except for the fact that Perk is out for the next 3 weeks and who knows how he will be moving when he comes back ...
He moved pretty well coming back from a surgery...but a knee sprain casts doubts on his ability to rehab and come back?
fair enough, but Perk coming back healthy for the playoffs is way more likely than Shaq coming back healthy for the playoffs...and Shaq is the plan for starting center in the playoffs.
Shaq is motivated to win over kobe.
Perk had mentioned several times how he was motivated to go up against the Lakers if they were to meet in the finals again. He was quoted as saying that he could have helped on the boards...Gasol wouldn't have dominated that game like he did.
A lot of assumptions there. Go back and see how that series went and see what assurances you get about Gasol's game and rebounding. None.
Gasol was hard to stop since game 1 with or without Perk. In fact, Game 7 was his worst shooting night.
Obviously, Perk could have helped us in the rebound department. So could have some other center who could have played. Still, there were games when they out rebounded us with Perk in there... so, too much talk.
What needed to happen was for one of our main guys to step up, and none did. And when none of them could step up, we didn't have anyone on the bench to really step up instead of them.