Paydro70 wrote:I mean, I don't know what a "big stop" is, during a huge comeback, and certainly not how I would get footage of that particular moment. Plus apparently I need to find this example during the WCF or Finals, or else it doesn't really apply, like Dirk's clutchness? I just think your standard is arbitrary, I don't know how much you can possibly expect.
If you think Fisher's clutch, then surely he's able to "make a clutch jumper" as you ask for. I just wonder what team you do think meets the standards you seem to have, if not the Lakers.
The Celtics, with or without Garnett (without KG, they are not good enough to hang in there with the better teams, but if they do I would expect them to have a fair chance to win the game. You can't collapse on Pierce, if you do, because you can't leave Allen open. Rondo can get to the hole at will, and obviously they don't have a problem getting a big stop)
The Cavs (Mo Williams, Delonte West, Boobie Gibson, Biz Z from 20 feet in - again it is a big risk if you try collapsing on Lebron because leaving either of Mo Williams, West or Gibson open down the stretch is extremely risky)
The Heat (Again, not good enough to go all the way, but if you collapse on Wade, you leave Cook, Jones or Haslem open and all of them, I would trust to make a big jumper. I don't know about Beasley though)
The Lakers (Collapse on Kobe - options are: Leave Odom open - sure, no team would mind LO taking a game winning jumper, leave Walton open - sure. Ariza - highly inconsistent shooter, if i were a headcoach, I wouldn't mind him taking an open jumper at all. Fisher - meh yeah, he's hit some big shots, he's missed some too, his jumper is slow and he can't really penetrate so you can play off him, plus for some reason he can be hard to find on the court at times)
Besides that, I can think of a whole bunch of teams from previous years. Basically take any team to win the championship in the last 20 plus years and you'll see solid, dependable role players. The 3 peat Lakers were insanely talented but they wouldn't have won 3 chips without Fox, Shaw, Horry hitting huge jumpers, getting huge steals etc. Take Horry and Fox from the 3-peat Lakers and replace him with Walton and Ariza and there is a more than 50-50 chance that they don't win at least one of those chips.
Take the 06 Mavericks - they were more talented than the Heat. They were better than the Heat in almost every respect except one - toughness. As much as I think the referees unfairly favored Wade - a few less boneheaded plays by Josh Howard and a few more jumpers by Nowitzki and the championship would've been thier's. But, they had the same problem, they could not go on runs (1. because they couldn't hit open shots 2. because they couldn't get timely stops) and they could not stop runs. Even though, in the conf finals and semi-finals, Dirk was extremely clutch, made the right play time and time again but at the end he (and the Mavs, with the sole exception of Terry) just wilted when the pressure got too much. I suspect, if they had played those finals 10 times, they would've lost all 10. Yet, if they had played 10 times in the regular season prior to the 06 finals, I would've favoured them to win every single one of them. At the same time, take away Kapono from the Heat and replace him with mmm .. Ariza. Now all of a sudden, the dynamic changes totally, you can collapse on Wade and make the outside shooters beat you.
Take the 00 (01?) Sixers. They weren't a team that you'd typically call "talented", but it was the ideal team for Allen Iverson. If you added a secondary scorer to that team, i.e. Odom or Gasol, I think they would've lost earlier.
Point being that you can't just look at 5 players, add up the PER's and determine if they are the better team. If we were to score the Lakers on intangibles, I would give them close to a zero. You cannot build a team around Kobe Bryant without clutch 3 point shooters, and expect to win a series. Someone like a Jason Kapono and a Raja Bell. Ariza might get there, but I don't have any faith in his jumper.
