Los Angeles Lakers: San Antonio Spurs Stand No Chance If Teams Meet in Playoffs

The Los Angeles Lakers sent a message on Wednesday night against the San Antonio Spurs.

The message said, "If we play against you guys in the playoffs, we're going to blow you out of the water."

The Lakers coasted past the Spurs in one of their best all-around performances of the season. 

The scariest part of it is that they were able to do it without Kobe Bryant, who was out for his third consecutive game.

Everything seemed to be going well for the Lakers. The entire team was playing together, supporting each other on the floor and the final score was highly indicative of how strong the Lakers played in all 48 minutes of the game.

After this victory, the Lakers are licking their chops, hoping that the standings stay the same so that they play the Spurs in the second round of the playoffs, assuming both teams win their first playoff series.

If they do meet, the Lakers are going to make it a quick series.

First of all, the Lakers have a huge size advantage in the paint. The most glaring stat of the night was how the Lakers out-rebounded San Antonio, 60-33. 

Folks, Andrew Bynum almost had more rebounds than the entire Spurs team. He had a career-high, 30, on the game. 

The Spurs simply don't have the size to match up against the Lakers big men. Who's going to go up against Bynum?

Tiago Splitter?

DeJuan Blair?

Both Splitter and Blair are below-average defenders as evidenced by their opponents' Player Efficiency Rating against centers in the 2011-12 season. Opposing centers have a PER of 16.8 against Splitter and 18.8 against Blair. The league average is 15. 

In other words,those guys can't do anything against arguably the best center in the league. 

Oh yeah, then there's Pau Gasol, who added 21 points and 11 rebounds for the Lakers in Wednesday night's win. Not only is Pau more athletic than his counterpart Tim Duncan, he also has an unstoppable mid-range game. If his mid-range jumper is on, Gasol all of a sudden becomes an indomitable threat. Tim Duncan is a solid defender for his age, but Gasol's multi-faceted game will make Duncan helpless in a best-of-seven series.

Secondly, Ramon Sessions showed why the Lakers acquired him at the trading deadline. In the past, Tony Parker of the Spurs would go up against ageless point guard Derek Fisher and let's face it, he would burn him.

Parker was pretty much a non-factor on Wednesday night and a lot of that can be credited to Sessions' defense. Ramon held Parker to just four points and despite having eight assists, he was a minus-16 on the floor.

In fact, opposing point guards have a PER of just 11.6 against Sessions. He's done a fabulous job defensively all year long and there is no chance that the Lakers will be continuously burned by quick point guards again.

On the other side of the ball, Sessions distributed and facilitated the job for guys like Matt Barnes and Metta World Peace, who combined for 39 points in the game. This was the first time the Spurs saw Sessions and after his grandiose performance, they're going to have to find a way to contain him defensively and beat him offensively.

Even if they figure out a way to stop Sessions, beating the Lakers won't be easy considering they'll have a guy named Kobe Bryant suited up in the purple and gold come playoff time. 

As mentioned before, what was most amazing about this victory is that they were able to do it on the road without Kobe. Sure, they can win a few games here and there without the Mamba, but it's going to be an arduous task winning a series without their best scoring threat. 

With Bryant in the lineup, the Lakers will be able to beat the Spurs in a number of different ways. They'll be able to pound it in the paint and expose the Spurs lack of size, they'll be able to use their point guard to distribute to the wings, or they can just do it Kobe style and have him take over the game.

One thing is for sure. 

The Spurs will have their hands full.

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