NBA Playoffs Thread

We really should stop talking about the Lakers on this thread, lest we be tossed out into the street, but my favorite part of the alley-oop, and one that almost never gets discussed, is how incredibly bad Kobe made Pippen look on the play as he drove the lane. It's you-left-your-jock-in-the-Windy-City bad.

 

What the hell was Pippen doing? It wasn't even that great of a body fake by Kobe. He just ole'd him by.

I'm no Kobe fan, but I do count it as a highlight that I got to see Bryant's coming out party in person at the 2000 NBA Finals in a classic Game 4 overtime game. Albeit from the bowels of Conseco Fieldhouse on deadline, but I was there.

 

i guess good move but just seemed like Bosh made it look easy, more than Dirk making it look easy.

pretty sure that game was when Shaq said it was the Shaw Shaq redemption.

 

Bubbs, he had been killing Pippen that ebtire series with a crossover. Just killing him. By that point he was completely in Pippen's head. If you watch the whole clip from the far baseline camera angle that's behind them (highlight clips almost always begin with Kobe already by Pippen) you see how wrong-footed and completely lost Pippen looks.

I actually felt like the Lakers dropped games five and six of that series because they went away from letting Kobe kick Pippen's ass. In the game that gave LA a 3-1 lead in that series, Kobe ran Pippen in circles at the end of the game. I remember feeling like I was watching Bryant stomp on the neck of the Jordan era by embarrassing Jordan's wingman.

 

Here's where we need Jeff Van Gundy or Dr. Jack (hell, Dr. Tom even) to post to break it down. You make a good point. But I still think LeBron could have done more on the play. If Haslem helps out earlier, then Chandler is wide open at the basket, although Wade did have a foot in the lane to rotate down to Chandler in that event, perhaps. Of course if Wade rotates then Marion's open from 15 feet out.

It wasn't some huge blunder by LeBron or anything but I think it was a bit of a slow reaction. Watching the replay again, Dirk gets a step on Bosh about 12 feet away from the hoop, and LeBron is about two feet away from them. With his lateral quickness, I think he could have gotten there in time to halt Dirk a bit and would have still had a chance to at least make a run at Terry. Or maybe he should have been helping off of Terry more at the start, simply because if you are going to lose, I'd rather have Terry taking a 22 footer than Dirk taking a 10-footer, even if would be over a double team of Bosh and James.

Jericho, I think the ShawShaq line might have actually originated during their Orlando days when he was throwing oops to the young fella.

 

DD'd post pointed it out - the Heat settle for long jump shots way too much and it seems to have bit them in the ass tonight.

It will be interesting to see if they post up a little bit more the next game.

 

Wojnarowski and Wetzel were outstanding with their postgame columns covering the epic Game 2. As good as the game was, it's better to see what good writers can craft in the aftermath, despite having to work in the circus of a championship series and league barriers and useless podiums.

From Woj:
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=Ajq6_s7GDzxp8MyIpAt.j705nYcB?slug=aw-wojnarowski_dirk_nowitzki_mavericks_comeback_game2_nba_finals_060311

Nowitzki doesn’t rely on emotion to galvanize and inspire his game, but the steely detachment that comes with tens of thousands of hours of shooting, the muscle memory of the biggest shots in the biggest moments. All his life, Nowitzki was the nice guy, the big lug that would forever come close and forever be remembered as one of the Hall of Fame players without the ultimate validation of victory.

Loved this piece of color from Wetzel too: http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=AotJOjXXL0FYbfedA1NcqPi8vLYF?slug=dw-wetzel_heat_mavericks_collapse_celebration_game2_finals060311

Why did Wade, who was brilliant to the tune of 36 points, get just two shots the final seven minutes? (“I’ll have to look,” said coach Erik Spoelstra). Why did the offense stall, too often leaving LeBron dribbling around aimlessly until just before the shot clock was set to go off? (“We just weren’t in good rhythm,” James said.) Where was the Heat’s vaunted defense as the Mavs began lighting them up in the furious stretch run? (“A lack of execution,” Spoelstra said.)

With a foul to give why didn’t they hack Nowitzki on the final play? (“Mental breakdown,” Wade said.) Why did they put Chris Bosh and not Udonis Haslem on Dirk? (“Yeah, that’s a tough one,” Spoelstra said.) Why didn’t they double? (“It was just bad defense for me,” Bosh said.)

 

Random thoughts:

The Heat were running pick and rolls with Chalmers as the screener. Not only did he take forever to set weak screens, but he didn't make himself available quickly. So James basically killed 10 seconds of the shot clock for nothing.

Kidd did an unreal job denying Wade easy handoffs down the stretch, which again left James with nothing else but to go one on one.

The Heat have been lucky the past series and game in that they have been making the long pull up jumpers. They haven't really relied on movement, post play or even driving.

Bosh needed to get through the Chandler screen quicker on Dirk's 3 and if he was going to overplay the fadeaway so heavily on the last play, he needed to use the foul if Dirk drove. Bad decision.

I can't really blame James, mostly because Dirk went by so quickly that he was never going to get there.

 

On the last drive if James drops down to defend Dirk from that angle, he is either going to foul Dirk or leave Terry wide open for an easy shot.

James could not save that play from where we was and Jordan couldn't of either.

 

Could he of on Monday?

 

As I scrolled through 3 1/2 pages, I didn't see one reference to Bosh's defense on the final play. Dirk OWNED him, Bosh got turned, spun on and lost it. Dirk may be very good but Bosh isn't chopped liver and he looked like it.

 

These 9:30 p.m. starts blow ... I dozed off watching the game as the Heat pulled away. Woke up, grabbed my phone and saw 95-92 and just said, WTF.