Re: How to beat the Lakers

["Jim Meninno" <Jim_Meninno@hotmail.com>]

----- Original Message ----- From: Kestutis Kveraga
<Kestutis.Kveraga@dartmouth.edu>

> Your post just reaffirms the point I made several years ago about Pitino's
> "system": if it requires superb athletes with superior basketball ability
(or,
> to take your post literally, Hall of Fame-caliber players) to succeed, it
has
> already failed as a basketball philosophy.

I don't know that Pitino had the right idea, his system is a lot more than
running, but I think Gene is right to say that the best way to beat a team
with a player like Shaq is with an up-tempo game.  Robert Parish may not
have been able to stop Kareem's sky hook, but he could run him until he was
sucking oxygen from a tank on the Lakers' bench.  And the Lakers were a team
that loved to run, themselves.  If you ask me the greatest failure of
Pitino's time with the Celtics was that after four years they still didn't
run an effective fast break.

Jim