The Lebron '20 Thread (Pt. 5)

[Dupp]

To be honest I actually feel better about the Clippers matchup than I do the Rockets matchup. For the most part I like how the team matches up against LAC especially when LeBron takes on defending Kawhi. Harden presents major issues, they take and make a lot more threes, and their 5 out lineup gets Davis away from the rim o.n defense, not to mention if Vogel is stubborn and keeps starting McGee they'll take advantage of that. Westbrook destroyed the Lakers during the season as well.

I’ve been high on the rockets all season and really thought the LA team that avoids them has a huge advantage. It’s gonna be a really tough series and AD will need his big boy pants on.

[MisterHibachi]

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[homecourtloss]

Caruso:

Game 1: +12
Game 2: +11
Game 3: +10

He looked very good out there creating offense. He’s also been contesting all playoffs, all bubble, all year round.

Kuzma:

Game 1: +5
Game 2: +16
Game 3: +6

Kuzma has been one of the Lakers best defenders in the bubble

[homecourtloss]

Thoughts on Rondo returning to guard Westbrook or CP3?

Rondo has been one of the league’s worst defenders over the last seasons. He cannot guard anyone let alone those two.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Thoughts on Rondo returning to guard Westbrook or CP3?

Rondo has been one of the league’s worst defenders over the last seasons. He cannot guard anyone let alone those two.

Playoff rondo plot twist

[MyUniBroDavis]

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Im pretty sure its been first since the new year and def since the bubble started, they sucked during the first half of the year

Theyre D also works pretty well against outs even through they suck on D, whitesides strengths really work against us

[GSP]

Dame Time doesn't exist without ref help tbh. This is the second time he's gotten locked up in the 4th once Lakers started stepping up on screens. Dude has no recourse to redirect his game off-ball like Steph does. That Lakers defense is tufff tho. They're wearing down the Blazers mentally and physically.

Not like we havent seen Steph locked up in multiple 4th quarters and even games (Grizz, Cavs, Thunder, Rockets, Raptors) in the playoffs. Steph is alot better offball but weve seen similar ball denials have alot of effect on him forcing up bad shots, toplocking having him throw up wild floaters, and while he did some work cutting backdoor Dame doesnt have the playmakers around him like Iggy or Draymond. Hes much less assisted at the rim (9% of his baskets at the rim have been assisted this season). While weve seen Caruso have alot of success on on and offball screens against Dame, we saw a very similar thing with Fvv against Steph, and even Dellavedova in the past. Switching in general has given Steph alot more issues since its been embraced league wide as the default pickandroll defending strat too. Back in 2015/16 only a handful of teams were really using it for most of their coverage and Steph offball when he slips screen is much more human. Too bad he got hurt this season so we couldve seen him without Kd and Iggy/Klay

Dame also doesnt have one of the Goat short roll passing bigs in Draymond when they level the screen or trap. Nurk cant do anything in those 4on3 situations specially compared to Draymond whos also one of the best playmaking bigs out there. Even slipping them hes not a threat to really do anything. Hes thrown up awkward shots at the rim, isnt a great passer and is very indecisive

Steph is clearly better but its not a large gap at all and hes in a much better situation personnel and coaching wise

[freethedevil]

Dame Time doesn't exist without ref help tbh. This is the second time he's gotten locked up in the 4th once Lakers started stepping up on screens. Dude has no recourse to redirect his game off-ball like Steph does. That Lakers defense is tufff tho. They're wearing down the Blazers mentally and physically.

Not like we havent seen Steph locked up in multiple 4th quarters and even games (Grizz, Cavs, Thunder, Rockets, Raptors) in the playoffs. Steph is alot better offball but weve seen similar ball denials have alot of effect on him forcing up bad shots, toplocking having him throw up wild floaters, and while he did some work cutting backdoor Dame doesnt have the playmakers around him like Iggy or Draymond. Hes much less assisted at the rim (9% of his baskets at the rim have been assisted this season). While weve seen Caruso have alot of success on on and offball screens against Dame, we saw a very similar thing with Fvv against Steph, and even Dellavedova in the past. Switching in general has given Steph alot more issues since its been embraced league wide as the default pickandroll defending strat too. Back in 2015/16 only a handful of teams were really using it for most of their coverage and Steph offball when he slips screen is much more human. Too bad he got hurt this season so we couldve seen him without Kd and Iggy/Klay

Well we see saw steph in 2013-4 in the circumstances you're asking for, and he had a much better season than any of lillard's.

[nzahir]

Why is JR playing minutes?

Cant play on both ends

At least Dion can play offense. Cook is a better scorer/shooter too

[Joey Wheeler]

I think the Rockets series will be the de facto Finals for the Lakers, don't see any other team who has anything for them. Rockets, however, Harden/Westbrook two-headed monster with 3s raining down from everywhere, they are a menace... the Lakers lack of shooting could really catch up to them in that series.

[GSP]

I think the Rockets series will be the de facto Finals for the Lakers, don't see any other team who has anything for them. Rockets, however, Harden/Westbrook two-headed monster with 3s raining down from everywhere, they are a menace... the Lakers lack of shooting could really catch up to them in that series.

Im not writing out Okc yet.

Steven Adams was getting targetted alot but Danilo at the 5 causes them alot of issues. With Adams injury theyll prolly go to it more

I think Russ is returning next game but Okc will have an easier time defending in the halfcourt with him IMO and Houstons switching has been great so far but Russ is gonna make it worse

[Joey Wheeler]

I think the Rockets series will be the de facto Finals for the Lakers, don't see any other team who has anything for them. Rockets, however, Harden/Westbrook two-headed monster with 3s raining down from everywhere, they are a menace... the Lakers lack of shooting could really catch up to them in that series.

Im not writing out Okc yet.

Steven Adams was getting targetted alot but Danilo at the 5 causes them alot of issues. With Adams injury theyll prolly go to it more

I think Russ is returning next game but Okc will have an easier time defending in the halfcourt with him IMO and Houstons switching has been great so far but Russ is gonna make it worse

I'm not completely writing out OKC either actually, though with Westbrook back Houston shouldn't have many issues. But if it's OKC making it out of that series, it'll be an easy sweep for the Lakers. OKC are even less threatening than Portland, so there's not much point speculating about that series.

[Slava]

Davis catch and shoot jumpers out of the PnR are so much better than Davis ISO jumpers.

He's criminally mis-utilized when he is asked to create offense from a stand still. AD is a player who is far more competent when he receives the ball on his heels rather than from post ups or face up situations, which is what Vogel has been asking him to do to pull offense in LeBron less line ups.

This is one area where Rondo coming back with his pick and roll chemistry with Davis is going to help a lot.

[limbo]

Watching how Caruso ran the offense w/o LeBron, particularly in the 4th quarter with Davis, makes me think how much better the Lakers would've been in the RS if they did that instead of playing Rondo...

[Slava]

For all the plaudits Vogel is getting for the defense, he also needs to shoulder the blame for not creating an offensive identity in LeBron less line ups when he's had an entire season to do so. I think the Lakers need to basically play run the Kings when LeBron is not out there.

Anyways, nice to see LeBron finally look to get his shots. The turnovers were ugly but a step at a time.

[Dupp]

Lebron a Minute away from moving up to second all time playoff 3s made

[Homer38]

The Lakers are going to be very hard to beat if they just hit 30% of their three points since they are very good in almost every other facet(like defense,rebounding,FG% and etc), outside of the free throw shooting

If they gets hot in 3 points like in game 2(14-38)this is game over but we have to be realistic!

[Heej]

Dame Time doesn't exist without ref help tbh. This is the second time he's gotten locked up in the 4th once Lakers started stepping up on screens. Dude has no recourse to redirect his game off-ball like Steph does. That Lakers defense is tufff tho. They're wearing down the Blazers mentally and physically.

Not like we havent seen Steph locked up in multiple 4th quarters and even games (Grizz, Cavs, Thunder, Rockets, Raptors) in the playoffs. Steph is alot better offball but weve seen similar ball denials have alot of effect on him forcing up bad shots, toplocking having him throw up wild floaters, and while he did some work cutting backdoor Dame doesnt have the playmakers around him like Iggy or Draymond. Hes much less assisted at the rim (9% of his baskets at the rim have been assisted this season). While weve seen Caruso have alot of success on on and offball screens against Dame, we saw a very similar thing with Fvv against Steph, and even Dellavedova in the past. Switching in general has given Steph alot more issues since its been embraced league wide as the default pickandroll defending strat too. Back in 2015/16 only a handful of teams were really using it for most of their coverage and Steph offball when he slips screen is much more human. Too bad he got hurt this season so we couldve seen him without Kd and Iggy/Klay

Dame also doesnt have one of the Goat short roll passing bigs in Draymond when they level the screen or trap. Nurk cant do anything in those 4on3 situations specially compared to Draymond whos also one of the best playmaking bigs out there. Even slipping them hes not a threat to really do anything. Hes thrown up awkward shots at the rim, isnt a great passer and is very indecisive

Steph is clearly better but its not a large gap at all and hes in a much better situation personnel and coaching wise

As a Lebron fan, trust me I'm well aware of Steph's shortcomings at times which is typical of the small guards archetype in general. But Steph getting locked up and Dame getting locked up is 2 completely different worlds. Dame literally disappears from the screen for minutes at a time then resurfaces for a random 3 or baby foul call every now and then.

When Steph is getting locked up there's not a single moment you're unaware of his presence on the court because his motor and activity level is in another stratosphere compared to Dame's. Because this man is still causing havoc against defenses that are completely tilted to him even when someone else has the ball. When CJ McCollum has the ball there's not a single time when you're even thinking about Dame, when KD had the ball the entire Cavs defense was still shifting over to Steph at times and allowing wide open shots for KD just to prevent a Steph 3.

We're talking about players on 2 completely different stratospheres of play. Motor, IQ, and size are 3 of the top attributes that define a basketball player and Steph handily has Dame beat in all 3. Steph if you strip him down to straight off the ball is literally still an all-star level player, Dame if you looked at him strictly off the ball is basically Evan Fournier lmao. Esp in the bubble where they hardly run any of Stotts' motion offense for Dame. These two are not comparable anymore imo. Only thing keeping Steph and Dame close is all the soft fouls the refs are gifting this man.

I will say though that not having a Draymond type dude to punish the 4 on 3s is a major setback but realistically he could just run pnr with Melo cuz LeBron just hedged vs Dame after Dame made him do the whirly bird when he tried to cram it on AD. He could realistically just attack LeBron all game but he's too scared to do that *shrugs*

[RCM88x]

If Vogel deserves credit for anything it's managing LeBron's minutes. Only 34 mpg in the playoffs so far. Unfortunately this is probably the only time where managing minutes doesn't really make a big difference due to the layoff.

[KTM_2813]

People here were pretty hard on LeBron last night, myself included, so I wanted to try and put things in perspective:

His GameScore of 30.2 was higher than all of his GameScores from the 2013 playoffs except two and higher than all of his GameScores from the 2016 playoffs except three. In other words, his statistical output from yesterday (even factoring in turnovers) would have stood out even during his most memorable postseason runs.

I'm not saying that he was perfect, and I'm not saying that GameScore is the end-all be-all. But, Jesus Christ, we're all a bit hard on him sometimes. It's not like every one of his playoff games pre-2020 was Game 6 of the 2016 Finals.