lessthanjake wrote:DimesandKnicks wrote:
It really is just silly not to mention. I asked how the Cav’s made it the conference finals against the Pistons and had an identical record the season before with a middle of the pack defense and they just discussed a single series for a team that played 95 games.
How did they make it to the conference finals against the Pistons in 2007? Well, first of all, they did that only by beating negative SRS teams (one of which was without its two best players in the playoffs) in a weak conference. Second of all, the main reason they beat even those teams is that their defense was, again, amazing. Most notably, in the Eastern Conference Semifinals, the 2007 Cavs had an awful offense. They scored 99.0 points per 100 possessions, against a Nets team that gave up 106.6 points per 100 possessions in the regular season. That is absolutely awful. And LeBron himself had a bad series offensively, scoring over 6 PPG lower than his season average, while having a negative rTS%. So how did they win the series? Well, the Cavs defense held the Nets to an incredibly low 97.1 points per 100 possessions. The Nets had averaged 105.7 points per 100 possessions in the regular season, so this was a monster defensive display. And, given how abysmal the LeBron-led offense was, they needed that incredible defense to carry them. So yeah, I wouldn’t say “how the Cavs made it to the conference finals” is a very helpful line of inquiry for you here.
As for how the Cavs had the same record in 2006 as in 2007, despite their defense not being as good, it’s because the offense was a bit better in 2006. And LeBron should get a good bit of the credit for the 2006 Cavs being a pretty good regular season offense. But we’re arguing about whether LeBron “carried” the 2007 Cavs to the Finals, not whether he carried the 2006 Cavs to a pretty good regular season offense. (And, of course, ultimately, the 2006 Cavs had a subpar offense in the playoffs, posting a -1.3 rORTG).
They had the same exact record with pretty much the same exact team. Ima going to agree to disagree here.
