The Lebron '20 Thread (Pt. 7)

[Run DLC]

LeBron showed up at the end, but it was too little too late. He did his part with his rebounding. Overall the Lakers couldn’t knock down their open 3’s and got out rebounded, and simply got outplayed.

[Pelly24]

Also Jokic is just amazing. It's just incredibly difficult to take this guy out of games. His level of skill is astounding.

[dreamshake]

LeBron had more rebounds than AD/Dwight/JaVale/Morris combined and the Lakers couldn't buy a 3 pointer. There will be some regression to the mean there. I'm still feeling ok about this series.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Murray is gonna be better than Dame and Kyrie. He might reach 95% of Steph and that's insane to think next to Joker. I think this Nuggets team might be the dynasty of the 20s unless Luka has something to say about it.

I think youre overrating Murray TBH.

He benefits alot playing next to Jokics screening, gravity and passing. Hes a great pick and roll guard but he eats off the Jokic Dhos.

Put guards like Dame, Booker, Beal, Kyrie etc. next to Jokic and theyd look alot better too

Nah, its not that.

Its a combination of the two, yes murray benefits feom having a guy he can pass to if they hard hedge or blitz, but jokic benefits from the fact that they have a guard that the defence cant leave open for a second. Hes better at stringing along these pick and rolls than dame or kyrie are as well, to force these coverages into beinf switches

In twrms of ability to handle the oick and roll as a guard the combination of his off the dribble shooting and IQ put him above everyone except curry

If murray was on the blazers ge wouldnt be as effective doinf this, but the same goes for jokic if he was on a team without a pick and roll ball handler like that

Its a two way street

[Mos_Heat]

LeBron man. For me the question about this whole team has been about whether LeBron can still be an elite bucket getter/scorer. He's getting a lot of points on ridiculous efficiency, but they are buckets that kind of come easily or they don't come. There are times over this year where it's been like, "Ok, now LeBron needs to go off for like 20 points or something." But it seems like he simply can't do it. He's 35 now so it's whatever, the fact that he's been so good for this long is amazing. Lakers are still holding the advantage, but if LeBron can't deliver that barrage of points in pivotal moments it will be night night, because Jokic—and Murray—absolutely can. AD got the Lakers two games so far, now LeBron has to grab a couple and more.

There were times when it was stagnant but he was great in the fourth

He was good but like three of those buckets came in transition. But in halfcourt offense, geez he's got almost no answers now if he can't physically overpower guys. It's disappointing, I thought at this point he'd be rock-solid.

I agree, but for most of the time they have one shooter on the court

[trickshot]

From halftime of game 2 the Lakers went a bit overboard with the AD postups. Don't think I've seen so many possessions where no one else touched the ball and it showed, dog tired in the 4th despite not even being a rebounding presence all game

[GSP]

Murray is gonna be better than Dame and Kyrie. He might reach 95% of Steph and that's insane to think next to Joker. I think this Nuggets team might be the dynasty of the 20s unless Luka has something to say about it.

I think youre overrating Murray TBH.

He benefits alot playing next to Jokics screening, gravity and passing. Hes a great pick and roll guard but he eats off the Jokic Dhos.

Put guards like Dame, Booker, Beal, Kyrie etc. next to Jokic and theyd look alot better too

Nah, its not that.

Its a combination of the two, yes murray benefits feom having a guy he can pass to if they hard hedge or blitz, but jokic benefits from the fact that they have a guard that the defence cant leave open for a second. Hes better at stringing along these pick and rolls than dame or kyrie are as well, to force these coverages into beinf switches

In twrms of ability to handle the oick and roll as a guard the combination of his off the dribble shooting and IQ put him above everyone except curry

If murray was on the blazers ge wouldnt be as effective doinf this, but the same goes for jokic if he was on a team without a pick and roll ball handler like that

Its a two way street

Jokic benefits from Murray too but there are alot more guards that can do what Murray does compared to the other way around. Theres no big in the league close to Jokic or maybe ever

Beal, Mitchell, Kyrie, Booker, Dame etc. would all perform better than Murray in his role.

Dame is a flatout better pick and roll player than Murray. He averaged 1.15pp as the ball handler in pick and roll this season with Hassan Whiteside as his big and a bunch of corpses and injured players

[Mos_Heat]

LeBron had more rebounds than AD/Dwight/JaVale/Morris combined and the Lakers couldn't buy a 3 pointer. There will be some regression to the mean there. I'm still feeling ok about this series.

IDK, once Denver cleaned easy lobs and transition, Lakers offense looks abysmal. I think Nuggets will win at least one game

[trickshot]

Was that the 10th straight game Mcgee tanked the team when he was on?

[dreamshake]

Was that the 10th straight game Mcgee tanked the team when he was on?

I mean I don't like his minutes either, but he only played 8 minutes and he was a +2. He wasn't the problem tonight.

[trickshot]

Was that the 10th straight game Mcgee tanked the team when he was on?

I mean I don't like his minutes either, but he only played 8 minutes and he was a +2. He wasn't the problem tonight.

No single person was THE problem but Mcgee's positive plus minus is the reason that stat should never be taken seriously. It's entirely dependent on factors like who you play with. I reckon I'd have a positive plus minus playing all my minutes with Bron and AD. Pretty sure a board or 2 might even fall my way

[MyUniBroDavis]

I think youre overrating Murray TBH.

He benefits alot playing next to Jokics screening, gravity and passing. Hes a great pick and roll guard but he eats off the Jokic Dhos.

Put guards like Dame, Booker, Beal, Kyrie etc. next to Jokic and theyd look alot better too

Nah, its not that.

Its a combination of the two, yes murray benefits feom having a guy he can pass to if they hard hedge or blitz, but jokic benefits from the fact that they have a guard that the defence cant leave open for a second. Hes better at stringing along these pick and rolls than dame or kyrie are as well, to force these coverages into beinf switches

In twrms of ability to handle the oick and roll as a guard the combination of his off the dribble shooting and IQ put him above everyone except curry

If murray was on the blazers ge wouldnt be as effective doinf this, but the same goes for jokic if he was on a team without a pick and roll ball handler like that

Its a two way street

Jokic benefits from Murray too but there are alot more guards that can do what Murray does compared to the other way around. Theres no big in the league close to Jokic or maybe ever

Beal, Mitchell, Kyrie, Booker, Dame etc. would all perform better than Murray in his role.

Dame is a flatout better pick and roll player than Murray. He averaged 1.15pp as the ball handler in pick and roll this season with Hassan Whiteside as his big and a bunch of corpses and injured players

None of those guys are better at doing this than what murray is doing in the playoffs. Dame specifically, we literally see the difference in how they operate off the pick and roll.

Dame is probably more effective under srop coverages because his off the dribble shooting is better than murray, and murray isnt great at getting to the rim

Essentially for the pick and roll with jokic, you need a gurd you cant drop or leave open, that knows how to run it to force the switch and find the big man

So far, murrays done this PERFECTLY. Like dame made a bunch of bad decisions, and hes never shown he can string it along like murray has done this playoffs

Now the equalizer is normally murray is shooting 34% from three, but now hes lillard from three, and his threes are of the ridiculous type too.

In terms of JUST these playoffs, murray has executed the murray and jokic pick and roll better than anyone could have except curry himself.

The thing is the entire thing is based on murrays execution. Jokics role in the pick and roll in terms of getting switches, is quite literally only to be a big that they cant allow on 4v3 oppertunities.

The ability to execute this is pretty much solely on the ball handler, sure theres no one as good in those situations but there are plenty of guys you cant leave on the short roll that would serve a similar purpose.

Jokic has to set the screen and roll, while murray has tk actually execute the play. The fact that they get switches almost every possession is because of murrays consistent ability to execute, and because hes suddenly lillard at shooting

[Heej]

I think youre overrating Murray TBH.

He benefits alot playing next to Jokics screening, gravity and passing. Hes a great pick and roll guard but he eats off the Jokic Dhos.

Put guards like Dame, Booker, Beal, Kyrie etc. next to Jokic and theyd look alot better too

Nah, its not that.

Its a combination of the two, yes murray benefits feom having a guy he can pass to if they hard hedge or blitz, but jokic benefits from the fact that they have a guard that the defence cant leave open for a second. Hes better at stringing along these pick and rolls than dame or kyrie are as well, to force these coverages into beinf switches

In twrms of ability to handle the oick and roll as a guard the combination of his off the dribble shooting and IQ put him above everyone except curry

If murray was on the blazers ge wouldnt be as effective doinf this, but the same goes for jokic if he was on a team without a pick and roll ball handler like that

Its a two way street

Jokic benefits from Murray too but there are alot more guards that can do what Murray does compared to the other way around. Theres no big in the league close to Jokic or maybe ever

Beal, Mitchell, Kyrie, Booker, Dame etc. would all perform better than Murray in his role.

Dame is a flatout better pick and roll player than Murray. He averaged 1.15pp as the ball handler in pick and roll this season with Hassan Whiteside as his big and a bunch of corpses and injured players

I don't think half of those guys would perform better than Murray in that role lmao. Dame couldn't even iso on Caruso while Murray is turning him into barbecue pollo.

Booker is a mid-range and iso God I don't think his 3 pointer or his playmaking is on par with Murray's. The rest of those guys aren't better playmakers than Murray either apart from maybe Mitchell. And again, he's better than all of them on defense apart from Mitchell and maybe a focused Beal.

Dame's ppp came against a bunch of undisciplined regular season defenses vs bigs that play drop coverage by default. Even without Jokic on the floor Murray looks better than Dame to me by a wide margin. He's cooking everybody

[MyUniBroDavis]

Was that the 10th straight oi game Mcgee tanked the team when he was on?

I mean I don't like his minutes either, but he only played 8 minutes and he was a +2. He wasn't the problem tonight.

No single person was THE problem but Mcgee's positive plus minus is the reason that stat should never be taken seriously. It's entirely dependent on who you play with. I reckon I'd have a positive plus minus playing all my minutes with Bron and AD. Pretty sure a board or 2 might even fall my way

If i recall jokic scored 10 points in those 8 minutes with javale, which means he scored 13 in the remaining 29 minutes

Javale cant guard jokic at all

[yoyoboy]

I don’t see Denver winning this series, but man I’m VERY worried about Spo or Stevens packing the paint against this Lakers team now that they have the blueprint.

[dreamshake]

Was that the 10th straight game Mcgee tanked the team when he was on?

I mean I don't like his minutes either, but he only played 8 minutes and he was a +2. He wasn't the problem tonight.

No single person was THE problem but Mcgee's positive plus minus is the reason that stat should never be taken seriously. It's entirely dependent on who you play with. I reckon I'd have a positive plus minus playing all my minutes with Bron and AD. Pretty sure a board or 2 might even fall my way

Sure, but even watching him play, he did some good things out there. He made both of his shots, got a steal. Denver only scored 16 points in the 8 mins he was on, so he wasn't killing them defensively. I can remember 1 mistake he made on D, but nothing egregious. I'd prefer him as a DNP too, but he really doesn't deserve blame in this one.

[dreamshake]

I mean I don't like his minutes either, but he only played 8 minutes and he was a +2. He wasn't the problem tonight.

No single person was THE problem but Mcgee's positive plus minus is the reason that stat should never be taken seriously. It's entirely dependent on who you play with. I reckon I'd have a positive plus minus playing all my minutes with Bron and AD. Pretty sure a board or 2 might even fall my way

If i recall jokic scored 10 points in those 8 minutes with javale, which means he scored 13 in the remaining 29 minutes

Javale cant guard jokic at all

Jokic only scored 6 points in Javale's minutes. I can't believe I'm the guy defending Javale here - I don't want him to play either. But he really, really isn't anything to focus on in this one.

[RSCD3_]

How did the refs rule lebron 23 fga and 2 fta, didnt see the game but that seems rreally low

[MyUniBroDavis]

No single person was THE problem but Mcgee's positive plus minus is the reason that stat should never be taken seriously. It's entirely dependent on who you play with. I reckon I'd have a positive plus minus playing all my minutes with Bron and AD. Pretty sure a board or 2 might even fall my way

If i recall jokic scored 10 points in those 8 minutes with javale, which means he scored 13 in the remaining 29 minutes

Javale cant guard jokic at all

Jokic only scored 6 points in Javale's minutes. I can't believe I'm the guy defending Javale here - I don't want him to play either. But he really, really isn't anything to focus on in this one.

I mean its not javales fault lol theres alot more to it than that.

Thats still 6 points in 8 minutes vs 17 in 29, and that includes some of those weird small lineups

defensively im worried that zone strat wont work twice once rhe nuggets look over it. Otoh, i think we will make adjustments offensively after this loss, they defended us similar to how houstan did game 1 in a way.

[dreamshake]

How did the refs rule lebron 23 fga and 2 fta, didnt see the game but that seems rreally low

It didn't really feel wrong in this one. He took a lot of jumpers and got a lot of uncontested dunks in transition off of turnovers. There wasn't a lot of driving into traffic.