What happened in 2011?

[Ainosterhaspie]

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1377189

TL;DR: Dallas forced LeBron to play point guard and operate far from the basket. Miami played significant minutes with Haslem and Anthony (2 complete non-shooters) together in the frontcourt. Dallas swarmed LeBron from the free throw line in with almost 0 regard for anyone else on the floor. Miami looked like a team that had never practiced offense before and would often run only 1 or 2 designed plays for an entire quarter. Dallas played a low turnover, slow paced style that prevented transition opportunities.

It was a teamthat was designed to fail offensively.

Do you have any idea why Dallas was able to shut down the heat offense/LeBron when great defenses, perhaps even better defenses, in Chicago and Boston we're not able to do so?

[HBK_Kliq_33]

You can't count superstars and proclaim who gets how much focus of the other defense based on the superstar count. You need to watch tape to make such claims. The thread Spaceman posted actually did that and provided something meaningful to the discussion. Do better HBK. You're not providing anything useful to the discussion.

Superstars like Wade get star treatment, that guy just always criminally underrates Wade and sees what he wants to see. I'm not going to tell you what you want to hear, I'm going to tell you the facts and hopefully you learn a thing or do.

[Sign5]

You can't count superstars and proclaim who gets how much focus of the other defense based on the superstar count. You need to watch tape to make such claims. The thread Spaceman posted actually did that and provided something meaningful to the discussion. Do better HBK. You're not providing anything useful to the discussion.

Superstars like Wade get star treatment, that guy just always criminally underrates Wade and sees what he wants to see. I'm not going to tell you what you want to hear, I'm going to tell you the facts and hopefully you learn a thing or do.

Can't take anyone that says Nash is a better overall player than Wade seriously.

[Dr Spaceman]

You can't count superstars and proclaim who gets how much focus of the other defense based on the superstar count. You need to watch tape to make such claims. The thread Spaceman posted actually did that and provided something meaningful to the discussion. Do better HBK. You're not providing anything useful to the discussion.

Superstars like Wade get star treatment, that guy just always criminally underrates Wade and sees what he wants to see. I'm not going to tell you what you want to hear, I'm going to tell you the facts and hopefully you learn a thing or do.

Can't take anyone that says Nash is a better overall player than Wade seriously.

Then why are you here? What’s the point of talking to other people if you aren’t interested in their ideas?

[Dr Spaceman]

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1377189

TL;DR: Dallas forced LeBron to play point guard and operate far from the basket. Miami played significant minutes with Haslem and Anthony (2 complete non-shooters) together in the frontcourt. Dallas swarmed LeBron from the free throw line in with almost 0 regard for anyone else on the floor. Miami looked like a team that had never practiced offense before and would often run only 1 or 2 designed plays for an entire quarter. Dallas played a low turnover, slow paced style that prevented transition opportunities.

It was a teamthat was designed to fail offensively.

Do you have any idea why Dallas was able to shut down the heat offense/LeBron when great defenses, perhaps even better defenses, in Chicago and Boston we're not able to do so?

That’s a fantastic question. And to be honest I don’t know the full answer.

Two things I think contributed:
1. Dallas in general had a better understanding of the value of spacing and three point shooting and had a renowned analytics department who had an active voice in decision making along with the first analytics guy to sit on the bench during games. Thibs meanwhile was closing games with Taj Gibson and Omer Asia and wondering why he couldn’t score.
2. Dallas’ coaching staff, starting with Rick Carlisle, were Farr more open-minded and willing to try things than were Thibs and Rivers. Thibs was still trying to run the same Bulls ice defense in 2018. Sometimes you just can’t convince someone like that to try new things and of course it was his first ever year of HCing. Dallas’ coaching staff was absolutely loaded; Rick Carlisle is one of the greatest coaches of recent years and his lead assistants were Dwayne Casey and Terry Stotts. Dallas tried all sorts of stuff during that playoff run including different types of zones and pick and roll coverages. It was a very flexible and innovative team.

[Sign5]

Superstars like Wade get star treatment, that guy just always criminally underrates Wade and sees what he wants to see. I'm not going to tell you what you want to hear, I'm going to tell you the facts and hopefully you learn a thing or do.

Can't take anyone that says Nash is a better overall player than Wade seriously.

Then why are you here? What’s the point of talking to other people if you aren’t interested in their ideas?

To express my opinion on what happened in 2011 (which ive done)

[bledredwine]

The Mavs had a lot of size. Lebron generally has a tougher time when the opposition is also big/strong and takes advantage whenever facing small-ball teams (almost everyone now). Guys like Kawhi Marion aggravate him. The Mavs had excellent defense that series. 6’7 Caron Butler, 7’1 tyson chandler, 7 foot Dirk, 6’7 Marion. It was truly the last of an era. When he has to drive against a team to find big guys like that, he then has to rely more on his midrange, which has never been his forte.

I even told my friends prior to that series that Lebron would have a tougher time against the Mavs due to their size. Anyway, I didn’t think that it would be that bad though.

[No-more-rings]

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1377189

TL;DR: Dallas forced LeBron to play point guard and operate far from the basket. Miami played significant minutes with Haslem and Anthony (2 complete non-shooters) together in the frontcourt. Dallas swarmed LeBron from the free throw line in with almost 0 regard for anyone else on the floor. Miami looked like a team that had never practiced offense before and would often run only 1 or 2 designed plays for an entire quarter. Dallas played a low turnover, slow paced style that prevented transition opportunities.

It was a teamthat was designed to fail offensively.

I think you ought to take a look at this mostly of that horrible game 4.

There’s plenty of times where he had to chance to attack Kidd one on one and didn’t or just failed at it.

1:44
2:40
3:29
4:58
5:22
5:45
6:45

Also this bogus myth that they “paid almost 0 attention to anyone else on the floor” needs to die already it’s been so debunked. Bosh and Wade would both get swarmed when going into the paint

Bosh- :25

Wade: :59 receives a double before passing

Bosh: 1:18

Wade: 1:30 takes a double right below the 3 point line

Sure Lerbon received the most attention, but everyone else faced the same wall inside. And there’s been plenty of footage posted in other threads about Wade receiving tons of attention at times, far cry from “almost 0”.

Watch on YouTube

There’s a clip in that thread I linked to where LeBron receives a pass and several players on the Dallas bench yell “Hey” and Jason Terry turns his head and then completely abandons Mike Miller just to form a 3 man wall for LeBron at the free throw line.

Bosh and Wade were guarded like normal NBA stars. Lebron was given a type of treatment I really haven’t seen before or since.

His treatment wasn’t really anything we haven’t seen from other superstars. Throwing some clips here and there like the one you mentioned, i can do that too late in that video shows multiple plays Lebron going one on one against a 6’4 Kidd and can’t score. How do you excuse that?

Wade at 6:08 takes a double at the 3 point line from Chandler and Marion, then Dirk is right there to also help when Bosh tries getting him a pick.

Lebron’s attention wasn’t significantly more than Wade or Bosh honestly, it was just way more magnified because of how much he underperformed and people use every excuse in the book for his embarrassing effort and performance.

[No-more-rings]

The Mavs had a lot of size. Lebron generally has a tougher time when the opposition is also big/strong and takes advantage whenever facing small-ball teams (almost everyone now). Guys like Kawhi Marion aggravate him. The Mavs had excellent defense that series. 6’7 Caron Butler, 7’1 tyson chandler, 7 foot Dirk, 6’7 Marion. It was truly the last of an era. When he has to drive against a team to find big guys like that, he then has to rely more on his midrange, which has never been his forte.

I even told my friends prior to that series that Lebron would have a tougher time against the Mavs due to their size. Anyway, I didn’t think that it would be that bad though.

Caron Butler didn’t play any of the playoffs and like only half the season or something, and Dallas wasn’t any bigger than Boston or Chicago that he dealt with in prior rounds or say the Pacers with George, Hibert and West that he always dominated.

[bledredwine]

The Mavs had a lot of size. Lebron generally has a tougher time when the opposition is also big/strong and takes advantage whenever facing small-ball teams (almost everyone now). Guys like Kawhi Marion aggravate him. The Mavs had excellent defense that series. 6’7 Caron Butler, 7’1 tyson chandler, 7 foot Dirk, 6’7 Marion. It was truly the last of an era. When he has to drive against a team to find big guys like that, he then has to rely more on his midrange, which has never been his forte.

I even told my friends prior to that series that Lebron would have a tougher time against the Mavs due to their size. Anyway, I didn’t think that it would be that bad though.

Caron Butler didn’t play any of the playoffs and like only half the season or something, and Dallas wasn’t any bigger than Boston or Chicago that he dealt with in prior rounds or say the Pacers with George, Hibert and West that he always dominated.

True. I forgot about Caron. Still, that was a big, aggressive team with strength and height. It was definitely tougher than our Chicago squad. We had better defense but not near the strength and size.

Unless you’re telling me that Asik or Noah is strong? Hint: they aren’t. Nor is KG.

[tone wone]

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1377189

TL;DR: Dallas forced LeBron to play point guard and operate far from the basket. Miami played significant minutes with Haslem and Anthony (2 complete non-shooters) together in the frontcourt. Dallas swarmed LeBron from the free throw line in with almost 0 regard for anyone else on the floor. Miami looked like a team that had never practiced offense before and would often run only 1 or 2 designed plays for an entire quarter. Dallas played a low turnover, slow paced style that prevented transition opportunities.

It was a teamthat was designed to fail offensively.

Do you have any idea why Dallas was able to shut down the heat offense/LeBron when great defenses, perhaps even better defenses, in Chicago and Boston we're not able to do so?

Miami was awful offensively against Chicago. They defended them better than Dallas did. They lost cause their own offense was pitiful...but they absolutely strangled them defensively. By far Miami's worst series offensively of their entire 4yr run.

That Bulls team was loaded defensively.

[TheGOATRises007]

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1377189

TL;DR: Dallas forced LeBron to play point guard and operate far from the basket. Miami played significant minutes with Haslem and Anthony (2 complete non-shooters) together in the frontcourt. Dallas swarmed LeBron from the free throw line in with almost 0 regard for anyone else on the floor. Miami looked like a team that had never practiced offense before and would often run only 1 or 2 designed plays for an entire quarter. Dallas played a low turnover, slow paced style that prevented transition opportunities.

It was a teamthat was designed to fail offensively.

Do you have any idea why Dallas was able to shut down the heat offense/LeBron when great defenses, perhaps even better defenses, in Chicago and Boston we're not able to do so?

Miami was awful offensively against Chicago. They defended them better than Dallas did. They lost cause their own offense was pitiful...but they absolutely strangled them defensively. By far Miami's worst series offensively of their entire 4yr run.

That Bulls team was loaded defensively.

Indeed and the main reason they won was besides Rose's inefficiency and lack of 2nd ball handler was Bosh absolutely DEMOLISHED Boozer in the series.

I still say to this day that if you swap the two, the Bulls'd beat the Heat.

[Morb]

I think is rigged for "basketball reasons") It's Lebron's choice, like Kobe in 2006 game 7.
Old Kidd it's not Duncan+Bowen, kek.

[CodeBreaker]

Can somebody ask LeBron to actually answer this question as honest as possible before his career ends?

[Kabookalu]

Dammit I made a post yesterday but for some reason it didn't go through. It's been a while since I last saw that series, but I remember Wade and LeBron had these civil discussions during timeouts. Nothing heated, but it was clear that there was disagreements between them two, and to their credit they were cordial about it. And then at some point in the series LeBron decided to defer to Wade. LeBron rarely got the ball in his sweet spots like he did in the years after with Miami and Cleveland. He had a tough time playing off the ball, which was also compounded by Dallas' zone defenses. I believe it threw his entire rhythm off because I explicitly remember a play where Jason Terry ended up switched onto him. LeBron softly attacked Terry, and Terry did a passable job of staying in front of him, but then LeBron stopped and pulled out.

Also, I don't know how much stock I put into this, but I recall reports of LeBron being deeply bothered by Marion's trash talking. It's not his first rodeo against a trash talking defender so it didn't make much sense to me, but perhaps it's one of those things that on top of everything else going on in that series, tipped the scales.

I preferred Chicago's defense on the Heat as opposed to Dallas, however Dallas' worked better. I'm a Raptors fan and have watched Casey defenses for however long he's coached this team, and he has this frustrating fascination with wanting the offense to beat themselves. The scheme he's most fond of is promoting ball movement so that the offense can be lulled into a false sense of security, but Casey's aim is to raise the amount of chances for his defense to pick the passing lanes. The problem is when your team is not equipped to achieve the desired goal, and we got what we called the "chickens running around with their heads cut off defense." There was one year where we deliberately allowed middle penetration and we got chewed out by every competent point guard. Thinking back on this series Dallas put their defense in vulnerable positions to allow LeBron to use his gravity to set his teammates up. And with LeBron wanting to play passively, it worked so well. They had a second defender shadowing LeBron at all times and played him closely on pick and rolls. If LeBron played more aggressively against their defense he could have put his teammates in better positions to score, but he coughed the ball up at the sight of the help. This had a side effect where he couldn't get to the line as frequently as he so often does.

[zonedefense]

Dallas won both regular season games as well and LeBron went 6/17 for 19 points and 5/19 for 23 points. In the second game he was at least able to get to the FT-line.
It´s still a small sample size but obviously better than just looking at the finals. What did the Mavs do that no other team wanted to or was capable of doing?
They obviously played a lot of zone and had a size advantage around the rim. 3 good onball defenders. Kidd and Stevensson mostly matched up with Wade. Marion on LeBron. The most important part of that defense was Chandler. His IQ and mobility made it really difficult for the Heat to get penetration.
The Mavs also played a scheme that focused on transition defense. Only player that even attempted to go for offensive boards was Chandler in most cases. On the defensive end they had 4 great rebounders sharing the floor most of the time (Chandler, Dirk, Kidd, Marion) reducing the amount of easy points even more.
The Heat did not get easy fastbreak or second chance points. They were forced to grind it out. Slow pace and halfcourt offense.

[Mazter]

“Taking a step back to Bron, that was the toughest part for me at the time. Obviously, before my injuries, I was a bad boy. It was my city, my team. (If) we win the Finals that year (in 2011), I’m arguably Finals MVP. I didn’t need to

"I thought me and him did a good job of trying to communicate and talk, but it was still unnatural because we're both so used to it being our show,"

“I felt that it had to come from nobody but me, to say, ‘Go ahead, man. You’re the best player in the world. We’ll follow your lead.’ Once I said that, I thought he kind of exhaled a little bit.”

“I just had some time to sit back and think a lot,” Wade said. “I just realized what we’re playing for, and what I’m playing for.

“LeBron is probably the most talented player we’ve seen in a while, but how good can we be? Are we going to be good if me and him are both scoring 27 a night? Yeah, we’re gonna be good, but it would be too much, ‘OK, it’s your turn, now it’s your turn.’

“I wanted to give him the opportunity where he didn’t have to think about that. It’s kind of like I told him, ‘Listen, I’ll find my way. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be there. But you go out and be the player that we want you to be.'”

These quotes are from May 2012. I guess the team hierarchy got into his head. It was “Wade County”. It was Wade’s team, his franchise, his city. There was a sense in South Florida that LeBron was coming to join Wade's party, Wade's family, and it would be presumptuous and rude of LeBron to just assume a greater role.

[No-more-rings]

“Taking a step back to Bron, that was the toughest part for me at the time. Obviously, before my injuries, I was a bad boy. It was my city, my team. (If) we win the Finals that year (in 2011), I’m arguably Finals MVP. I didn’t need to

"I thought me and him did a good job of trying to communicate and talk, but it was still unnatural because we're both so used to it being our show,"

“I felt that it had to come from nobody but me, to say, ‘Go ahead, man. You’re the best player in the world. We’ll follow your lead.’ Once I said that, I thought he kind of exhaled a little bit.”

“I just had some time to sit back and think a lot,” Wade said. “I just realized what we’re playing for, and what I’m playing for.

“LeBron is probably the most talented player we’ve seen in a while, but how good can we be? Are we going to be good if me and him are both scoring 27 a night? Yeah, we’re gonna be good, but it would be too much, ‘OK, it’s your turn, now it’s your turn.’

“I wanted to give him the opportunity where he didn’t have to think about that. It’s kind of like I told him, ‘Listen, I’ll find my way. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be there. But you go out and be the player that we want you to be.'”

These quotes are from May 2012. I guess the team hierarchy got into his head. It was “Wade County”. It was Wade’s team, his franchise, his city. There was a sense in South Florida that LeBron was coming to join Wade's party, Wade's family, and it would be presumptuous and rude of LeBron to just assume a greater role.

Funny that this wasn't an issue in the prior 2 rounds when they both took it to Boston, then both took turns ripping the Bull's hearts out in the clutch of game 5..

[Ainosterhaspie]

Can somebody ask LeBron to actually answer this question as honest as possible before his career ends?

Or at least when he's old and willing to reminisce honestly.

[Mavericksfan]

He choked plain and simple. That was narrative then when everyone watched live. I don't care how good Mavs played defensively, Bron was unquestionably timid and passive that series. Its why him passing up that open last shot in 2012 allstar game was such a big deal. He later bounced back in the playoffs (especially the game 6 ECF) and eventually shook off his demons to win his first title in South Beach.

It was a dumb narrative then and it’s a dumb narrative now

https://youtu.be/xRaO1mN5EEM

Nice video of Cuban talking about some of the things Mavs did to slow LeBron down. It wasnt a fluke it was an intentional scheme in place by the team.