Boston vs Miami TUESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2011 8:00 PM ET

[arsenic]

^People are getting VERY carried away. I am happy for Cole and thankful for what he did. Last night was big for him and he showed a lot of guys in Heat uniform how to ball, specifically Rio . BUT comparing him to Dwade? **** stupid. Saying you can count on him over Lebron/Wade? **** stupid. You know we always complain about having to rely on the 3 when things go wrong and when we finally have a guy who steps up and gets **** done some of you want **** on the same guys who are going to get us back to the finals, which is silly...so calm down. With that said, Cole is going to do great things this season, very impressed with the kid. He really is fearless.

[DefenseWins]

I think people got more carried away with Cole comparing him to Wade, because Wade said he hasn't seen a player do what Cole did since him (Wade) lol.

Still disappointed LBJ or Wade couldn't come through in the clutch but w/e.

[Tim_Hardawayy]

Personally I'm just glad we finally seem to have hit on a decent late round pick. The last one was Udonis Haslem.

(technically Chalmers as well, but Cole already looks like he's well on his way to surpassing Mario)

[xStanton27]

Its troublesome to see UD playing this way though... I don't think i've seen a great performance from him since the injury... I suppose he still provides the defense, but what has happened to his open jumper?

[TheAnkh]

I think he's already better than Mario, which makes me feel bad for Rio. But honestly thats just the way sports are. Someone being more physically and naturally gifted than you can be better than you just like that, even with your added experience. We're seeing that with Rio and Cole.

[DefenseWins]

Its troublesome to see UD playing this way though... I don't think i've seen a great performance from him since the injury... I suppose he still provides the defense, but what has happened to his open jumper?

I have no idea. BUT the last two games he has gotten 10+ rebs. This certainly helps the team out on the glass.

[This IsMy House]

Its troublesome to see UD playing this way though... I don't think i've seen a great performance from him since the injury... I suppose he still provides the defense, but what has happened to his open jumper?

I have no idea. BUT the last two games he has gotten 10+ rebs. This certainly helps the team out on the glass.

Although it is tough to see him missing as many shots as he has, I don't think they play him as much as they do for offense. What he does on defense, and on the boards is why he gets these minutes. His offense will come around, but as long as he gets 10+ rebounds a night well be good.

[Tim_Hardawayy]

Its troublesome to see UD playing this way though... I don't think i've seen a great performance from him since the injury... I suppose he still provides the defense, but what has happened to his open jumper?

I have no idea. BUT the last two games he has gotten 10+ rebs. This certainly helps the team out on the glass.

Although it is tough to see him missing as many shots as he has, I don't think they play him as much as they do for offense. What he does on defense, and on the boards is why he gets these minutes. His offense will come around, but as long as he gets 10+ rebounds a night well be good.

This.

UD is still giving us plenty defensively and on the glass. Can you imagine if we were stuck playing Juwan all those minutes, or forcing LeBron to power forward like last year?

He's just gotta sort out his jumper, but that'll come.

[WD]

After Just Watching The Game Again - the little things I noticed

1. With 2.35 left in the 2nd qtr and after making 3 3 point baskets, JJ was pulled for Mario Chalmers
2. LBJ averages about 8-10 seconds b4 making either a pass, play or shot (he did have a few quick catch and shoots)
3. Shane only had a total of 3 shots in the entire game
4. With 4.14 left in the 4th qtr, Boston picked up their 4th foul, we didn't put them in the bonus for 4-5 possessions. We had 3 fouls and they got us in the bonus b4 we did.
5. In the 4th, Keyon Dooling hit a critical 3 pointer and was greeted by an enthusiastic DOC RIVERS, same qtr with 1.31 left, Norris Cole hit a critical 3 pointer and he walked right by Eric with nothing, no emotion, nothing.

I already know what 2 expect from the big 3, I want to know how we handle adversity (a simple exertion of JJ would have helped with the zone, this doesn't require no extensive practice, just a simple adjustment).

These are some of the little things I watch for in games, how we play our roles players. I am more concerned with how many opps players get not how minutes they get.

[DWadeno3]

I call them heroics because they were huge shots for us, that's it.

Yeah Haslem was wide open and missed a lot of his shots, which was part of the reason we struggled to score, so as a coach you obviously have to replace him with a better option.

Of course you can attack a 2-3 zone. That's my whole point. It takes away D-Wade's and LeBron's ability to just blow by their defender because they're obviously not guarded by one person, but you can still get to the basket by cutting and still attack the gaps which were created by our ball movemement. My whole entire point revolves around us settling for outside shots too much.

But let's agree to disagree. You were happy with our execution, I thought we could've done better. I also thought our defense was subpar in the second half, but that's another story. I guess time will tell how well we're really prepared to deal with different kinds of zone defenses and whether we learned from our mistakes in the playoffs.

- Dwadeno


If you look at the play by play, the Big 3 contributed to 16 points during the stretch in the fourth, by assists and lay ups.

They were getting lay ups, Lebron and Wade both got layups on dives going straight down the middle against the zone.

Lebron had a layup and 2 assists

Wade had a layup and 2 assists.

Cole came off a curl and hit a jumpshot.

This was all against the zone. They were penetrating the paint and kicking it out and taking wide open shots.

That's how you gonna beat a zone, you not gonna drive in the paint against the zone, you gonna have to play the perimeter.

And Wade was cutting every single time he came down the court against the zone, he was covered.

Another thing. To beat the zone consistently and aggressively, the team playing the zone have to miss shots.

Boston wasn't missing shots. So that's the only way you gonna play aggressively against the zone.

The true zone beater isn't shooters and it isn't driving the lane and it isn't taking jumpers, it's called playing defense on the other end and getting fastbreak points.

Boston offensive role players were going bonkers. Bass was hitting shots with a hand in his face. Dooling was going off from 3. They were drawing fouls and hitting their free throws.

The game completely slowed down to a crawl and it favored Boston because they were playing zone.

Haslem went 1 for 8, if he scored on his easy ass layups and wide open jumpers, Heat would've completely torched their zone in the fourth and third quarter.

At least Haslem was getting rebounds.

If Cole hit his 3s in the third, zone would've been torched.

The zone attention is gonna be on the Big 3, it forces role players to have to execute.

Look, the things you're saying are all correct and I agree with them, I just didn't see enough cutting and attacking by D-Wade and LeBron overall and if one of them cut, they missed each other. I also watched some parts of the game again and noticed we missed Bosh a couple of times in the low post and, more importantly, on the high post. Getting the ball into the high post is a killer against the zone defense. Thus, not always making the right passes caused some of our problems as well.
Overall, I agree with you though, as I've been saying the same things. I just thought our two superstars should've been more assertive when we went on the two scoring droughts and allowed Boston to come back into the game.

I also agree that we struggled defensively in the 2nd half, which hurt our scoring production as well. Against a team like Boston without Pierce, there's no need to hedge so hard all the time because aside of Rondo, they didn't really have anybody who could hurt us off the dribble. In fact, it was their outside shooting, which brought them back into the game and due to our extreme hedging, we were forced to rotate a lot, which would ultimately result in an open look for the Celtics.

@tsherkin: Sure, 115 points sound impressive, but given that 69 of them came in the first half when Boston was in a man-to-man, it's no excuse for our struggles against their zone. Let's face it, Boston's man-to-man defense was terrible at times. They were a step slow on rotations and just couldn't match our speed and athleticism at all. Thus, we were able to create a lot of relatively easy scoring opportunities for us, which will not be the case against the more athletic and younger teams in this league though. I'm really curious to see how well our offense will work against teams like OKC and Chicago.

[DefenseWins]

Spo doesn't really congratulate his players on anything during the games.

Cole was ecstatic the last few possessions, he even looked like he was having a seizure when he drew a charge on Bass lol.

And yeah JJ was red hot from 3 right now, getting great looks, but isn't inserted in the zone... Spo will learn.

The thing Spo is pushing for though is defense.

I noticed Ray was raining more 3's when JJ was on him. Things like that will take JJ out of the game. Spo looks for what a player brings on both ends of the court to keep them in the game. Miller would be in a situation like that though, because he can rebound fairly well. Or even Battier. We'll just see how this stuff pans out.

But this isn't the end of the zone, especially from the Celtics lol.