NBA Playoffs Thread

STG, I've said this before, but regardless of who is has the advantage, I fucking hate the 2-3-2 format. The Lakers benefited from it last year, having the final two games at home, and I still hate it. To force a Game 7, I still feel like you should have to win on the other team's floor.

2-2-1-1-1. It should have stayed that way forever. I don't care about the travel. I love it when a team loses game 6 and has to schlep their ass back to another city to try and win. That's what made it so awesome. Sadly, I doubt we'll ever see it again.

 

That just shows how hard it is to "flip the switch" at this level. Up 15 and then down to 4, Miami couldn't find the final piece deep down, resorting to lazy jump shots instead of taking a little bit more effort to run a play and drive to the basket.

Tired teams don't do what it takes at the end. Don't make the extra pass or cut. I just wonder how much Miami had left in the tank the last 5 minutes.

 

Lebron should have left the shooter -- if Terry can hit a 24-footer, you tip your cap. You don't get beat by a guy basically making a lay-up.

And worse, I believe the Heat had a foul to give and if that was the case, Dirk should not have been allowed to drive as Bosh should have hammered him with like 5 seconds left and forced them to inbounds the ball to someone else and likely make a tough, rushed shot.

 

I hate it too. But I have to say I loved it in 1985, the first year they did it. If the Lakers would have had to go back to Boston for Game 5 after DJ's jumper tied it at 2-2, I think it would have been a repeat of 1984, right down to Red Auerbach fucking with the heater and a Game 7 win for the Celtics. Instead they won Game 5 in LA and finished it off in front of Michael Gee and others.

 

Yes, Mavs had a foul to give. Dirk is great, but that wasn't a great final basket, it was nice. But it looked like Dirk made one move and got past Bosh while going less than full speed. I know it's the end of the game and the guy plays like every minute but it looked like he just blew past Bosh yet shouldn't have blown past him with that move.

 

Ha. This ain't AAU. When you see rotations, it's not guys running willy-nilly to the ball. That was Haslem's rotation. If somebody else rotated off Terry, then there would be nobody there to run at Terry. When you see defenses recover on rotations, it's because people know exactly where to go and get there. If nobody is supposed to be there, then nobody will be there.

And if Jason Terry has a wide open 24 footer, he's going to bury it.

And if James somehow knew that Haslem would not be able to get over because he was being held by Chandler, then now he's being being a great player. He's got ESP or something.

 

All of that is well and good - except for the last fucking play of the game.

The rotation is -- your best defender stops the easiest shot. And had Dirk been stopped and kicked to Terry, James could have at least closed out with a hand in the air - it would not have been wide open. James is 6-foot-8 with a long wing span - it would not have been like Kidd's 3 earlier in the quarter.

More importantly, there was a foul to give and Bosh did not use it. Absolutely no excuse for that, either.

 

Looking back on other great comebacks, I'd sort of forgotten about Game 2 of the 2008 Finals. The Lakers trailed by 24 with seven minutes left. They cut it to 2 with 38 seconds. Then Pierce hit a pair of free throws and Sasha threw up a brick and that was it. It's also known as the Leon Powe game as he shot more free throws than the Lakers whole team and it was 38-10 overall at the line. But the league rigs things for the Lakers. That was all just a prelude to the Celtics actually pulling off the comeback two games later and now I again feel like throwing something.

 

Didn't the Lakers have a huge comeback in one of the games against the JailBlazers and Rashweed Wallace?

 

I'm reminded of John Stocking, freelancing off Steve Kerr to try to strip the ball from Michael Jordan who, having anticipated Stockton's habit, found a wide-open Kerr for the game-winning 17-footer.

Don't leave a shooter. Don't leave your rotations. Miami's defensive rotations have been great through the first two games.

I'll put it like this: If James had the restraint with his offensive decision making that he had on that defensive play, Miami would not have been in that situation.

 

It wasn't an Iverson crossover vs. Jordan but it was a pretty sweet move. The one replay from ABC had a good angle. Dirk did his spin and when he completed it Bosh hesitated for just a second as he probably thought Dirk was going up for his old fadeaway. Instead he kept the dribble, got a half step ahead and even though he's slower than I am off the dribble, that's all he needs with those long strides. Bosh probably shouldn't have bit at all since Dirk wasn't likely to take a jumper with that much time left but in a split-second he just reacted.

And they should have had better help. Yeah Terry might get a wide-open three. But the alternative was Dirk having basically an open left-handed layup.

The comeback against the Blazers, ah yes, 2000, Game 7. Down 15 early in the fourth, Shaw hit some big threes, Shaq made some free throws, Rasheed missed some free throws, the Blazers missed everything and then the famous alley-oop to Shaq to finish it off (along with a horrific no-call on Shaq when he bodied Steve Smith late that I'm sure Blazers fans are still a bit upset about).

 

You use the same flawed premise Zag made. The alternative to not coming off Terry wasn't an open layup because the rotation was supposed to come from across the lane from Haslem. Haslem didn't get there. But most of the night, the rotations were great. Why would LBJ assume that the rotation wouldn't get there this time?