rim213221 wrote:Right but those Pistons teams didn’t face Jordan in the Finals, nor did they do so when he had an established superteam where he teamed up with a top 3 player on his own franchise and another perennial 21/10 all star big man. Despite this LeBron still got blown off the floor in the Finals playing with 2 stars and honestly did not even play well that series regardless of what end of game stat padding numbers suggest. Spurs sagged off LeBron the entire series daring him to shoot and he couldn’t deliver. Wasn’t quite as bad as 2007 or 2011, but it’s hard to be worse than that in the Finals. Jordan certainly never came close to being that bad when it counted.
What am I even reading?
It sounds like you're talking about the Dallas series and then it turns out you're talking about the Spurs series. At least with that one you'd have a legitimate point. Do you even understand who LeBron was playing with in 2014? You clearly don't because you just got done saying that LeBron got blown off the floor despite "playing with two stars".
Who are these two stars that you are referring to? Who are they and where are they?
I know you aren't talking about Wade, right? The guy who put up 15 PPG on 42% shooting from the field in that series? I know for a damn fact that you aren't talking about Chris Bosh, the guy who averaged 14 PPG and 5 RPG.
I want you to answer this question as truthfully as you possibly can: what is the point of mentioning that Wade was a top 3 player at the time when LeBron teamed up with him and that Bosh was a 21/10 player when in the series you are referring to, neither of those guys were anywhere CLOSE to playing like how you just described (and if you're just saying it because they both made the all star team that year, then fine, that just means LeBron beat a 73 win Warriors team without an all star on his team, two can play at that game)?
Seriously, what is the point? What are you accomplishing by doing this? I see LeBron haters make this argument all the time and it's an insult to my intelligence to have to read it. I don't understand what point you think you're making here. LeBron's teammates underperformed massively when they needed him to so... wait, that's somehow his fault? Is that what you're getting at?
So his leg cramping up and his team blowing it in the fourth quarter of game 1 is LeBron's fault and we should criticize him for it, rather than acknowledge just how bad the Miami Heat were without him? Hmm, that's an illogical way of looking at it, but fine, I'll turn off my brain for a moment and look at it from that perspective.
Miami won game 2 so no point in discussing that.
These next three games is where things get interesting because you made a really stupid point that needs to be addressed.
honestly did not even play well that series regardless of what end of game stat padding numbers suggest.
For one thing, yes, LeBron played well in that series. I know people like you like to pretend he didn't because it hurts your narrative, but yeah he played well. Is it one of his best finals series ever? No it's not even close. In fact it's one of his worst. But that doesn't mean he didn't play well. And the fact that this is one of his worst finals series is a testament to his greatness as a player.
One of the things that a lot of people like to mention is that LeBron didn't score a lot when the game was close but chose to score more when the Spurs took a big lead. In fact one of the most popular statistics people like to use is "how many points LeBron scored when San Antonio led by 15".
And to this, I want to address two things.
1. LeBron James is a pass first player. He always has been and he always will be. In his mind, getting his teammates involved and setting them up for success is always going to be his number one priority, as it is his bread and butter. It's not his fault that when he tried doing so, his teammates weren't hitting the shots HE was setting them up for. That's not on him, that's on them. This goes back to my question as to why you are blaming James for doing what he has always done his entire career and is part of what made him so great in the first place. If you're going to be critical of LeBron for something, it has to make sense. Criticizing him for choosing to do what helped him succeed so much in the first place doesn't make sense.
2. How long have you been watching basketball for? Apparently not for very long, because I've noticed that anyone who makes the claim that LeBron "stat padded" throughout that series hasn't been viewing the sport for very long. So I'm going to drop some knowledge on you that might blow your mind, so hang on to your seat: a 15 point lead in the second quarter ain't ****. In an NBA finals game, a 15 point lead can very easily be erased if it happened early on. That was more often than not the case in the 2014 Finals. If LeBron realizes his team is down big and they need guaranteed offense to get back into the game, the logical thing to do in this case would be to take it upon himself and produce the baskets on his own in order to give his team a chance. And to this I ask: in what way is this stat padding? And further more I ask: why would he NOT take it upon himself to just start scoring if his team is down big if he's trying to... you know, win the god damn game?
Oh wait, you're just referring to the fourth quarter, right? After all you did say end of game stat padding, so fair enough. Let's take a look shall we?
Game 3: LeBron scores 4 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter of this game. In the first basket, it was near the beginning of the quarter when the Spurs only held an 11 point lead after LeBron's made basket. That's not stat padding. His second one came in the middle of the quarter when, by that point, the Spurs had a 15 point lead. 6 minutes to go and a 15 point lead. You're going to have to make a VERY strong argument for how this is stat padding, especially since LeBron himself was on the receiving end of a blown 15 point lead in an NBA Finals just four years ago against Dallas. He knows better than anyone that a 15 point lead with 6 minutes still left isn't safe. And... that's it. That's all LeBron scored in that quarter. So for this game, you have no stat padding moments and no end of game scoring. You're 0-1 so far here.
Game 4: LeBron scored 0 points in the fourth quarter of this game. 0. No stat padding to be found here and, clearly, no end of game scoring. You're 0-2.
Game 5: LeBron's first fourth quarter basket makes it a 14 point lead for San Antonio with a little less than 10 minutes left in the quarter. This is not stat padding, a 14 point lead can be overcome with that much time left. James next basket comes at the 7:31 mark of the game, making the score 88-72 in San Antonio's favor. Again, most certainly not stat padding. There is still plenty of time for Miami to make a comeback. After this, LeBron would shortly sit after San Antonio went on another run and would not play for the rest of the game. 0-3, no such stat padding like you described.
And just an FYI, as a sort of cherry on top, all four of these baskets that he made in these fourth quarters of these games did not occur at ANY point in the last five minutes of the game.
So let me ask you a question: where is this end of game stat padding that you are referring to? Because in the three straight games Miami got blown out, LeBron didn't do it a single time. Every basket he scored was in a situation where Miami was within striking distance and had an actual chance of coming back due to the amount of time left in the game.
I'll tell you where it came from: some dumbass who one time made up the claim that LeBron's 28 PPG average was inflated by him scoring when Miami was down big. So people like you ate that **** up and, without doing any actual research, just automatically assumed LeBron was doing it in the fourth quarter when there wasn't enough time left for a comeback to occur. Well, as I just proved to you here, that wasn't the case at all. That was never the case, in any of those three games. And he played 34 seconds in the fourth quarter of the first game so we know you aren't referring to that one. Quite frankly, I have every reason to believe at this point that you not only did not watch the series at all, but you didn't even make any attempts to do actual research on it.
This point needs to be emphasized because it's become a common misconception amongst the likes of you: LeBron did not get blown off the floor by the Spurs. The Miami Heat did. The Miami Heat did not come through and deliver when LeBron needed them to, but quite frankly, it isn't all their fault anyways. Because one thing LeBron haters like to conveniently ignore about this series is that one of the reasons why it turned out the way it did is because the Spurs were a REALLY great basketball team. Far better than anything Jordan ever faced and far better than anything LeBron went up against at this point in his career (until he got to the 2016 Warriors, who he managed to beat, and then immediately followed by the 2017 Warriors).
But this shouldn't surprise me, because you guys do it all the time. You find someway to make something that CLEALRY isn't LeBron's fault his fault or downplay his success. You guys aren't objective, the arguments you make aren't logical, and you come into this whole thing with a clear bias and frame of mind that focuses on one thing: attacking LeBron at every turn.
"Jordan would have never gotten swept like LeBron" even though he has and LeBron was playing far better teams both times (not to mention the first time LeBron was a damn 22 year old playing a dynasty... like what the ****?). "LeBron got bailed out by Allen and Irving" even though... no he didn't. (You guys must not have realized that LeBron had an entire other game to play when Allen hit that three pointer, I guess that just doesn't count right? And Irving didn't even bail out LeBron. The game was tied. So that take doesn't make any sense.). And of course, in this one, "LeBron got ran off the floor despite playing with two stars".
Just like I said before that LeBron fans are sick of people like the one I went off on earlier, we are also sick of people like you. I know this may come as a shock, but we really don't care if you guys don't like LeBron. That's totally fine. You don't have to. But at the very least, try to at least be fair and objective with your criticisms of him. It's really not that hard. Don't make us have to waste our time explaining why the bull **** you spout is bull ****. We shouldn't have to do that.
And people like you do not even respect Reggie, because his ppg was low and he only had a couple of all-NBA awards!