NBA Playoffs Thread

A lot of that has to do with what he did last summer. He chose to join/create a "super team" with two other premier talents (well, one more and a third player a small notch below). So naturally he's not going to have to carry the entire load. But that becomes noticeable when somebody else is shouldering the burden at key moments.

I agree he needs to be more creative down the stretch in games to getting his own shots. But still, I think he'd have to be very selfish to be the player who takes the most shots for his team in this series, given the advantageous matchups Wade has been seeing and their need for Bosh to be aggressive offensively against Dirk or Chandler.

 

Shouldn't the game's best player ALWAYS have an advantageous matchup?

 

There's a difference between not taking the most shots on your team and being completely, utterly disengaged from the action, which is what LeBron was in the infamous Game 5 last year and last night. Windhorst, hardly the harshest LeBron critic, wrote about this today. It's also why, as I wrote elsewhere where sports journalists sometimes gather, the comparisons to Magic are sometimes as ridiculous as the ones to Jordan. When LeBron dominates, it's with his scoring. Magic really could dominate in a game where he scored only eight points. LeBron can't. And since it's his 8th year, it's a bit much to think that's going to change. He dominates with scoring, whether it's against the Pistons in '07 or the majority of the series against Orlando or his Game 3 explosion last year against the Celtics or even this year with Wade. he can still have good games when scoring 18, 20 points, whatever. But he's not going to be controlling them. And with Wade he certainly doesn't have to and could still win a title. And he'd deserve credit. But it doesn't exactly make him the King or the Chosen One, names that weren't given to him by the media.

Piotr,
Laettner is up there all-time. But I still wouldn't put him above the big guys from UCLA, even though Duke had to face deeper competition overall. Bill and Lew did have great players with them, but Laettner also got to play with one of the best point guards in college basketball history, plus with Hill for two years, who wasn't what he became after Laettner left, but was still damn tough. Plus, his bizarre, disengaged performances in the 1992 Final Four at the Metrodome, following the Kentucky game, are a mark against him. He looked like shit against Indiana and Michigan, although he came on a bit in the second half against the Wolverines.

Or maybe I'm still bitter from those - including a scout in SI - who said they'd take Laettner over Shaq in the draft, and then, inevitably, the Timberwolves ended up with him. And it turned out, he wasn't quite as good as Shaq in the pros.

 

We're talking relative to other players on the court. I'd rather have Wade v. 38-year-old Kidd or Terry than James v. Marion or Stevenson.

 

He didn't need to be great against Indiana. Ted Valentine was reffing the game, and six Hoosiers fouled out, and . . .

Sorry, what were we talking about, again?

 

Who was the guy for Indiana that came in at the end and drilled a bunch of 3s and almost had them pull off a ridiculous comeback? No Google. Leary, perhaps?

 

I agree on James down the stretch. I also think Miami should be more creative in how they use them. When we think of the ultimate player to throw it to on the perimeter and "let him go to work," it's Jordan. But it seems to me Jackson did a lot more to get Jordan the ball in different areas of the floor to keep the defense guessing. Especially when the fourth quarter becomes a possession-to-possession game, Miami becomes predictable to the point of being stagnant.

You couldn't just double Jordan up top because they'd run the triangle and get him cuts to the basket or mid-range post-ups. It wasn't just Michael taking it up top with a ball screen all the time.

 

Todd Leary. I believe he was brought to IU in a futile effort to entice Eric Montross.

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/75977/

 

Brian, I think you're nicely setting the stage for some Phil Jackson to Miami rumors if Dallas pulls off the upset...

Todd Leary, googling. Ah, yes. Nice. Your life can't be going well if it takes to the last result on the first page before you get something that doesn't involve the words arrest or fraud.

 

Maybe it just seems to simple for me.

You are a powerful guy. Drive to the basket. Defense will collapse on you. That's fine. You'll likely draw a foul. Or kick it out to a wide-open teammate. Force the action. Tell the Mavericks, "Stop me!" instead of voluntarily stopping yourself.

But this standing around waiting for the shot clock to expire is insane. How many times do we need to read, "The Heat had only one basket over the last 7:36 . . . " or whatever to decide, hey, maybe something needs to change?

Maybe they need to rest him more. 45 minutes a game is a lot, especially if you are spending a lot of energy on the defensive end. If for no other reason than maybe cooling his heels on the bench for a few minutes may give him an itch to get going.

Beyond that, I have no clue what's going on.

 

Rest him more? Hell, he can't get a whole lot more rest on the bench than he got standing idly in the corner while the rest of his teammates were busy trying to win a game.

 

Once again Brian - you apparently watch too many coaching videos as you are enamored with the X's and O's of who should do what and when. That may work with bots on a computer screen - but in real games with real players everyone has different talents and thus you have to adapt to it.

You want to know why the Sixers with Iverson despite having a horse shit cast around him? Because he did take more than his share of shots and he WAS selfish.

Why? Because u want your stars to be a little selfish and u want them to want the ball. And more often than not a bad shot or a forced shot from Iverson had a much better chance of going in than a good shot from the drek he played with.

You think Jordan, or better yet Kobe, spent the fourth quarter of games passing the ball to the guy who had a favorable matchup?

Nobody, nobody, here. Is suggesting James should turn into Iverson - but if you are the supposed best player in the game you BETTER understand that you need to find a way to get more than one shot off down the stretch.

If he can't and if he can't SOMETIMES win the individual battles against the guy guarding him ro get to the hoop and foul line then we have all been duped and he is extremely overrated.

Dirk forces some shots down the stretch and makes them - why? Because that's what great players do and that's what makes him a great one - great players make plays ordinary guys on your chalkboard can't dream of making.

And stop this whole "expectations for James offense" are too high nonsense. His last two years in Cleveland, where did he finish in the scoring race? More importantly he's the one talking bout winning seven titles - well great players also don't just talk a big game.

I like James as a player, but there is no way to argue he hasn't come up extremely small in the finals and frankly is the only reason it hasn't been a Heat sweep.