks, who would win. |
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Steve007
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:07 pm Post subject: |
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| dcastillo wrote: | | I like to think we do. Idk after reading Phil’s book though you can see it probably just wasn’t meant to be. Plus 4 finals in 5 years is a lot. Takes a lot out of you and with all the drama those teams had it was draining. |
Phil in his book said he thought the team didn’t take the Pistons seriously enough. I think with Malone it at least goes 6 games, which gets the series back to LA and the team would have taken the Pistons more seriously then being down 3-2.
Even listening to Kobe and Shaq years later, Kobe said they should have won and I got the feeling both he and Shaq still didn’t think much of Detroit. |
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Steve007
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:11 pm Post subject: |
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| x75274 wrote: | I lean heavily towards no and going into that series I thought like almost everyone, that LA was going to beat the snot out of Detroit especially after we had taken out SAS after being down 0-2 in the WCSF. Mailman was great/awesome in his role for us but he would have had raise his level to such an extent that far exceeded his role for us. Watching that series live and then hearing Kobe talking about the reasons why they lost to the Pistons, it was a fundamental issue of not being able to break the Pistons trap defense and score consistently and efficiently. Truth be told, I feel the Pistons had another gear they could reach that the Lakers could not because of their defense and the Lakers lack of preparation for dealing with the Pistons (with or without Malone). This is weird for me because the Lakers had just dealt with statistically the greatest Spurs version in term of their defense and beat the Spurs decisively, leaving no doubt who was the superior team.
I personally think the bigger what if is if you take the 2010 Lakers motivation and chemistry onto the 2011 Lakers version (especially you Pau Gasol excluding Andrew Bynum and keeping him at his 2011 level since he was better in 2011 than 2010) to go up against the 2011 Mavericks, who would win. |
I think the Spurs would have stomped us too if Malone was as banged up in that series as he was in the Finals. Slave Medvedenko playing against Tim Duncan. Need I say more?
Our team couldn’t defend the Pistons either. With Malone in there the defense/rebounding would be significantly better. Rasheed Wallace had it way too easy in that series. |
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Startrout
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Yes |
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x75274
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Steve007 wrote: | | x75274 wrote: | I lean heavily towards no and going into that series I thought like almost everyone, that LA was going to beat the snot out of Detroit especially after we had taken out SAS after being down 0-2 in the WCSF. Mailman was great/awesome in his role for us but he would have had raise his level to such an extent that far exceeded his role for us. Watching that series live and then hearing Kobe talking about the reasons why they lost to the Pistons, it was a fundamental issue of not being able to break the Pistons trap defense and score consistently and efficiently. Truth be told, I feel the Pistons had another gear they could reach that the Lakers could not because of their defense and the Lakers lack of preparation for dealing with the Pistons (with or without Malone). This is weird for me because the Lakers had just dealt with statistically the greatest Spurs version in term of their defense and beat the Spurs decisively, leaving no doubt who was the superior team.
I personally think the bigger what if is if you take the 2010 Lakers motivation and chemistry onto the 2011 Lakers version (especially you Pau Gasol excluding Andrew Bynum and keeping him at his 2011 level since he was better in 2011 than 2010) to go up against the 2011 Mavericks, who would win. |
I think the Spurs would have stomped us too if Malone was as banged up in that series as he was in the Finals. Slave Medvedenko playing against Tim Duncan. Need I say more?
Our team couldn’t defend the Pistons either. With Malone in there the defense/rebounding would be significantly better. Rasheed Wallace had it way too easy in that series. |
There were a couple of weird things that happened.
1. R. Wallace even in game 1 showed an almost disregard and disrespect for Malone and gave off the attitude of 'I know I am better than you' something ironically Garnett and Duncan never did and those 2 are definitely better than Wallace. Was Malone truly banged up in Game 1 or did Wallace make him irrelevant? I'm not sure. It could be because Wallace in his Blazer days had taken out the last real chance for the Jazz to win the title in 1998-1999 and so he feels he is better than Malone, especially a 40 year old Malone.
2. If Malone could score like he did that one playoff game against the Rockets when he scored 30, we could have taken Game 4 and bought it back to LA for Game 6.
3. Personally I think even with Malone giving us that kind of vintage performance, game 6 is where it all ends for us that year unless Shaq goes off like he had been doing and Kobe finally wakes up and puts in a game 2 like performance. |
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Theseus
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:26 pm Post subject: |
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This is one of the storylines that gets ignored. Horace Grant was out too, so we had to go with our 3rd and 4th stringers. This meant they played 4 on 5.
Slava Medvedenko started game 5, and got 8 shots for 10 points and 5 boards.
If Malone is there he may actually have to be guarded, which means their defensive gameplan is stretched thin, and offensively they have a slightly more difficult time as there is a competent defender out there.
It would have been a more competitive series at least. |
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venturalakersfan
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:43 pm Post subject: |
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Grant got worn down because of the minutes he had to play with Shaq and Malone missing games. As someone posted above, a 4th Finals in 5 seasons wears on a team.
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Mamba81
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:44 pm Post subject: |
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No. The team was too old + locker room issues.
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Mamba81
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 2:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Theseus wrote: | This is one of the storylines that gets ignored. Horace Grant was out too, so we had to go with our 3rd and 4th stringers. This meant they played 4 on 5.
Slava Medvedenko started game 5, and got 8 shots for 10 points and 5 boards.
If Malone is there he may actually have to be guarded, which means their defensive gameplan is stretched thin, and offensively they have a slightly more difficult time as there is a competent defender out there.
It would have been a more competitive series at least. |
Truthfully we played the entire series 2 on 5.
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LakerLanny
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 6:19 pm Post subject: |
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Not with the refs fixing the series.
Let me know you see the next time a jump ball violation is called on the opening tip in a playoff game.
It happened in the first four games of the NBA Finals that year, all calls against the Lakers of course.
The series was fixed, flat out.
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GOODRICH25
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 6:27 pm Post subject: |
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Game 4, we are down 2-1, score is 46-49. With 7:30 to go in the 3rd, Medvedenko enters for Malone who finished his season there. Thats a series defining moment. Sheed scored 18 of his 26 pts rest of the game and we lose 88-80. I think if we win this, its anyones series as we would have 2 games in LA to fight this one home. Despite our on and off field struggles, Malone going down hurt us more
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ducasse
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 6:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Malone was a difference maker. They could have won if Malone was healthy. |
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LakersAlldaWay
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| Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2020 6:39 pm Post subject: |
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| It would have been a longer series but a toss up on if we would have won. Always wished the Pacers would have pulled out the ECF. The Tayshaun block on Miller in Game 2 was a defining moment. Never been more wrong about how I felt going into a playoff series. I thought the title was in the bag. Ran into one of the greatest defensive teams of all time. So much happened that season unfortunately but hitting that low made the unimaginable highs in 2009 and 2010 that much sweeter. |
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