On Tuesday, LeBron James and Stephen Curry will renew one of the NBA’s great rivalries. But in the Warriors-Lakers second-round series, James vs. Curry will be a subplot to a compelling matchup. Sports Illustrated tapped a Western Conference assistant coach to break down the conference semifinals.
The Warriors are better. Significantly better. It’s going to be really interesting to see. First of all, I think they’re significantly better than the Lakers. Probably the biggest obstacle for them is overcoming the likely free throw disparity. The Lakers just kill teams going to the line a million times. Golden State’s rim protection isn’t great. The Lakers are going to take a ton of shots at the rim and when they shoot it well, they usually win. The Warriors are going to have to find a way to limit that. LeBron, every time he’s had success against the Warriors has found a way to really, really muck up the game just by controlling the pace and things of that nature against them. He’s going to have to do that again.
I’m really interested to see how the Lakers will try to guard Curry. Can they throw Jarred Vanderbilt on him? I think he’s a key. His length, his energy, and his size, it's not the same as Paul George. But George used to be able to navigate screens so well at 6'7" with really great length. Vanderbilt plays a little bit like that. Ben Simmons, same thing. In Philadelphia, he could move around screens at 6'10.” That's just tough. [Vanderbilt] is a good rebounder at times, a good weak-side guy. And it's allowed James to sit on the weak side and quarterback.
