I'm not. But that James and this one aren't even close to the same. This James is fat superior to anyone Bowen ever had to guard. The idea that Bowen was a better Lebron stopper when even at his height Bowen simply slowed players down is one I simply don't subscribe to.
And who the was guarding James in those other games he shot poorly? Clearly other players did great jobs on James as well.
For those saying great players still put up avgs on Bruce...yes, true but they took double the attempts to accomplish. This means more possessions to get the same amount of individual pts for 1 player but less for the opposing team to score more than spurs in general.
This is where his value is under-rated.
This was the point I tried to make earlier, he made the others shoot more shots and a lower % than they usually do and made them work hard for their points! They scored but as you said less and on more attempts.
I agree with your points. Tim missed that one himself though it was not well guardedBattier I agree with you on though.
Don't buy into the media hype about Lebron he is not far better than Kobe in his prime by any means. He is great though and will be an all time great, but he is not that far ahead of Kobe in his prime.
Which other games? That 2007 postseason you mean? LeBron did significantly better against everyone else 'til the Finals that year. If you want me to post his stats from that postseason before the Finals and show you how much they dropped off I will. Just ask.
I already agreed that LeBron is better now than he was then.
You don't need to be super tall to guard LeBron. Half the time our guys were just sagging of him and daring him to shoot jumpers. Bowen didn't need to sag off to keep guys I front. In fact if LeBron ever gave up the ball odds were he wasn't getting it back either.
This. My fav player of all time...never gonna see another one like him imo. If Bowen had been on the floor in game 6 of the Finals, he'd have kicked Ray Allen in the face before the shot was taken
What? I said nothing about his height. I was referring to the two other games James shot under 35 percent outside the 07 Finals. Clearly he had other bad games.
And James isn't just better. He's on another level. He's much more efficient and can score from anywhere on the floor. Back then je was still learning how to hit threes, and he definitely wasn't the post player he is now. Bowen shut down the 2007 equivalent of Paul George (better than George, but a worse shooter). 2013 James is like Karl Malone with elite guard skills. It's not even close.
*drops mic*
It appears you've missed the point. LeBron shot at or under the AVERAGE percent he shot against Bowen in only 2 of 16 games. That's 12% of the time a team (or luck) managed to do what Bowen did on average for a whole series by himself on the biggest stage the NBA has to offer. Bron's stats were down across the board in every category. PPG, FG%, FTAs, APG, RPG, and way more turnovers.
We have already established that LeBron is better than he was twice now and I have also agreed with that obvious assessment twice now. We didn't need to rehash it a third time and we don't need to a 4th time either in case that's going to be 75% of your next reply too. We also ran three players at him, not just one.
Yes, we need to keep talking about it, because you keep missing the point. I said that Leonard defended James in the Finals as well as anyone could (including Bowen). You keep bringing up 07, which was an admirable job by Bowen. But those were two different Jameses, to the extent they aren't even comparable. Bringing up the difference between 07 and 13 James isn't to diminish Bowen's accomplishment. Rather it is to establish how much harder this assignment was than the first one.
So to take away the confusion, I believe having Bowen instead of Leonard during last year's Finals would not have yielded better defense on James. We can agree to disagree on that. I think it's even harder to argue that when you add in Leonard's rebounding and scoring that Bowen would have been an upgrade to Kawhi. But to each their own.
As for the rest of your post, I simply meant that James shooting under 35 percent against other teams shows there were other times his shot failed him during that run. That doesn't mean I think other teams had a defensive stoppers better than Bowen. I also feel that shows how big of a flaw James' outside shooting was back then. With an elite rim-protector like Late-Prime Duncan to take away drives, Bowen's job was a lot easier than you're implying.
I'm not going to try to compare anyone's merits, but don't forget all the rule changes that have changed the game. Eliminating hand checking and replacing the illegal defense rule each had a huge impact on how defense was played. I would say that hard defense was absolutely the right defense in the hand checking era, and the illegal defense rule (and the era of isolation plays that it led to) made it even more crucial to use every trick in the book to limit the efficiency of a star player you're defending. Likewise, putting Bowen out in the corner back then was far enough ahead of the curve in identifying the importance of "3 and D" players that he didn't really hurt the offense the way he would limit the current Spurs team.
I think the current era has much more compelling basketball, but Bowen was perfect for his era.
Its not, but keep hanging onto that re ation.
Sat on that gem for a whole day, did you?
I forget, how many championships have we won since Bruce was traded?
ZERO.
Defense wins championships. Bowen set the tone.
The fact that James is a better shooter now is not that relevant to Kawhi vs Bowen because Kawhi did not guard LeBron that much. We cycled Diaw and Green on him just as often. I remember seeing the stat of what LeBron shot when guarded by Leonard. It was in like game 5 or 6 and he didn't even have that many attempts on him. Green and Diaw guarded him more than Kawhi did.
Bowen did it by himself. The point is it's far less impressive when you're only doing it in VERY limited duty. Did Kawhi do a good job? Yes. He also rebounded and scored well. Was he more impressive defensively against James as Bowen was? no. He only guarded him like 25% of the time.
Limited duty vs soloing him for a whole series. You keep ignorning that fact.
And as for that "other teams managed it too", yes, only 12% of the time. At least one of which could just be a typical off shooting night. Other teams couldn't replicate it for a series or even more than one game.
Yeah this is just too stupid. Bowen was a great defender and a crucial part of the Spurs championships regardless of player X improvement since then. Also, it is quite possible that Kawhi Leonard is a very good defender AND that Bowen was a great defender.
Bowen was able to guard players 1-4 effectively. You can't say the same for KL and DG because they either lack the size or the quickness to guard all four spots.
The Spurs were the big 4 during the 03, 05 and 07 le runs. Bowen seldom missed games, but when he did, the Spurs didn't look the same. It's not surprise the defense fell off the cliff once Bowen lost a step. At the time, Pop and RC thought they were to replace Bowen with a SF that, while inferior on defense, has offensive game too. It was supoused to be RJ. But the experiment failed miserably. Btw, the only players that didn't have problems with Bowen's defense were Dirk and 'Melo. Dirk was too tall and 'Melo too quick and strong.
The Spurs returned to elite with the addition of Green, Kawhi and Diaw, since then the traditional Spurs defense recovered.
people saying bruce could guard power forwards. the only 4 bruce used to guard was dirk. and dirk used to on him on the reg.
example 06 west semi finals, dirk scored 27 pts per game on 52 percent shooting for the series.
Clearly you just don't get the value of good hard (dirty) defense.
example 06 west semi finals, dirk scored 27 pts per game on 52 percent shooting for the series.
Bowen = The Truth.
0 championships since he retired, tbh......
Never lost a step to my eyes...
I said this as well earlier on in this thread but still got some Bowen hate in here even though it was true! He was truly special at the game of defense! He could lock down 1-4 and that is VERY Rare in this game.Bowen guarded Dirk in that game 5 or 6 block in 06 though and even guarded him some in that series to some success! He could not guard him full time but in spots he could and won a game with a block in Dirk I remember. Melo never beat us in a series back with the Nugz and he even struggled as well in one of them if I remember correct when Ivy showed up (He failed to fully join Iverson), who guarded him then? I am sure Bowen played some D on Melo then too.
You forgot the Finals already. Kawhi guarded James the majority of the time. James just didn't shoot very much with Kawhi on him. Seriously, who else do you think Leonard was guarding? Diaw and Green guarded James when Kawhi was out, and Green picked him up in transition. But by no means should you assert Leonard was anything but the primary James defender.
Anyway, how disingenuous can you get? James didn't shoot well in the 07 playoffs at all. In fact, he shot 27 percent from three feet out to 16 feet, 34 percent on long twos and 28 percent from three. He shot under 40 percent in 11 of his 20 games. He shot under 37 percent in nine of those (only two of which came against Bowen).
Rather than having a superlative defensive series (going by FG% allowed versus that of other teams), Bruce had an awesome Game 1, a poor Game 2, a solid Game 3 and a strong Game 4. Nothing to sneeze at, but not too much better than the job the Nets did (held him under .400 in four of the six games) and Detroit (three of six). , he even shot a poor 37 percent twice against Washington. It's clear he was just a poor shooter who managed to get hot a couple of times.
Bowen deserves credit for iron-manning that series. But looking at the turnover numbers, it's clear he had plenty of help from his teammates protecting the rim, playing passing lanes, drawing charges and digging in. Even if 2007 was still the Iso Era, it took a village to stop James. The Spurs bigs deserve a lot more credit than you're giving them for clogging the paint and forcing James to shoot contested jump shots.
Last edited by Chinook; 03-30-2014 at 05:23 AM.
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