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rich1223
Posts: 20110 Alba Posts: 0 Joined: 2/4/2005 Member: #864 USA |
6/13/2011 12:34 PM
And He's going bald too!
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martin
Posts: 76215 Alba Posts: 108 Joined: 7/24/2001 Member: #2 USA |
6/13/2011 1:23 PM
didn't fully notice this during last game, but check out the defense of LeBron (very Amare/Melo 'esque
  ):LeBron let down the Heat on defense, too http://nba-point-forward.si.com/2011/06/13/lebron-let-down-the-heat-on-defense-too/ The more you review Game 6, the clearer it gets: LeBron James was not good enough. This was most obvious when the Heat had the ball late on Sunday and LeBron, with a few nice exceptions, turned into an overly cautious ball-handler at best and an inactive spectator at worst. Miami’s offense has been a work in progress all season, with fits and starts and bouts of the stars “taking turns.” But LeBron knows by now that he has to do more than stand in the corner when Dwyane Wade runs a pick-and-roll. He showed that late in Game 5, when he cut backdoor behind a Wade pick-and-roll, received a pass at top speed, rose for a layup and ran into Tyson Chandler body on a series-altering charge. By the second half of Game 6, it was clear that James had lost something on offense. The Heat, however, are talented enough to overcome his tentative play. But more troublesome is this: The passivity, or borderline paralysis if you prefer, extended too often to the defensive end, where urgent effort on and off the ball is the baseline requirement for being on the court in an elimination game. Two plays stood out to me in real time. They’re even more jarring upon second viewing, even as that second viewing makes clear they were not outliers, but rather part of a larger pattern of passive defense. The first occurred with about 6:15 left in the third quarter. LeBron was guarding Jason Kidd, who was doing what he does now: standing at the top of the arc, acting as a safety net, while J.J. Barea and Dirk Nowitzki ran a pick-and-roll on the right side of the floor. LeBron parked himself at the left elbow and watched as the Heat snuffed out that pick-and-roll. Barea swung the ball to Kidd. LeBron barely moved, even though the shot clock was in single digits. James took only a half-step toward Kidd, his feet barely crossing the top of the circle. Kidd had loads of space, and he went up for a three-pointer. LeBron responded with a close-out that would have been unworthy of his skills even on the second end of a back-to-back in March. He put both hands together but did not bring either of them above shoulder level. He did not leave his feet at all. Then something weird happened: With the shot already in mid-flight, at the very top of its arc toward the rim, LeBron lunged an extra foot toward Kidd and extended his left hand toward the Dallas player’s head, as if face-guarding him. It looked like James was saving face, putting in a token effort. There is no point face-guarding a shooter when his shot is about to hit the rim. An even worse blunder happened four minutes later, when the Mavs went back to that play where Jason Terry dribbles around two screens on the left side of the floor. The Heat again shut off that initial action, forcing Terry to swing the ball to Kidd on the right side. Terry then improvised and cut down the middle of the floor, toward the rim. He caught James totally flat-footed and off-guard. Even so, when you watch the play carefully, you see James peek at Terry right as the Mavs’ guard began his cut. James knew at that moment that he was in trouble, but an extra beat passed before he gets himself running. It was too late by then; Terry was gone, on his way for a layup that ended a brief Miami run. There’s no sugarcoating this: These are terrible defensive plays that blur the line between passive and lazy, and they were indicative of James’ play on that end in the second half. Focus on James, and you see a drifter, someone in that horrible in-between place where he slides off his man as if to help elsewhere but doesn’t actually help at all. He turned to watch, and he reached a few times, but he rarely helped as actively as he does when he is creating havoc everywhere. Earlier in this series, I called James and Wade the best pair of “help the helper defenders” in the league, meaning they can crash down from the perimeter to help on pick-and-roll plays and still scoot back out to their man without yielding an open three-pointer. That player vanished in Game 6. When Wade played off Shawn Marion to help elsewhere, James was often late rotating. He got there eventually to defend Marion. He ended up in the right place, but he started his work late, and it hurt the quality of Miami’s overall defense. He was a ghost on the defensive glass, content to sort of jog toward the dotted line, get himself in theoretical rebounding position and then watch his teammates do the work. On a possession three minutes into the third quarter, James was one of four Heat players in the lane when Marion, the lone Mav there, grabbed a Nowitzki miss and scored on a putback. There was some bad luck here, as Wade, boxing out Marion, mistimed his jump, and the ball bounced to the precise spot where the Dallas forward could get it. Still, you don’t help your team much by lingering at the edge of the paint, inactive and flat-footed. This happened repeatedly. A minute before that Marion second-chance basket, James stood watching at the dotted line as Chandler played volleyball at the rim. With 4:30 left in the third, James jogged aimlessly toward the basked as Nowitzki lofted a pull-up, never bothering to stop his momentum, plant himself or box anyone out; the rebound bounced over his head to Marion, again the only Maverick in the paint. Maybe an active LeBron wouldn’t have gotten Miami any of these rebounds. Chandler would still have been too big for everyone in the Heat’s rotation, and the rebounds still would have bounced where they bounced. But you can’t change the outcome when you’re standing there. The moment demanded urgency, and LeBron responded with a defensive performance well below his standards. The Heat can live, to a degree, with LeBron’s quaking a bit on offense. Even in those games, he still helps you by drawing attention and making smart passes. He looked uncomfortable with the ball again on Sunday, throwing hot-potato passes, appearing reluctant to even attack Barea on a mismatch and standing in the corner when the Heat called a set featuring Wade as the primary ball-handler. We’ve seen all this before, so it wasn’t a huge surprise. And he still had his moments — a post-up of Marion, a few aggressive off-the-ball cuts against the zone, some nice drives on pick-and-roll plays late in the third quarter. He wasn’t at this best, but he still helped at times. But on defense? He had to be better. There are a lot of reasons why Dallas won this series, and in a sport so complex, it might seem unfair to focus solely on the so-so play of one man. But that is the kind of scrutiny that comes with being the world’s best player in the team sport in which the best guy can have the largest impact. LeBron fell short. Official sponsor of the PURE KNICKS LOVE Program
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