The Lebron '20 Thread (Pt. 8)

[nzahir]

Danny Green was like fourth best player for Lakers today, you are bashing him for missing one shot while the main reason Lakers lost was atrocious performance by Kieff, Caruso, Kuzma and Rondo on both ends of a floor. Yeah, he missed his open look, but it's only one possession, Lakers lost because bench went 5/22 with 7 TOs. In fact, Green was quite solid today, or not as bad as every player outside of LBJ, AD and KCP was.

You know what, you’re right, but most of us are just pissed rn because he had the open look to seal it

Kieff was an F- tonight

[Heej]

I'd like to see more LeBron-Caruso action with Bron as the screener when AD sits. They were getting great looks with that. Bron is gonna pin Robinson on his back every time for a 4 on 3 or it's a switch and he goes to work.

[yoyoboy]

Yeah Morris is not playable imo. He’s just getting destroyed defensively and he doesn’t rebound. Problem is who fills his minutes.

[dreamshake]

The roleplayers need to be more disciplined on defense in G6 for sure. Fouling 3-point shooters has to stop and need to quit ball-watching during iso's (KCP was awful at this tonight).

[Heej]

Lakers gotta respect their opponent more. I'm not worried about Game 6 I think it'll be a hotly contested game but they'll get it. Just need the shooters to show up for 1 more game. If this was in front of a real home crowd there's no way the refs would've favored the Heat this much. It would've been series.

[nzahir]

I'd like to see more LeBron-Caruso action with Bron as the screener when AD sits. They were getting great looks with that. Bron is gonna pin Robinson on his back every time or it's a switch and he goes to work.

Why weren’t we attacking Duncan more?

[trickshot]

Danny Green was like fourth best player for Lakers today, you are bashing him for missing one shot while the main reason Lakers lost was atrocious performance by Kieff, Caruso, Kuzma and Rondo on both ends of a floor. Yeah, he missed his open look, but it's only one possession, Lakers lost because bench went 5/22 with 7 TOs. In fact, Green was quite solid today, or not as bad as every player outside of LBJ, AD and KCP was.

You know what, you’re right, but most of us are just pissed rn because he had the open look to seal it

Kieff was an F- tonight

There was no real 4th best performer there were just guys who were less of a liability than others. Green is getting vitriol for a neverending stack of open misses stretching weeks back. You couldn't have written a funnier comic sketch than Green of all people being the one to miss the championship winning wide open 3. Then the game ends and he has this bewildered look like he knows he's in trouble

[Blackmill]

AD should have jumped for the ball on the Markief pass and tried to get the call because Bam was getting underneath him

Exactly. I don't think people should be upset with Morris. AD was getting pushed, so I don't think he could have caught the lob, but if the refs call it correctly that's still leading to free throws.

[Heej]

I'd like to see more LeBron-Caruso action with Bron as the screener when AD sits. They were getting great looks with that. Bron is gonna pin Robinson on his back every time or it's a switch and he goes to work.

Why weren’t we attacking Duncan more?

Because Bron wasn't used as the screener the same way Jimmy was for large stretches. And he did attack Duncan a lot, we got a couple wide open looks for guys including the newest member of our Big 3, KCP but they didn't go down. I told my buddy that LeBron's gonna go down this game passing to role players, and sure enough he generated several wide open 3s and people just couldn't hit even 1. If one of those falls it's a different game.

If Bron has the ball and it's against Robinson they're gonna show and recover and he's gonna read that as dish for a wide open 3. I think they gotta find a way to use LeBron as the screener if they want him to score. The Heat do an incredible job milking their role players to create advantages for their stars. It's a lovely inversion to the common paradigm but I think LeBron's gravity is so dimension-shattering that he can make 1.5ppp looks consistently as the screener against Robinson in a 5 out setting.

[Heej]

Also idk why we were conceding switches to Jimmy Butler again. You gotta just go under and make him shoot those mid-range jumpers. He had lost his confidence in them at one point until he started getting easy fouls against Morris

[trickshot]

This wouldn't really be a championship core in many years, you have JR smith getting minutes in some 4th quarters. You also have waaaay too many nights where the entire roleplayer roster is prone to shooting bad. It shouldn't be that hard to win a game when your best player has a game like that but the role guys somehow surpassed the 2018 cavs on that front

[McBubbles]

[*]

You must’ve. Butler flails every time he drives the lane. Lebron gets nowhere near the whistle Butler gets.

I feel like any perimeter player that has a 70% free throw rate is almost automatically disqualified from the "earns every free throw" category.

Why? Because your favorite player isn't as good at drawing fouls?

Because it's insane to an outlier-ish degree how Jimmy Butler's FTR increased by 15% above his previous career high this season?

These thoughts haven't just occurred to me after this game mind you. I've been wondering it all year, even posted on Reddit about it.

[Heej]

Am I the only one who would like to see us go to Dwight at the 5 lineups instead of Markieff? The defense is non-existent

[nzahir]

Also idk why we were conceding switches to Jimmy Butler again. You gotta just go under and make him shoot those mid-range jumpers. He had lost his confidence in them at one point until he started getting easy fouls against Morris

He was hitting lots of jumpers too sadly

Hard to defend a guy who gets each 50/50 whistle and is red hot

Lebron legit can’t shoot better than tonight

Better hope he is aggressive again, AD is the real AD, role some guys step up, Miami isn’t red **** got from 3, and refs start to help out

[Greyhound]

Rondo is not very impactful against Miami.

He has been POS regular season Rondo since game two.

[Larry David]

I'd like to see more LeBron-Caruso action with Bron as the screener when AD sits. They were getting great looks with that. Bron is gonna pin Robinson on his back every time or it's a switch and he goes to work.

Why weren’t we attacking Duncan more?

Because Bron wasn't used as the screener the same way Jimmy was for large stretches. And he did attack Duncan a lot, we got a couple wide open looks for guys including the newest member of our Big 3, KCP but they didn't go down. I told my buddy that LeBron's gonna go down this game passing to role players, and sure enough he generated several wide open 3s and people just couldn't hit even 1. If one of those falls it's a different game.

If Bron has the ball and it's against Robinson they're gonna show and recover and he's gonna read that as dish for a wide open 3. I think they gotta find a way to use LeBron as the screener if they want him to score. The Heat do an incredible job milking their role players to create advantages for their stars. It's a lovely inversion to the common paradigm but I think LeBron's gravity is so dimension-shattering that he can make 1.5ppp looks consistently as the screener against Robinson in a 5 out setting.

Lebron as the screener in a pick and roll has been something that always works and it is almost never a consistent play throughout the years

[dreamshake]

The Heat are really good, but they don't have a superb offensive player.

They have great sets and run great offense, but talent will win out in the end.

Lakers have the 2 best players in the series and they also play great defense.

Heat would win 1 game max IMO.

I mean if we're ranking offensive talent, obviously Lakers have 1 & 2, but Miami has 3, 4, 5, and 6. They have 4 guys that are pretty safe bets to give you at least 15-20 points every game and are capable of going off for more. That makes them less susceptible to 1 guy having an off-night than if Bron or AD do.

Yeah, but you'd always rather have the 2 best than the next 4 best.

Always better to have a dollar in the NBA than 4 quarters.

Not to say I told you so, but . . .

There were a lot of people in here trying to simplify this down to "Miami doesn't have anything as dangerous as the Murray/Jokic P&R" as if that's case closed. You can't minimize how important the rest of the roster is. I don't think this series going longer than 5 is very surprising. I still like the Lakers chances with Dragic out, but Miami was never gonna be as straightforward as the first 3 rounds.

[Greyhound]

Yeah Morris is not playable imo. He’s just getting destroyed defensively and he doesn’t rebound. Problem is who fills his minutes.

He had one bad game and you come up with this. Howard has been trash the entire series.

[zimpy27]

This wouldn't really be a championship core in many years, you have JR smith getting minutes in some 4th quarters. You also have waaaay too many nights where the entire roleplayer roster is prone to shooting bad. It shouldn't be that hard to win a game when your best player has a game like that but the role guys somehow surpassed the 2018 cavs on that front

Yeah no doubt, the team LeBron and AD have dragged here would only be a bench team for most other playoff teams. They are definitely riding LeBron and AD to "impact" stats.

[nzahir]

Why weren’t we attacking Duncan more?

Because Bron wasn't used as the screener the same way Jimmy was for large stretches. And he did attack Duncan a lot, we got a couple wide open looks for guys including the newest member of our Big 3, KCP but they didn't go down. I told my buddy that LeBron's gonna go down this game passing to role players, and sure enough he generated several wide open 3s and people just couldn't hit even 1. If one of those falls it's a different game.

If Bron has the ball and it's against Robinson they're gonna show and recover and he's gonna read that as dish for a wide open 3. I think they gotta find a way to use LeBron as the screener if they want him to score. The Heat do an incredible job milking their role players to create advantages for their stars. It's a lovely inversion to the common paradigm but I think LeBron's gravity is so dimension-shattering that he can make 1.5ppp looks consistently as the screener against Robinson in a 5 out setting.

Lebron as the screener in a pick and roll has been something that always works and it is almost never a consistent play throughout the years

Not sure why that play isn’t used more