Lakers Must Prevent Strong Pacers’ Start

In the past two games, Rik Smits and Reggie Miller have gotten the Pacers off to a good start.

Smits, in particular, has been involved early as the Pacers seem to feel the need to have Smits establish himself inside to help make the perimeter game more effective.

The Pacers have been using a simple play that they execute really well. It is called the two-man stack and one.

Two players, Smits and Dale Davis, line up on the foul line parallel to the three-second area. On the left side is a single post who is Jalen Rose.

Then they put Miller under the basket and the point guard, Mark Jackson, has the ball at the top of the key in the middle of the court. Jackson is in position to hit Miller, either if Miller goes around the double screen or left around the single screen. Lots of teams use this set, but not to the same effect as the Pacers because Miller is really clever, uses every trick in the world and works very hard to get himself free.

The play has been more effective when it goes to Rose’s side. It is very difficult to defend because Miller is so clever at rubbing the defensive player off Rose’s screen. If the defenders switch, there are two mismatches--Rose will be posting up on a Laker guard and Rose’s man, if he switches to Reggie, will be a bigger man and Reggie can beat him one-on-one creating a shot and having the whole side of the court open.

Also in the stack, Smits is the top player on the 2 side. Because Smits is on the weak side, Shaquille O’Neal has to play Smits closer. When Smits sees this developing, sees that Jackson is going to hit Miller on the other side, Smits moves toward the opposite sideline and Shaq has to go with him. This takes Shaq out of a help situation defensively. Shaq has to stay close to Smits because Smits is a threat to shoot.

Something else the Lakers have to appreciate--the Pacers aren’t the Portland Trail Blazers. The Pacers are a totally different team but every bit as dangerous as the Trail Blazers because they have so many players who can shoot. The Laker defense needs to get its game face on as soon as the Lakers come out for warmups. They can’t come out and say, “We’ll give them the first quarter.”

In the first two games, Smits was kind of tight and didn’t play that well. Miller was up and down in Game 2. Now they’ve proven they can beat the Lakers. They’ve done it twice, almost three times.

The Lakers have to be careful not to think the Pacers aren’t as good as Portland. Portland was a young, tall team, but the Pacers are good too, just different. Portland couldn’t shoot like the Pacers do.

The Lakers need to be aggressive and more conscious of having a good mind-set right from the start. It is going to take a real good performance to beat the Pacers. And the Lakers can’t depend too much on Shaq.

Also, the Lakers, offensively, have to stay within what they did all year. In Game 5 they started to go to that individual stuff a little too quickly and they lost a lot of rhythm and coordination.

If the Lakers lose the sixth game, I think the Pacers will have a real psychological advantage, a tremendous upside for the seventh game. Game 6 will be easier to win for the Lakers than Game 7. I really think the Lakers must win Game 6. Forget about it if they have to play Game 7. The one who wins the sixth game is going to be the champion.

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--As told to DIANE PUCIN