I hadn't thought of that, but you are right, Chalmers has been majorly PWNING Barea.
Honestly, Brewer deserves minutes over Cardinal and Peja. He's a decent option for checking Wade or Bron. I understand sitting Peja down when he can't hit shots. If he can't hit shots, then he brings nothing else. What exactly does Cardinal bring anyways, except for 6 fouls? He should have gotten Mahimhi's minutes in Game 3.
Hard to argue with Carlisle's methods these playoffs, but this seems a little extreme. Has this line-up ever started a game before? I imagine Rick will have a quick trigger if things go awry, but can't blame him for improvising, I guess...they need points in the worst way.
Dallas is looking for more offensive punch because their starting 5 has a negative plus/minus in the playoffs. But starting JJ on defense is going to hurt more than it helps on offense unless Dallas goes zone all the time. But the way to attack a zone is to penetrate and dish, which is what Wade and Lebron do best.
You can try and force Lebron and Wade to shoot jumpers, and while you may get Lebron, I'm not sure Wade will settle for jumpers instead of just attacking the rim at will. When you have a Lebron to pass to on a collapsing defense, the zone will fail after a while. Think of Wade attacking the zone, people rotating to him, only to have Lebron drive the lane behind him for the dish. If Wade can take away the defenders out of the lane, Lebron will have a field day chasing in behind him.
Oh, and then there's Bosh who can hit a midrange jumper all day.
There's a reason zones work in college, but only work in spurts in the NBA. And in the Finals, if the zone is your best hope, your team is in major trouble.
just because Barea starts doesn't mean he will get more minutes
Might just be a ploy to make sure he's matched up against Bibby and not Chalmers.
They could just put Chalmers in to remedy it, then. The Heat certainly wouldn't be losing anything. If Bibby's not hitting shots then he's useless and a defensive sieve (like Peja).
Carlisle could start me at PF instead of Dirk and you'd find a way to say "It's not as bad as it looks!"
Why the Brewer not getting any burn? He is hard nosed and would do much better than anybody on your roster guarding Wade. I don't get why Cardinal or Peja would get one second of PT over Brewer.
Carlisle is an idiot. That's why.
Your best players won't perform as well if given heavy minutes though. You need to be fresh enough to end a basketball game. The last 5 minutes of a game is clutch time. If they are already spent and have nothing left, you will probably lose.
I'm not saying to play them an entire game
but keeping them down below 40 minutes a game in tight games all series, can't do that. Dirk needs a minimum of 42 minutes a game, with a short breather in the 4, followed up by a full timeout that is drug out as long as humanly possible so he can be fresh for his usual heroics.
I still think Brewer needs to get more minutes. Cardinal wasn't bad, he has a lunchpail game and did lunch pail things last night.
Yeah, Brewer should probably get a shot. You can see more and more as the series goes on, how backdoor cuts are really killing the Heat because of their overaggressive style of defense. Marion and Chandler have been able to get a lot of easy buckets and good looks doing so. Brewer is fantastic at making such cuts and finishing strong, so he might be able to pitch more offense than we might expect.
Also the PnR with Chandler is really kicking Miami's ass. They need to run it more frequently. I would actually like to see Dirk and Chandler try to run it and see what happens, with Marion or Terry making a cut down the baseline. With Dirk and Chandler pulling the big men out, it should really open the paint up for cutters.
The Chandler P&R seems to be working much better than the Dirk P&R. Chandler even showed he has some passing skills (the no-look dump off to Marion for a dunk was awesome). Also allowing Dirk to not have to work as hard as well (giving him the legs for his jumpers). If he's feeling better by Thursday I predict he'll go off for 30+
Chandler needs some rest too before Thursday night. We're going to need him for heavy minutes the next 2-3 games and you don't want him to get gassed.
The reason it works so differently is because Chandler rolls to the basket, while Dirk rolls to the wing. Chandler is looking to exploit the lack of paint presence, while Dirk is trying to get a mismatch to exploit, or an open 18 footer.
I still feel what should be scary for Miami is that Dallas still has been getting a lot of really good looks for either open shots or easy layups that the Mavs are simply blowing. If they get that fixed, this series is over. I still feel strongly that the Mavs are defending Miami better than Miami is defending Dallas. Miami is getting forced to take a lot more shots that they would rather not take, while Dallas is getting damn near any shot they want but arent converting.
About the only reason I can think as to why the team as a whole is not converting these easy opportunities is they must be a little more gassed from committing so heavily on the defensive end. The Mavs are playing some damn good defense, doing a very good job preventing Lebron and Wade from having easy buckets in the paint, forcing them to earn every layup, or win with jumpers. Lebron is looking completely uncomfortable against the zone.
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