What should the starting line-up be for the Lakers game?

[Dallas J]

With Bradley playing pretty well last night does he get the nod at center against Shaq? I say No. I would bring Bradley off the bench for brief periods of time. I would go with

pg Nash (fisher)
sg griff (kobe)
sf fin ( fox)
pf Howard (sorry but shaq)
c dirk (samaki)

Unfortuantely for Howard he is the one guarding Shaq. Let Dirk guard samaki. Also for brief times during the game i would like to see the lineup of

pg nash
sg hardaway or griff
sf fin
pf dirk
c wang

I would use the lineup when shaq is on the floor. I know he would probably score at will, but he does that anyways. But who does he guard??? Does he take Wang out in the 3pt line. You could also substitute hardaway for grff, the point is the front court of dirk, wang and fin.

By the way this will be my first game going to see the mavs at the AAC!!!

Go Mavs!!

[Blonde Bomber]

Great game for your first game....Dallas J

I would tend to agree with Dallas on this one.

I would start out with Juwan on Shaq, with Wang and Eschmeyer close behind if and when Juwan does his on version of "Hack-a-Shaq".

I hope Najera will be able to play, because I think he is the key for the Mavericks. They need him for his heart and hustle and he will not back down from Shaq. He might even fluster Shaq to get him out of his game.

The key to this game is to be able to defend everybody not named Kobe and Shaq. If that happens, Dallas will pull this one out.

[TheKid]

If Juwan plays Shaq, he might have 50 by the end of the first quarter... Or Juwan would foul out before the end of the first quarter.. I really don't think it matters who plays him, we don't have anyone to bang with him therefore I think we should try and put Bradley on him just to see what happens.

[Hoopsmeister]

I expect Nellie will try the same defense that worked so well last game--Yes, Shaq went for 40 and yes we lost the game, but we lost the game because we went 8 minutes without a field goal to end it, not because of our defense.

That defense was to front Shaq and make it as hard as possible to get him the ball while keeping control of the other 4 players on the court. If he does get the ball then we let him tire himself out with the dunking and then race down court to score ourselves.

For that strategy, the Mantis works as well or better than Dirk. Its a defense that Wang should be able to do fine at in his limited minutes. Juwan is no better than tied for 3rd option on that defense.

And Najera on Shaq is ludicrous. Najera is undersized for a power forward but makes up for it with hustle. But there is only so much hustle can do--Najera will be great for double-teams but one-on-one we might as well use Nash. At least he might get the occasional sympathy whistle from the referees.

[Murphy3]

danget hoopsmeister..you beat me to the punch
you front shaq with dirk or bradley and have the power forward provide help side defense.
and griffin will probably have to start...either that or nash will guard kobe.
but i think griffin will start and guard kobe..the mavs can't afford to have fin on kobe