NBA Playoffs Thread

About four minutes I watched.

I was just trying to point out that weird stuff can happen in plus-minus sometimes. Simply by a team getting on a crazy run or another team going cold can produce some numbers that don't really make sense.

 

Re LeBron rant: as striking as anything was him saying he didn't worry about the haters, and then immediately laying into them.

 

No surprise. He's incredibly immature. He's not educated, has no context or perspective for real life and has been handed everything in his life since he was probably 11 years old. For all the talk of his impoverished beginning, he's spent the last half of his life with more disposable income than the rest of Akron, Ohio. He's not a thug, he's not a criminal and he's probably not even a punk. Just a tool.

 

From Jason Lloyd's column in the Akron Beacon Journal:

Eight years into his NBA career, James’ only ring remains his class ring from St. Vincent-St. Mary in Akron, Ohio.

 

Perhaps I should've phrased that differently. I wasn't stating that was the only time he ever played well in a fourth quarter, but rather that it was the prototypical example people remember and cite.

And, again, the point was to distinguish between his late game performance when the chips are down and he's facing huge pressure situations, and the times when he was not. And those grounds also distinguish this year's early round series from what he faced in this Finals and last year's Boston series. The Heat EASILY swept through Chicago and Boston this year in five games, they were never really challenged, their back was never against wall. Yep, in that situation, Lebron usually dazzles.

And that's how Lebron looked for the first game and three-quarters of this series, right up until the final six minutes of Game 2 when Dallas stormed back from that 15 point deficit to win in the final minute. Lebron was never the same again in this series after that. Even in their Game 3 win, Wade was the guy carrying the load and Lebron was playing his disappearance game. Once that proverbial punch in the nose hit him in the final quarter of Game 2, assertive and intense Lebron disappeared and we got the passive and timid version of Lebron for the next four games.

 

That is some *serious* revisionist history. There were many times when Miami could have been in serious trouble in the Chicago series. He wasn't awesome because they were cruising. They seemed to be cruising because he was awesome.

 

"Could have been"? Umm, that means next to nothing. Miami controlled both series from the start and there was never a point when it truly looked like they were in trouble. Lebron was never put in a "back against the wall" type pressure situation in those series. I stand by my point.

 

So when they were in a tight fight for Game 2, and failure meant falling down 0-2 in the series, that didn't count?

 

Johnny is really right. The Boston and Chicago series were five-games series because LeBron closed time and again, including some games where if he doesn't close, Miami would have found itself in a serious bind.

 

Don Carter is like 80 something and still attends every game front row. He has a small piece of the team now and he was like a clothier when he bought the expansion franchise. He had a reputation for treating players like his kids, often having them at his house, etc. Nice old man.

 

And all of the Celtics games were close. In game 4 (the one that prevented the series from going 2-2), James scored 11 of Miami’s final 13 points in the fourth quarter to help rally from a seven-point deficit and force OT.

And in Game 5, when it looked like the Celtics were going to steal it and send it back to Boston, he scored Miami's final 10 points.

No, they were not "backs-against-the-wall" games, but none of the Mavericks games were, either, until Game 6.

 

The really amazing thing, to me, is that Miami was one enormous blown lead from possibly being up 3-0 after 3 games. And a Game 4 shitburger in the fourth quarter from being up 3-1. And that's with Passenger LeBron.