Doctor MJ wrote:70sFan wrote:James has one of his finest finals games in whole career and that says a lot. Ironically, he lost this game just like game 1 of 2018 finals.
Butler is amazing, I don't care about RS at this point - he has to be included in top 5. He's been killing Lakers defense and he's amazing defensively. He proved that he needed one game adjustment against Davis coverage.
Duncan Robinson had also outstanding game, very Reggie-esque. I hope to see more games like that from him in that series. Bam has been bad on offense, but it looks like he's not himself. Game 6 will be a must-watch.
Butler is playing at an astonishing level right now. I know LeBron scored more points tonight, but toward the end it just felt like Butler was dominating both ends of the floor. He made so many quick, little plays all over the court, and on offense he seemed like he had everything figured out.
At this point it feels to me like the times when Butler wasn't volume scoring before was just him working within a team context rather than him letting his team down in any way.
I'm pretty sure he'll be in my top 5, and the question is just how high he can go from there.
Rewatching the 4th I didn't see that. I think LeBron was producing more value start-to-finish in the 4th.
For much of the 4th Butler wasn't getting his team many good looks. The first great look he helped his team get wasn't until there were fewer than 4 minutes left when Robinson hit a three to put the Heat up by 1. Rewatch that possession and you'll see Caruso essentially plays for the Heat on that possession as he literally screens KCP into oblivion. Butler made the simple pass but didn't have much to do with Robinson getting open. Down the court LeBron draws extra defenders and hits KCP for a wide open corner three that misses. This is how the cards fell for the Lakers in the 4th. They consistently got good looks from LeBron but failed to convert. Meanwhile Butler played well but had far less responsibility for the Heat's success on offense. Overall the Lakers had much higher shot quality than the Heat and shot well below expectation.
Defensively Butler played well but I wouldn't call his play dominant. To me that suggest he was denying some crucial advantage to the Lakers. As mentioned, the Lakers got their good looks, and these looks win them the game more often than not. I thought the Heat chose their poison and got a bit lucky. If the Heat had unleashed some strategy which denied both the paint and the wide open threes, and if Butler had been a centerpiece in that strategy, I could understand calling his defense dominant. But that never happened.
What happened is Butler served as a primary LeBron defender that, with some help from teammates, redirected some of the Lakers offense from the paint to the three point line. Credit to Butler for being a good enough defender to allow for this strategy, clearly this would be much harder to execute if Butler were a lesser defender, but the Lakers' shooters were so wide open and so in their preferred spots that it's hard for me not to see this as a gamble that simply paid off. The Lakers rolled snake eyes in the 4th and that had to happen for the Heat to win.
Regarding LeBron's own defensive play, he obviously had a different role than Butler, but I think he was similarly a clear positive but not a dominating force. His show-and-recover while defending the screener was sharp all game and he pulled down a couple solidly contested rebounds in the 4th. To me the difference in defense, if it is in favor of Butler, is a lot less than the advantage LeBron has on offense which I thought was quite significant.
I think it boils down to (1) the Lakers outscored the Heat in the 4th (2) how much the Lakers outscored the Heat by doesn't reflect the difference in shot quality, and on average, I'm guessing the Lakers outscore the Heat by 4-5 points more than they actually did (3) LeBron was
much more responsible for the Lakers' shot quality than Butler was for the Heat's (4) I don't think there's much defensive gap either way. The picture I see painted is of LeBron being the better, more impactful player. But I'm happy to consider why that might not be the case.
