2018 Rockets vs 2020 Lakers

[Akeem34TheDream]

Which team would win in a playoff series?

2018 Rockets might the best team ever that didn't win the title. They were usually a small team that mostly relied on spamming 3s and pnr. Picknroll wouldn't work against Anthony Davis at center. He was the best pnr defending big in the league. Lakers were also pretty good at defending threes.

Lakers were also great at pnr but didn't have much 3pt shooting. They had lob threats in Mcgee, Dwight and ofc AD. Lebron played 2man games pretty well with those bigs. They had a suffocating defense, they often made the court look very small. They didn't have elite iso scorers or 3point shooters and that sometimes led to mediocre offense.

Which team would win the series?

[NBAGOAT]

lakers defense will shut down the secondary guys pretty well like capela gordon etc but hard to guard harden and paul. rockets defense is great too but idk how well tucker and ariza can do on lebron so idk. I'll just pick houston because their role players are better imo.

also i would say rockets were more of an iso team, harden or paul didnt even hunt guys like lot of teams do now.

[outofstomach]

2018 rockets easily. it’s cool to hate harden nowadays but that team was formidable as hell. two really high IQ players that could create their own shot at a moment’s notice, one of the best rolling bigs in the NBA and shooters that could get hot at any time. really wish they had won that year man, still hurts to think about

[Smook A.]

All bias aside, that 2018 Rockets team is one of the best teams ever to not win a championship. When Harden, CP3, and Capela were in the lineup, that team was 50-5... Unreal

In games 6 & 7 against the Warriors in the WCF, Rockets had moments in both games where they were up by double-digits. I really believe if CP3 was healthy and was playing, Rockets would've closed that series. Also, 0-27 from 3 in game 7 would've never happened if CP3 was there. No way. There's no doubt that they would've also beaten the Cavs in the 2018 finals and we wouldn't be talking about Harden & CP3 being ringless. Such a shame that CP3 got hurt

Anyway, to answer your question OP, I pick the 2018 Rockets over the 2020 Lakers

[999Guy]

Lakers got smoked out by basically every wing they faced that playoff run.

Harden and Paul feast.

Meanwhile Capela would be by far the best defender AD faced. And Nene.

And giant wings like Luc, PJ, Ariza would at least not be total food vs LeBron.


Rockets just have more ways to win it IMO.

[999Guy]

I’ll summarize like this, no team probably ever, beats Houston playing with traditional bigs, and a traditional style (like LA).

2018 Houston was the ultimate culmination of the traditional era and space and pace era colliding.

GS was not traditional with freaky KD, and Draymond. Draymond basically deleted Capela from each of their series on both ends because he just didn’t play like a regular big man.

LA, playing ****ing McGee, Howard, and AD. Smoked on all pick and rolls. Cramped on every post-up against Houston’s crazy combo of strength and speed.

[MrFonzworth]

Rockets in 5. Lebron steals a game but Rockets have too many guys to throw at him.

[hold this L]

2018 team beats them in 5 or 6. Noticeably better team. Good luck using bigs vs that Houston team. :lol