Breaking Down How LA Lakers and Miami Heat Match Up

Each of the two regular season matchups between the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat are bound to be exhilarating, as would a potential showdown in the 2013 NBA Finals. The teams are evenly matched across the board after the squads reloaded during the offseason. 

L.A. added a talented point guard and center to its roster during the summer, immediately vaulting The Purple and Gold to the top of the Western Conference power rankings and in the same upper echelon of NBA teams that the Heat currently occupy. 

It's only natural that a position-by-position breakdown of the two teams ensues. 

Using Rotoworld's depth charts as the basis for the starting five, this article analyzes each starting position, the sixth man, the bench as a whole, the coach and the overall matchup.

Can the King help the Heat stay the kings of the NBA?  

Starting Point Guards

Steve Nash was one of the two biggest offseason additions for the Los Angeles Lakers, and he gives the team a huge advantage over their Eastern Conference opponent in this competition. 

While point guard isn't exactly a weakness for the Miami Heat, it's by no means a strength either. Mario Chalmers is the resident punching bag, even if he does play good defense and hit the occasional three-pointer. 

Something tells me that Nash won't be the punching bag in L.A. 

Even at his advanced age, Nash is one of the best facilitators in the NBA. Even if the offense is slower than it was in Phoenix and the ball isn't in his hands as often due to the Princeton Offense, Nash will still lead the league in assists, or at least come very close. 

Chalmers will be able to torch Nash on occasion, but he won't be able to slow the offensive onslaught sparked by Nash's playmaking. 

Advantage: Los Angeles Lakers

Starting Shooting Guards

In what is perhaps the most intriguing matchup of all, the shooting guard battle between the Lakers and the Heat could end up coming down to health. 

Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade are the two best 2-guards in the NBA by a wide margin, but not much separates them from each other. 

Last season, Kobe put together one of the most overrated campaigns in the league. Even though he was up near the scoring lead—and might have won the scoring title if he'd played in the 66th game of the season—he was an extremely glorified volume shooter. 

Part of that was due to necessity, but Kobe's low percentages devalued the points that he did manage to score. 

Meanwhile, Wade struggled to stay healthy and on the court. 

If you haven't stopped reading to write angry comments, I'd like to point out that I didn't call The Black Mamba himself overrated, but rather his season. 

Wade's performance at the end of the year was just enough to allow Kobe to nudge his way back to the top of the shooting guard totem pole. 

Now that Kobe is surrounded by better offensive options and doesn't have to do all of the heavy lifting, he'll be able to shoot more efficiently and prove that he belongs atop the heap. 

Advantage: Los Angeles Lakers

Starting Small Forwards

Somehow, someway, these two rosters managed to stack up so that the Heat's best player matches up against the Lakers' worst member of the starting five. 

Metta World Peace might be a solid defender, but if you think he's capable of slowing down LeBron James, then you need to take off the glasses that are causing your purple-and-gold-tinted vision. 

While the man most recently featured in the news for throwing an elbow is capable of knocking down some three-pointers on kick-outs, he can't make nearly the same impact as LeBron. 

James is the reigning MVP for a reason—he contributes in every facet of the game. 

Not to take away from Tyson Chandler, but a convincing argument can be made that LeBron should have won last year's Defensive Player of the Year award. 

Now that he's developed a post game, there really just aren't any glaring flaws in his game. 

Advantage: Miami Heat

Staring Power Forwards

In another fairly close matchup, Pau Gasol and Chris Bosh will be battling for supremacy whenever the Heat and Lakers duke it out on the hardwood. 

Both power forwards bring a lot to the table when it comes to the offensive side of the ball, but Gasol's versatility gives him the edge in this head-to-head showdown. 

While Bosh can hit his fair share of mid-range jumpers, Gasol can do so as well. He also has incredible passing skills for a seven-footer. In the new Princeton Offense, Gasol will only thrive. 

Bosh has the potential to take this matchup over if the Heat continue to utilize him as they did during the NBA Finals and the second half of the series with the Boston Celtics. 

Allowing him to extend his range out to the three-point line and spread the defense does wonders for the team, especially when he still actively crashes the boards. 

For right now though, Gasol holds the distinct advantage, especially after a dominant campaign in London. 

Advantage: Los Angeles Lakers

Starting Centers

This matchup prominently features the best center in the NBA and one of the worst projected starters in the entire league. 

Joel Anthony might be a defensive specialist, but his defense is going to look downright offensive if he's left in single coverage against Dwight Howard. 

The only knock against D12 here is that his defense isn't going to look very good. After all, you're only doing well on defense if you make a player perform at a lower offensive level than normal. 

In Anthony's case, it's not possible to be less effective than normal on the more glamorous side of the court. He's already that bad.

All kidding aside though, Howard would win this matchup even if he was playing before fully recovering from his back injury.

Advantage: Los Angeles Lakers 

Sixth Men

Other than Nash and Howard, Antawn Jamison was the biggest offseason acquisition for the Lakers. 

Formerly with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Jamison is serving as the sixth man in this article regardless of whether or not he's actually the first player off the bench. Jodie Meeks might be the first to leave the pine, but Jamison is the best member of the second unit. 

Even at 36, the power forward can still use his smooth stroke to knock down the triples. He'll do a lot of that as he leads the Lakers backups in scoring during the 2012-2013 season. 

However, Jamison can't touch the level of impact that Ray Allen is going to make for the Heat. 

Allen will primarily shoot threes for his new team, just like Jamison, but he's going to do so at a much higher level and significantly more often. 

With Wade, James and Bosh drawing the bulk of the defensive attention—or whichever of the Big Three are still on the court when Allen enters the game—Allen is going to be left open for quite a few attempts from downtown. 

Advantage: Miami Heat

Benches

As a point of clarification, the sixth men are included in this matchup even though they earned their own slide. 

Other than the center position, the Heat have a quality backup at every single position. Then again, they don't even have a high-quality center in the starting lineup. 

With Norris Cole improving in his second season and Allen shooting three-pointers as Father Time takes away more of his athleticism, the backcourt depth is there. 

Shane Battier and Udonis Haslem can both come off the bench and provide valuable minutes in the forward rotation.

Then there's Rashard Lewis. If the former Washington Wizard can regain some of his old form, he'll give the Heat a sensational bench, as opposed to a very solid one. 

Even if Lewis flops in South Beach and spends more time in a bathing suit than his basketball trunks, the Heat will still have an edge over the Lakers when it comes to the bench. 

Jamison and Meeks are the top two options for the second unit, with Jordan Hill not too far behind. 

However, there isn't too much good news after that. Darius Morris, Darius Johnson-Odom, Andrew Goudelock, Earl Clark and Devin Ebanks are unproven while Steve Blake and Chris Duhon have proven that they aren't great basketball players. 

The Lakers offseason spending has leveled the playing field a bit, but it hasn't completely closed the gap after the additions of Allen and Lewis. 

Advantage: Miami Heat

Coaches

Erik Spoelstra has always gotten an unnecessarily bad rap during his tenure on the Miami bench. 

Seeing as the team features a number of superstars and the league's MVP, it's easy to pin the blame on him when things go wrong. Small problems are blown out of proportion, and every move is scrutinized. 

Spoelstra might struggle drawing up plays for the half-court set, but he's a solid tactician, especially on the defensive end of the court. 

Mike Brown is going to feel just like Spoelstra at the end of this next season. Now that he has three stars to play with in his lineups, Brown will have every mistake making him scratch his head and wonder how to answer questions at press conferences. 

While Brown manages his superstars nicely—LeBron in Cleveland and Kobe in L.A.—he struggles tremendously when trying to make his offense run smoothly. 

There's a reason that the Lakers offense is comprised of putting the ball in Kobe's hands on every possession during the fourth quarter. That reason isn't that Kobe is "clutch." 

Advantage: Miami Heat

Overall

Before reading any further, it's important to understand that a team can hold an advantage over another team at each and every position in the starting lineup and still lose the overall matchup. 

In the case of the battle between the Lakers and Heat, the team from L.A. reigns supreme at four of the five positions in the starting five. 

The Lakers do have the better starting unit on paper, but roll with me here for the sake of the hypothetical. 

Take these two imaginary teams—Team A and Team B—and look at how good the players are when their overall values are quantified onto a 1-to-10 scale: 

	PG	SG	SF	PF	C
Team A	8	8	8	8	8
Team B	8.1	8.1	8.1	8.1	5

So in this situation, it's fairly easy to see that Team A holds the overall advantage, despite losing more positions than it won. 

Let's reshuffle the ratings:

	PG	SG	SF	PF	C
Team A	8	8	8	8	8
Team B	8.1	8.1	8.1	8.1	7.9

Once more, Team B wins four of the five positions. It also has the better average rating when the mean of the five values is calculated. 

However, it is possible that Team A is better than Team B. 

Basketball happens on a court, not just paper. Chemistry matters. Playing styles matter. 

And obviously, the benches and coaches matter. 

With that in mind, the Heat are still better than the Lakers, despite only holding the advantage at small forward in the starting five. 

I'm not concerned with placing numerical values on the 10 starters, nor analyzing the gaps between the two players at each positional matchup. 

Simply put, the Heat have a worse starting five on paper, better chemistry between those five players, a better sixth man, a better overall bench and a better coach. 

Miami also happens to be the current resting spot for the Larry O'Brien Trophy and the Maurice Podoloff Trophy. 

Until that changes, it's hard to imagine someone beating them out for the top spot.

Overall Advantage: Miami Heat