GSH
06-06-2013, 07:53 PM
1. And-1's. LeBron thrives on them, and to a lesser extent so does D-Wade. If the Spurs are going to foul LeBron, they need to do it on the floor where he doesn't get to shoot, or else they absolutely must wrap up his arms to be sure he's shooting two. The extra points off of all those and-1's are a big part of Miami's scoring differential.
2. Get the damned ball up the court. The Spurs FG% goes to hell once the shot clock reaches 20 seconds. The Spurs guards have a habit of moving the ball slowly to the mid-court line. For the Spurs to be consistently effective on offense, they have to get the ball down and find shots with more than 4 seconds left on the clock. (Preferably more than 6 seconds.) And part of that means getting the ball across the time line quicker.
3. No "gimme" passes. The Spurs have a bad habit of being soft on the first pass of a possession. After getting a stop, a turnover, or after a made basket by the other team, that first pass to the player who is going to bring the ball up the court usually goes un-challenged. The Spurs tend to get complacent, and treat it like a "gimme". If they do that, Miami will pick one or two of them off per game, for easy buckets. It seems like a small thing, but it's totally avoidable and those points can't be made up in a Finals game.
Those three things, together, are probably worth an easy 5-6 points per game. That margin will probably be enough to determine the eventual winner of the LOB.
2. Get the damned ball up the court. The Spurs FG% goes to hell once the shot clock reaches 20 seconds. The Spurs guards have a habit of moving the ball slowly to the mid-court line. For the Spurs to be consistently effective on offense, they have to get the ball down and find shots with more than 4 seconds left on the clock. (Preferably more than 6 seconds.) And part of that means getting the ball across the time line quicker.
3. No "gimme" passes. The Spurs have a bad habit of being soft on the first pass of a possession. After getting a stop, a turnover, or after a made basket by the other team, that first pass to the player who is going to bring the ball up the court usually goes un-challenged. The Spurs tend to get complacent, and treat it like a "gimme". If they do that, Miami will pick one or two of them off per game, for easy buckets. It seems like a small thing, but it's totally avoidable and those points can't be made up in a Finals game.
Those three things, together, are probably worth an easy 5-6 points per game. That margin will probably be enough to determine the eventual winner of the LOB.