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Neither does the rest of the league. He's the best on the planet for a reason. If you could single coverage him he'd be no better than any 3rd option. You cannot even single coverage Wade with any real success other than with help side defense.
Kawhi is the best spur to defend james. that's obvious. imo
but yeah, double that niggger every single time
Neither does the rest of the league. He's the best on the planet for a reason. If you could single coverage him he'd be no better than any 3rd option. You cannot even single coverage Wade with any real success other than with help side defense.
Even if we double Lebron and turn him into a facilitator, he'll easily take that and drop dimes to Wade, Bosh (who is shooting lights out right now), Allen, Battier, Chalmers, Cole, etc. Birdman is suddenly playing like a man possessed down low. There's really nothing the Spurs can do. Miami is far more talented, deeper, plays better defense, and simply has the best player on the planet right now who is unguardable one-on-one. They're simply the better team, as they should be with that ridiculous roster. BUT, that's why you play the game. Hope the Spurs make me eat crow.
I'm not saying the Heat always have bad spacing, but when Lebron dribbled down in to the post on George tonight it was generally pretty poor. I think Leonard should play Lebron straight up almost all the time, just not in the post. Leonard will get thrown around just like George did tonight, and it becomes a layup drill for Lebron.
If you sit off Lebron and Wade and let them shoot jumpers, you might lose. If you get right up on them and they blow by you collapsing the defence and either scoring in the paint or kicking to open 3 point shooters, you'll definitely lose.
Regarding the offensive end, here's a video explaining how the Heat double the ball in the pick and roll to stop penetration (because they have no shot blocking) and how if you hit the roll man you can get easy shots against them.
If and when Leonard fails to really stop Lebron, I'd like to see him switched on to Wade and let Green guard Lebron when the starters are in. I think Leonard has a serious shot of limiting Wade, and if Splitter/Duncan can outplay Bosh/Haslem there's a chance the Spurs could do the impossible. Of course the role playersw ill need to step up which is asking a lot.
Honestly, the only realistic hope for the Spurs is a hot shooting series, tbh..
Luckily, the potential is there..the Spurs have Ginobili, Green and Bonner that can get hot from outside, along with Leonard and Diaw that can make them, as well..maybe Gary Neal will finally wake up..
I'm not counting on it, but it's possible..Miami is prone to giving up open looks to shooters after they swarm the pick&roll ball-handler..
Relying on shooting role players sucks, but it's better than a team with poor shooters(Indiana, Memphis)..
I think Green has every chance of defending Wade. If Wade was 100% I'd give Green no chance, but I don't think he is.
After watching the last two games in the MIA/IND series I'm fairly confident Wade's injury is being massively overblown. He's at least 90% and it wouldn't surprise me if he's closer to 100%.
No one is stopping the Heat this year, the Finals winner has always been decided this year since the last 2 years the team that won it didn't have the HCA. It ain't happening 3 years in a row, it's a lot harder to win the Finals w/o HCA than it is to win in the Eastern/Western Conference playoffs w/o HCA. Sorry to disappoint you guys but before the last 2 years when was the last time a team w/o HCA won the Finals 2 years straight? Exactly, it's almost never happened, the last 2 years were the exception, not the rule.
I think the Heat have a 50% chance of losing next year though, all great teams eventually will run out of gas, it happened to the Lakers back in 2011.
A couple of weeks ago, I was leaning towards Kawhi defending lebron in a possible finals match-up, that said, kawhi is too important of a player both offensively and rebounding wise to waste too much energy and fouls on lebron. Part of the reason why i thought of the former is because i probably underestimated Leonard's overall impact on the team.
I Would suggest putting leonard on lebron, but only on the last 2-3 or minutes of the game tbh.
- Stay on shooters
- Don't double leborn because he's one of the best passers in the league not to mention they have both bosh, and wade on the same team
- have a combination of Ginobili-Diaw-Leonard-Green -Splitter on him, change it up a bit. Confuse him
- If you can't stop lebron from scoring ( no one can) stop his other ways of killing teams which is his passing, playmaking. Get them out of their system. To do do that, let lebron score.
- Make sure to stay on your man instead of thinking to much about deflections because Miami is probably the second best team in spacing the floor in the NBA.
Overall, just have Miami play a different kind of offense as oppose to their spacing, kick and drive offense. To do that, let lebron do his thing.
Lebron is too good of a player today though, so i wouldnt really be surpirsed if they win the championship even if they have to play out of their own system offensively. IMO though, it gives you a better chance winning.
tbh, the way we stopped Dwight, Curry, Thompson, and now Z-Bo/Gasol has given me faith that we can win the championship for the first time this season.
LeBron is a different beast, but the team has officially proven that they're not a bunch of squares of defense. I couldn't have said that in 2012, or even 2 months ago.
see what happens in game 1 and adjust, adjust, adjust.
Pacers in 7
Those teams have a ty offensive system and GS system was too gimicky. Pop did the right thing of containing the "star" players, but against Miami, IMO, it would be best to let lerbon score because Miami has on offensive system that would beat you 9/10 ten, if they combine it with their defense.
This tbh.LeBron is the best player in the NBA. We're not going to shut him down or hold him to 10 points like we have the "stars" throughout the playoffs so far. He's probably going to get 25 a night, but it won't be the end of the world. The Spurs need to focus on containing everyone else while slowing LeBron down as much as possible without overreacting every time he hits a tough drifter or bulldozes his way to the basket.
On the other side of the coin though, what're they going to do about Parker? Chalmers is a terrible defensive player. Cole is even worse. Allen and Miller are too slow. They will either have to eat Tony's dominant play or will be forced to put Wade or LeBron on him. I'd argue Battier is too slow to guard him at this point too. And if LeBron guards Tony, their interior defense will be a joke and Duncan + Tiago will feast.
Speaking of Duncan, who do they have that can stop Duncan? Miami will have the softest frontcourt we've faced all postseason. No Dwight, no Bogut, no Gasol/ZBo. It'll be Bosh/Haslem. Come on.Duncan is playing determined as right now.
So tbh, while we can't "stop" LeBron, basically 2 of our best defensive players can guard that position, + our best if LeBron tries to go into the post. Meanwhile our best two players can attack their weakest defensive positions. Our best 2 perimeter defenders can also guard Wade.
I think we match up very nicely in terms of each team's best players vs each team's best defenders/worst defenders. I'm not saying I'm not worried, but I'm not that worried. The Spurs are a good team this year. I'll take my chances tbh.
Kawhi played well vs him. Splitter/Diaw can defend guards, pretty sure they can stay in front of Lebron(when Kawhi is resting).
I'm not suggesting the Spurs should be favorites, but people are nuts if they think they're going to get destroyed. They'll have what the Mavs had going for them in '11: A level of desperation that the Heat can't possibly match, since unlike the Heat, it's now or never for them. Sure, the Heat are a lot better now than they were then, but this Spurs team is better than that Mavs team and from a match-up/strategy standpoint, there is no team better equipped to deal with them. I'm expecting a potential all-time great Finals.
Did you see his elevation when James made that last second layup? Wade did one of those high springy knee bend jumps, and you don't do that on the sidelines if you've got an injury to the knee.
In 2011, the Heat were in their 1st season together. It's not the same team this year.
Can't recall it immediately, but what really confirmed it for me was seeing Wade's dunk. You don't dunk the ball when your knee is seriously hindering you, much less get that kind of elevation.
He isn't attacking the rim anywhere near as well as he did a few years ago. That says more to me than a dunk or two
That has more to do with his overall decline and taking a backseat to Lebron/whatever "system" Spo is running. He's been attacking the rim plenty this postseason imo.
Splitter and Diaw are critical in this series. Look at what Indiana is doing to Miami. If the Heat have to go big, their spacing suffers a lot, and them going big depends on them not being able to play Battier at the four. As good as Hibbert is, Duncan is still better on both ends, and Splitter isn't that far behind. The advantage inside is pretty big when you see how inept the Heat are at dealing with Hibbert and West. Then you have Green and Ginobili instead of Lance Stephenson and Parker instead of Hill, and it doesn't even matter if Leonard isn't as good as Paul George. The Spurs are a tougher match-up for the Heat than the Pacers are.
What's interesting to me is seeing how the Heat handle Parker. If they try putting James on him (I actually don't think Lebron can guard him), then it's up to Green or Leonard to win the Chalmers cross-match. Leonard should be able to score over both Heat guards, and Green just needs to be opportunistic and keep Wade honest.
Also, James may be the most versatile defender in the league, but he can't legitimately guard a big. Splitter needs to have confidence in taking Lebron in the paint if the Heat try to use James as the four.
time for wi-fi to earn his keep
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