Derby Trail Forums - NBA At the Half

Quote:

Originally Posted by horseofcourse

It was the NBA finals...easy shots weren't easy to come by for anybody...especially cleveland. You can fool yourself into thinking it is all James fault for his spacing whatever. Fine...Oberto destroyed the Cavs because of all Duncan and ginobili do to defenses which excuses their poor shooting performances. I think you are employing the exaggeration game to the extreme right there. The Spurs won the series because of Tony Parker...end of story. Again if you think his spacing is so bad, you don't watch them that much. Basically the Cavs were playing great D on duncan and Ginoblili just as the Spurs were on James. As I said James did deal out 18 assists those two games. Something must have been spaced at some point. The Spurs were NOT doubling James that much...they were in essence making him take the outside shot...as you said that is not his strength...when he makes them he has games like game 5 against Detroit in the east finals and this week against Portland and LA. When he doesn't hit them you get the NBA finals last year. I saw game 3 of the finals...they got open look after open look from 3 point range and went 3 for 19. If Gibson shoots like he did in game 6 agaisnt Detroit or game 1 of the finals they win by 15 that game.

HE was not at his best that series I know...but give your own team some credit for that. You really expected cleveland to go out and score 110 every game?? The Spurs played great in game 2...but believe me other than that game scoring was no easy task for them that whole series either...(despite the plethora of easy Oberto baskets LOL!!..by the way...Gooden took TWICE as many shots as Oberto the last two games...my guess is his makes were easy looks. ). Parker put the whole team on his back is my assessment of that series.

LeBron certainly understands spacing however. LIke it or not their best chance to score is when James has the ball in his hands. They are the 3rd worst shooting team in the league this year and are 5 games above .500. James is shooting 48 percent taking the most shots on the team...the remainder of the team shoots a combined 42 percent. They are not the 3rd worst shooting team in the league because of him.

YEs, you are correct he can get better. His free throw shooting is troubling, but his outside shot is not as bad as some make it out to be. He makes more than his share. I still stand by my statement however that despite the fact he can get better he is already the best player in the game...and I really don't think it's that close.

Fair enough.

The Spurs did not double Lebron they just manup help (somewhat of a zone)
so he cant penetrate. When he penetrates he is the most dangerous player in the league. He has the strength of Carmello inside with better dribbling ability.
You dont want to double a guy who is dribbling out front,
it opens too many passing lanes. You double down low or baseline/sideline.

The game Gooden hit about 7 straight baseline jumpers
is exactly how to play. Cleveland just could not work that
after the Spurs sagged back on him and not playing as close
to Big I. Lebron has a very diff. time using Big I imo. Or maybe
lets say the coach has a diff. time using them. They set very poor screens
with Ig. But then again that should be a PG Ig is screening for, not Lebron up top.
Hughes cannot play point. Lebron tries to and fails. And Gibson is a 2.
They need a PG, I say again.