VanWest82 wrote:ShotCreator wrote:Let’s start with this:
Again, for the record, I am absolutely not trying to disparage Lebron's fantastic 2016 Finals. He's a top 3 player ever who was performing at the height of his basketball abilities.
That said, the problem I have with a lot of what you quoted is context. As far as I'm concerned game 5 is basically a write off because Warriors were missing their PG due to suspension which meant they had to rely on Iggy to be the man along with a compromised Curry who had to do more ball handling on a bum knee than he was capable of. Game 6 Lebron was terrific. Game 7 he defended 8 total shots. If we look at games 6 and 7 added together he defended 19 shots but 10 of them were threes which as we know are largely determined by luck from defensive POV. The idea that Lebron has some special three point defense super power that's absent from the reigning DPOY who's longer and more menacing is just straight BS so don't even go there.
Further, I would strongly push back on the idea that Lebron was the main driver of their defensive success. Look a little closer and you can see that Tristan Thompson was the true anchor. If we look at all 7 games Tristan has the best DRTG of 100 (Lebron was 104). When they shared the court Lebron's DRTG was 95 but when Tristan sat it ballooned to 121. Tristan's DRTG was ugly w/out Lebron but the SS was only 12 mins of garbage time so hard to take anything away there. This holds up over the final 3 games too (93 DRTG w TT < 108 DRTG w/out TT). And again, Tristan defended way more shots. Per 36, TT's DFGAs over the series were 15.6 to 9.5 for James. Tristan also managed to rebound at a similar level to James (21% to 24% DRBD%) despite taking the tougher defensive assignments. Shump, RJ, and JR spent the most time on Steph and Klay while Lebron rested on Iggy or Draymond.
We can actually do a similar analysis offensively with Kyrie who never gets any credit for that series. Lebron 112 ORTG w Kyrie, 81 ORTG w/out Kyrie over the series (drops to 64 ORTG w/out Kyrie over final 3 games).And then build an argument around Giannis having a better defensive game last night than any of LeBron’s in G5-G7 of the 16 finals.
Let's start here: Giannis defended 22 shots in game 7 and had 5 blocks despite going for 50. That's yeoman's work. Again, Lebron defended 11 shots in game 6 and 8 in game 7. Like, it's not even comparable.
This is bad faith nonsense. This is my genuine observation on a series I’ve thought about for years versus a guys bad assumption on top of assumptions to make up for it.
Can you link those WOWY stats? They may well be true, but you said Giannis defended 22 shots last night.
He went 9/19.
And saying things like LeBron “rested” on the screen setter to deadliest play in basketball, is again bad faith nonsense.
While the wings chased Curry/Klay. So where does Thompson’s chance to take on “tougher assignments” come in?
Again, this is just the post of a guy trying to win an argument as opposed to explain a point of view.
And am I supposed to assume Kyrie had a better offensive series than LeBron because of those questionable and incomplete WOWY stats?
If not, then why would I assume Thompson > LeBron defensively?
And I want to make clear I believe LeBron’s shot DETERRENCE and help defensive awareness - things that don’t come close to being fully tracked by a box score or defense shots defended, are easily why he was a rare level of dominant defensively, to me.
Shot defended stats just show the extremeness and completeness of his dominance. But I believe what I believe because of literally every aspect of the series.
The competition, the scheme(based on him), the visible help defense in those last games, and the stats.
There’s no objective or logical way to conclude he did not have an amazing defensive stretch looking at all that.
