LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers will have quite the road to travel in these playoffs if they are to hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy in October, beginning with a first round series against the red-hot Portland Trail Blazers.
With the Lakers relative struggles in the seeding round and Portland’s excellent play, there are some that are eyeing an upset in the first round for a team that, even LeBron notes, is “not your typical 8-seed.” The Blazers offense has been superb in Orlando, led by Damian Lillard with plenty of help from C.J. McCollum and the return of Jusuf Nurkic as a force in the frontcourt. Defensively, it’s been a challenge for Portland, but if the Lakers don’t start making shots they could find themselves in quite the battle.
On Monday, LeBron offered up his scouting report on the Blazers, starting with their “two-headed” monster in the backcourt and noting that the Lakers can’t go into the series looking to outscore an elite offensive team.
I asked Lebron for a scouting report on the Blazers and he delivered. pic.twitter.com/dm8XcCRCQ3
— Taylor Rooks (@TaylorRooks) August 17, 2020
“Well they have a two-headed monster in Dame and C.J. It starts and ends with those guys,” LeBron said. “They control the tempo; they control the pace. They do all of the ball-handling and they’re the rock of that franchise because they’ve been there. They’ve been there and seen it all. They have playoff experience. They have chemistry between the two of ’em, and we have to have 10 eyes on them at a time. You got the two eyes guarding the ball and the other eight throughout every possession, because they’re that dangerous. So it starts with them, and then they have a Hall of Famer in Carmelo Anthony who can erupt at any point of a game, so you have to always key in on him and have that respect factor because you know what he’s capable of doing. And I believe Nurkic and Zach coming back from injury has helped them out a lot as well. They move extremely well, offensively they’re one of the best scoring teams in the Bubble — sorry, not one of them they ARE the best scoring team in the seeding games — so you have to get stops and you have to get multiple stops. You can’t try to outscore them because they can score with the best, but they’re not your typical 8-seed. I don’t think they would’ve been the 8-seed if they were healthy all year, and that’s my mindset. I’m not going in as a 1-seed against an 8-seed, this is the Lakers versus Portland, so I’ve already thrown that out of the window. So I won’t be going in with my guard down.”
James is doing the smart thing here in propping up the opponent and ensuring they know — and his team knows — that they have his full respect in this series. It sends the message to the rest of the Lakers that they too need to be fully expecting a battle, so they aren’t in any way surprised by a Blazers team that will blitz them offensively.
Still, for all of Portland’s offensive firepower the question for them lies on the defensive end where they’ve been woeful at times, needing Lillard and McCollum to bail them out with spectacular offensive performances. Against a Lakers team with scorers the caliber of James and Anthony Davis, that poses a serious potential problem, and whichever team can find their defensive stride first likely takes an advantage — and one would expect that to come from a Laker team that prior to the hiatus was tracking as one of the league’s best defenses.
Source: https://uproxx.com/dimemag/lebron-james-scouting-report-lakers-blazers-lillard-mccollum-video/