The Lebron '20 Thread (Pt. 5)

[MyUniBroDavis]

Also kuzmas defense was absolute fire today

Dions what we needed on offense, didnt watch him on D but he is lou williams bad

Bradleys defense on quick little guards is gonna be missed but that only applies against bledsoe and westbrook in terms of serious challenges since idt any other legit threatening team has a big threat like that

[homecourtloss]

Waiters was an absolute steal and plays really well off of unselfish, do everything to win, Caruso. We’ll see if it continues, but I think Bron can keep him in line. Best of all, without Rondo, the team can make runs without Bron on court.

Kuzma’s shot looks quicker and smoother...he could be a real difference maker if he keeps this up. Lakers are 23-2 this year when he makes 30%+ of his threes. He’s 8-43 from 3P in Laker losses in which he plays.

AD/Bron/Kuzma/Green/Caruso
AD/Bron/Green/Caruso/Waiters
AD/Bron/Kuzma/Green/Waiters

Lakers have lots of different lineups to matchup with any team and if they can beat the Clippers (minus Trez and LouWill though) with LeBron playing like **** offensively (and not getting any calls), they are looking really good.

[MyUniBroDavis]

I'm too lazy to do it but would be fun watch LEBron's FTr this season compared to let's say... the top 3 MVP candidates in each year since 1990. I'm gonna bet that if he's not last he's very close to it.

It's higher than PGs was last year and Curry's was in his two wins. Steve Nash's top 3 finishes as well.

% of shots at the rim
LeBron, 2019: 38.0%
LeBron, 2020: 36.6%
Nash, 2006: 23.3%
Curry, 2016: 22.5%
PG13, 2019: 21.1%
Nash, 2005: 20.1%
Curry, 2015: 18.5%

Curry and nash are less likely to try to draw contact (in the way lebron does to draw fouls) too vs drawing contact to dictate what happens in the air (initiating vs getting hacked, no one is like let me hack curry hes going for the layup lol)

Goerges ft rate last year was like 33% and lebrons this year is 29%, lebrons is lower now than it was his rookie year too

Id say lebron gets hacked more than anyone not named giannis so its pretty sus lol

[Homer38]

Really rare to see a LeBron team beat a very good team even if he struggle big time in scoring for most of the game....Good sign!

[MisterHibachi]

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[MisterHibachi]

Biggest takeaway of the night is the Lakers being good with LeBron on the bench.

[GSP]

21ppg on .471 ts against the Clippers this season now

Not sure what that means for a playoff series tho

[thebigbird]

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[PaulieWal]

21ppg on .471 ts against the Clippers this season now

Not sure what that means for a playoff series tho

And the Lakers still went 2-2

At this stage of his career I have faith in his offense to show up in the playoffs. His defense is just nuts against the Clippers the last two games.

[dcstanley]

Biggest takeaway of the night is the Lakers being good with LeBron on the bench.

Tbf that was against a depleted bench that had to rely on the likes of Amir Coffee and Joakim Noah but I think the bench can hold up fine in the early rounds without Rondo mucking things up.

[nzahir]

LAC shooting was already great tonight, how much better could a guy like Lou and Trez be for them? Also makes them worse on defense and we can head hunt Lou and even Trez

Lebron still gets no calls, really pathetic. Kawhi and AD get almost every whistle and Lebron can't even get obvious ones.

Loved how he put his head down and went to the hoop a few times near the end, need more of that.

When the playoffs start, can't have the passive and sluggish Lebron. I am hoping he is saving it for when it counts

[Homer38]

21ppg on .471 ts against the Clippers this season now

Not sure what that means for a playoff series tho

2 of his games were their first regular season game after over 4 months off.... LBJ always needs a few games before taking his rhythm.His team record in the first game of the season is not good.He will be fine and he will adjust,even if the clippers is a tough matchup for him.

[Homer38]

It was obvious that both teams were not at their best,who is very normal,but not matter what,this has the potentiel to be a close series with many close game if his 2 teams play each other in the playoffs.Maybe this series would be as good as the hype but they need to face each other in the playoffs to find out

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[limbo]

Got to admit that having no crowd, thus no genuine atmosphere, is really bugging me for now. Maybe i'll get used to it, but the whole vibe feels like a practice scrimmage... Long pauses of silence between commentary, the general emptiness of the arena, weird screens in the stantions etc.

I've watched a fair bit of football aka soccer in the last month and the lack of crowd didn't bother me nearly as much. Maybe because the pitch is so big it's easier to focus on the play and harder to notice the surroundings.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Lou and Harrell would help the clippers break down our defense probably, Harrell just complicates matchups because hes far too strong for kuz (davis and lebron eat him though) and lous just lou (but hes prolly the worse defender on both teams)

But the clippers prolly struggled to attack our defense more than we struggled to attack theirs, all things considered. Kawhi started slow but kind of went off, but he had trouble scoring on lebron and very suprisingly kuz too. George went off obv, but for the most part while they were sloppy id say alot of their turnovers were forced and they got bailed out by some bs threes.

Lebron was missing shots he normally hits and not getting whistles, and we had a bad night outside the arc, but we really dominated on the offensive boards and forced them into alot of mistakes, esp considering this seemed like a lebron tuneup game.

Lou and harrell might make it more annoying to defend them but it gives us ways to attack them on offense.

Kuz being able to guard kawhi is HUUUGE. Obv he cant lock him down and isnt better than bron in that regard but he prolly guarded him as well or better than anyone else including guys like green (who had a bad night on D overall). It allows Davis to guard George as well, and George kinda struggles with Davis on him because, well, its davis lmao.

Another thing about kuz, obv he said his jumper is better and i cant say if i believe it this time, but his passing looks WAAAY better

Dions apparently not a bad defender as well (vogels kinda just made everyone work on it at least, so players with the ability have been good defensively) so thatll be helpful too considering hes our best non lebron/davis iso
Option.

Atm their main avenues of attack in terms of creation are obv Kawhi/george/lou/harrell, and at the very least, lebron and davis can guard everyone except for lou, kuz can guard kawhi, green can KIND OF guard kawhi (in a way that he isnt torched), i assume kcp can guard lou to an extent, our big men can guard harrell, etc.

For effeciency wise, alot lebrons struggles are from his three ball not dropping (7/30 overall past 4 games against them). Other than that hes obv still less effecient but its not to a point where its hugely worrying esp since 2 of the games were tune up games

Hes kinda shown he can get mismatches whenever he wants, hes prolly the best at that, and there def are exploitable ones esp when a guy like lou appears, and they dont really have a way to counteract that overall since lebrons able to read their D pretty well and the team overall knows what to do even though their spacing is messed at times

Honestly the only teams that really have a are a threat againsg us are probably the bucks and the clippers. Obv with no hc advantage its kinda weird and upsets could happen, but i feel we matchup stupid well vs the rockets, (from the perspective of adjustments theres more stuff we could do to them than they could do to us), and the other teams are very meh tbh.

The bucks is kinda straightforward in we just have to run Davis at the 5 more since lebrons kinda shown he can create against then when the floor is spaced out if theyre smart about screening and whatnot, but obv a guy like giannis makes it hard, whereas the clippers is kinda complicated because we have to rely on davis alot more on offense and he really isnt as good of a creator or passer as he should be, but we can defend them pretty well

I will say pelicans Davis would have annihilated this clippers team but even though i like vogel i still dont know why they play Davis the way they do.

Also i dont want rondo back

The main thing on the clippers compared to the bucks matchup is the Davis at the 5 play doesnt work as well against the clippers because harrell abuses kuz, and it kinda sucks because Center davis is different breed. Tbf though if they run something like,
carsuo/green/kuz/lebron/davis i think that could work

[MyUniBroDavis]

Got to admit that having no crowd, thus no genuine atmosphere, is really bugging me for now. Maybe i'll get used to it, but the whole vibe feels like a practice scrimmage... Long pauses of silence between commentary, the general emptiness of the arena, weird screens in the stantions etc.

I've watched a fair bit of football aka soccer in the last month and the lack of crowd didn't bother me nearly as much. Maybe because the pitch is so big it's easier to focus on the play and harder to notice the surroundings.

I liked the shoe sounds and stuff but i dont like how they censored some stuff they were saying, and lack of playoff atmosphere is gonna be kinda annoying

[Homer38]

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[limbo]

I too enjoy 20 minute sample sizes...

When Waitress will get exposed deep in the PS against a fully engaged defense and Kuzma misses all those threes he's been hitting over people in the last two games, i'll be right here in this thread making everyone know about it.

[Homer38]

I too enjoy 20 minute sample sizes...

When Waitress will get exposed deep in the PS against a fully engaged defense and Kuzma misses all those threes he's been hitting over people in the last two games, i'll be right here in this thread making everyone know about it.

Never said that it will continue or not....But so far,so good.

[MyUniBroDavis]

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Lowkey, dion mightve been a better pickup than collision lol

Collision is a better player overall and probably would have been overall better on offense, even considering what im about to say, but what dion does well kind of fits perfectly with what we need and his weaknesses are then less apparent (hes not gonna hog it as much playing with bron and davis and we did need a spark plug guy able to playmake and create his own offense).

Otoh though i feel while collision wouldve been a defensive weakpoint dion, esp in his current role/enviornment, could be a solid defensive pickup (i mean hes good locked in apparently, and so far no one has had a problem of low effort imo)

Kuz's passing looked a bit smarter and apparently his shot changed but his defense was wilddddd. If he can continue like this, a caruso/green/kuzma/bron/AD lineup could wild.