Did Lebron not resting in the second half of most of his games in the the 2011 playoffs cause his choke vs Dallas.

[coastalmarker99]

Lebron played 23 games in the 2011 playoffs…and he didn’t rest in the 2nd half in 14 of them.

BTW the second guy who this happened to the most in the past 26 years.

Rose went 3-17 in the 4th in 2001 in the Finals.


Oh, so what nobody thinks this matters.

Lebron clearly got into his own head and choked that's the story plain and simple.

Well, no.

After 2013, once on-court data was available and started getting tracked by all front offices, the phenomenon of not resting in the second half all but disappeared in the playoffs.


Oh, so what.

Lebron played more minutes in other years.”

Yup, but not like this.

Over half of his games in the playoffs, he didn’t sit in the second half.

It matched the entire list of times he did it from 2015-2018.

2011 was different as It never happened again.

furthermore

Lebron as Wilt did in the 1969 finals with West.

Clearly pulled back to give Wade more shots.

15 shots per game vs 19 in the regular season.

There was no issue with this strategy.

The Heat when Lebron:
Took 11-15 shots: 18-1
Scored 19 or less: 10-2
Scored 20 or less: 16-4

The Mavs Death Lineup and Lebron's dead legs late in games to go along with the Heat's terrible depth were the main issues in that series.

[coastalmarker99]

The 2011 Mavericks had a Death Lineup.

Dirk
Kidd
Marion
Chandler
Terry

Laugh all you want.

It was +20 in the regular season (even a version with Stevenson), the same as the Bulls in 97 with MJ, Pippen, Rodman, Kukoc and Harper.

Great, you say. How’d they do in the playoffs?

Funny you should ask as they did better.

It’s the greatest 5 man lineup in the last 26 years of playoffs.

Oh, you’ll say…well it’s just light minutes…


Except…the Mavs also show up all over the best 2 man, 3 man and 4 man lineups in the last 26 years. More minutes.

Also…it’s against:

48 win Blazers
55 win OKC
57 win Lakers (2X champs)
58 win Heat

Lebron, Wade, Bosh, Kobe, Durant, Westbrook, Gasol, Harden…all time talent.

So what…the other lineups didn’t win!”

Yeah, you see more than one 5 man lineup in a series. In response…

One, go grab those other lineups and see what they did. The Wizards were +59 vs Boston.

Two, nobody is close to the Mavs as They’re were lapping everyone and were way ahead

So, why does this matter? Well…as the playoffs progressed, this was their closing lineup. And this is who beat the Heat.

When the Death Lineup entered in the 4th, the Heat were ahead in five of the six games:

Game 1: +5
Game 2: +17
Game 3: +7
Game 4: +7
Game 5: +3
Game 6: -8


You can criticize the Heat…but there were no issues, a 5-1 series win, until this lineup showed up.

So this lineup, the greatest in 26 years, was who Lebron and team had to beat at the end of the 4th to win a title.

It’s actually a huge hurdle.

Here’s what it did versus other teams:

Portland
39 minutes, plus 31
6 point 4th quarter comeback in last 5 min, game 1
+4 in a one poss. game in the 4th, gm 6 (+15 in 3rd)

Lakers
21 minutes, +10
5 point comeback with 5 to go, game 1 (+7)
Erased 7pt lead in 3rd, game 3 in 3 min


OKC:
33 minutes, +37
+10 in 4 minutes in the 2nd quarter, game 1
+22 in the last 5 minutes in the 4th and OT in game 4. 15 point comeback.
+9 in the last 4 minutes of game 5. 5 point comeback.

12 wins, four 4th quarter comebacks by then.

8-1 in the CSF and CF. Elite air.


Oh, you say. So what. I bet the opponent stars were good and the rest of their teams were terrible.

How’d stars do vs the Death Lineup itself?

Durant: 3-15
Westbrook: 3-18
Harden:1-2
Kobe: 5-11
Gasol: 0-4

12-50

Kobe went for 23, 17 and 17 the last 3 games, BTW

Lebron? 4-14

Versus the Heat?
67 minutes, +57
17 point comeback in the last 7 minutes, game 2
7 point comeback last 8:43, game 4
3 point comeback last 4:23 in game 5

Lebron: 4-14
Wade: 8-17
Bosh: 2-11

Death lineup: 7 4th quarter comebacks in 16 wins.

And the Heat saw the most minutes.

This lineup also shut down the other players:

Lakers: 6-16
OKC: 8-17
Heat: 2-9

All combined, the Lakers, OKC and Heat were 57-172 (32%).

This Mavs lineup was much better than advertised, and it was the difference.

2 HoF, 1 will be, the next year’s DPOY, top 10 6th man ever.

So what? “They were still old.”

Kidd: 10th in DBPM, 6th in steals, 6th in assists, 22nd in VORP, 27th in BPM

Chandler: 3rd in DPOY

Terry: 2nd on team in MP and scoring

Dirk: was peak Dirk.

Smart teammates who shut down players more and more as series went on.

[coastalmarker99]

Therefore the Mavs winning in 2011 was a logical conclusion as


3 factors came together that nobody discusses.

1) The Mavs had a Death Lineup
2) Lebron played a more difficult minutes structure than anyone in 26 years and was worn out.
3( The Heat had insanely bad depth and a lack of outside shooting.

[Doctor MJ]

Therefore the Mavs winning in 2011 was a logical conclusion as


3 factors came together that nobody discusses.

1) The Mavs had a Death Lineup
2) Lebron played a more difficult minutes structure than anyone in 26 years and was worn out.
3( The Heat had insanely bad depth and a lack of outside shooting.

I'm with you on 1 & 3, and 2 may be true as well, but I saw LeBron's indecision when faced with the Mavs' D focused on disrupting him. He wasn't sure how best to attack it, and that was a key part of his ineffectiveness.

[Colbinii]

LeBron's issue in the 2011 Finals was that he didn't know how to best optimize himself offensively in the series. This led to LeBron not actually playing basketball and instead, spending crucial seconds thinking about how to attack, which led to his ineffectiveness and why he appeared to be passive.

[No-more-rings]

Simple answer, no that wasn’t it.

[magicman1978]

LeBron plays a very cerebral game - he usually has a way to figure out the defense and attack it, but due to him still trying to figure out how to play alongside Wade and solving the Mavs defense, it seems like he just didn't know what he needed to do and became way too passive.

The Mavs deserve credit for winning, but if LeBron even played close to his normal level, the Heat would have won (looking at his 4th quarter performances).
- Game 2, they were up 15 in the 4th with 6 minutes left but lost by 2 (LeBron was 0-4 with 2pts and 1 TO).
- Game 3, won by 2 but LeBron was 1-3 with 2pts and 2TO.
- Game 4, up 9 in the 4th, but lost by 3 (LeBron was 0-1 0pts with 2 TOs).
- Game 5, had the lead in the 4th with 3 minutes left, lost by 9 (LeBron was 1-4 with 2pts, and 1 TO)
- Game 6, was within 4pts at the 10 minute mark, lost by 10 (LeBron was 3-5 with 7pts with 1 TO)

So in games 2-5, LeBron was 2-12 with 6pts and 6 turnovers in the 4th - its tough to say that's due from being worn out. I think it's more what Doc and Colbini mentioned - his indecisiveness and passiveness.

[CharityStripe34]

I distinctly remember him struggling to figure out that he should've been a bit more off-ball and played through the post. Once he figured out that aspect of the game, things opened up way more and you couldn't get situations with much smaller guys defending him in open space. He just lacked decisiveness.

[Cavsfansince84]

I distinctly remember him struggling to figure out that he should've been a bit more off-ball and played through the post. Once he figured out that aspect of the game, things opened up way more and you couldn't get situations with much smaller guys defending him in open space. He just lacked decisiveness.

Part of all of that is also coaching. Players don't just go off by themselves and figure all of this stuff out. In 2011 the coaches hadn't figured it all out yet either. They were still under the impression that LeBron+Wade+Bosh by itself was enough.

[Cavsfansince84]

Good effort in the op to show just how good those Mavs could be. Even if people want to disagree with the overall assertions made everything mentioned is still part of the overall context of what happened in 2011 which helps to understand what we saw. I think one of the main takeaways though is that people do still underrate that Mavs team in general because so many people are conditioned to see star power as >>> cohesion.

[tone wone]

Ultimately, Miami was a very weak half court team who viewed themselves with a defense 1st-offense 2nd mindset. They grinded out wins against the 2 best defensive teams in the league in Boston and Chicago. But those series both ending in 5 overrated how well Miami actually played. Against Chicago in particular, their offense just died...

111.7 offrtg in the regular season
109.1 vs. Boston
103.2 vs. Chicago

They just flat-lined against the Bulls. Benching James Jones (their best shooter) in favor of Haslem may have helped against Chicago's aggressive off rebounding but it killed their spacing and immediately Wade struggled (18ppg .49ts in ECF) then Lebron struggled.

Interestingly, Miami was able to drag the Mavs down into the mud too. Outside of game 5, that series too was an ugly defensive slugfest. From Miami's perspective, the difference in the two series was Bosh. He was on fire against Chicago and honestly bailed out a bunch of dead possessions with his shooting but started the Finals ice cold on the same exact shots...

ECF
23ppg 67ts% on 23.8usg%

FINALS
18ppg 49ts% on 25usg%

So Wade stinks it up against Chicago and Lebron and Bosh struggle against Dallas. It's just astonishing that the public spent that entire season critiquing and doubting just about everything about that team; especially their offense. Then the playoffs role around and their offense doesn't hold up AT ALL with their 3 stars all having individual struggles and instead of focusing on what was so CLEARLY a tactical failure even after all these years we still get people calling Lebron a choker.

[Ein Sof]

Excellent thread, beautiful points being made.

There was significant sabotage going on, in addition to the 2011 Mavericks being greater than anyone gives them credit for. Certainly, far greater than Kobe and MJ fanboys give them credit for...

[capfan33]

The increased weight along with having to play a grueling number of games+minutes was 100% a factor, but I think it was mostly his lack of half-court driving ability along with what others have said. He has a cerebral approach to the game, the Mavericks took advantage of his limitations and he started overthinking how to play.

I'm sure as this happened the mental pressure of the situation started to become a major factor which is fair to label as "choking", but I generally think that "choking" and "clutch" are vague, reductionist concepts that are extremely difficult to even find concrete evidence of much less attribute an entire underperformance to. There are almost always multiple factors when something out of the ordinary happens.