Post#26 » by Ballings7 » Mon Apr 28, 2008 11:44 pm
Dirk hasn't quite worked as first option because the right kind of defense is able to slow him down. Making him not at his best, which is scoring well... when he's not, his impact on the game drops off, and then the offensive ability to the rest of the team drops off. He hasn't had another top-level offensive player with him to draw enough attention, and have less of a gap from him to the other offensive options.
He doesn't have a post-game really, and with his mid-post and out game (various shooting or driving to the basket), mobile fowards + interior defense, bother his shots and get him off his game. He basically has a wing-player's game in a big man frame. Only he's not strong enough to have enough of an interior game, and just didn't develop one.
The Heat, Warrior series are two good and recent examples of the types of defense. Along with certain Spurs games in this decade. There are several other various games also (regular season and playoffs), where he's been slowed noticably by similar kinds of defensive strategies.
The defense played on him over the years has been the main reason for his failures in the playoffs, rather than his over-blown choking. Which has played a part to an extent, but much less than the defense played on him. This has gone overlooked a lot, because I think people don't pay attention enough to the defense, and want to get on a star player and call him a "choker". Collectively, Dirk's actually been a pretty clutch player. And of course there have been occasions where he just didn't get it done, with the defense not really playing a part.
) . It's not like they can aquire a better franchise player then him realistically .