toodles23 wrote:Postseason definitely matters more to me than regular season, though it's not by any predetermined amount, and I do think Lebron's been better in this year's playoffs than last year. He's getting more defensive attention this year which is a major reason for his decreased boxscore production, and nobody remembers it now, but he had similar stretches of passiveness in last year's playoffs. His defense is also better this year.
Good point on the defensive attention part. Lebron is seeing more doubles and more zones/help/traps/etc. this post-season compared to last season especially in that Bulls series. In the 2012 Celtics series, he was essentially dared to score the ball over them although the Celtics decided to double Wade instead. That is not really a bad idea because that is like doubling Mchale rather than Bird. However, OKC did start to double Lebron at the end of the series and then Lebron dissected the hell out of that defense and he ended up with a triple double.
I can't agree with that defense part unless you are basing it more so on +/- numbers or help defense. I felt like his defense was better last post-season than this season. We saw him shut down Melo last post-season and play some pretty tremendous defense on Pierce, Granger, and on Durant (when they were matched up). Again, maybe I'm not focusing enough on his help defense and paying attention to his man defense a little too much.
The more impressive part about Lebron to me in 2012 as I stated in my post earlier was his rebounding. He averaged 10+ RPG in every series when he started playing PF. I consider rebounding to be part of defense since you can't end the opponent's offensive possession until you get the rebound.
I think part of why Lebron's rebounding total have fallen off is because of fatigue. It seemed like Lebron's rebound total has slowly declined throughout the regular season too. He was rebounding at an incredibly high rate earlier this season, but then it just slowly fell apart.
His big advantage last year over this year was his scoring volume, but per 36 minutes, he was only +3.5 ppg and did it on noticeably worse efficiency (-3.2 TS%), and Miami's offense has been better this postseason than last year (at least in terms of raw ORTG, and they're playing similar quality defenses, though I'm not sure what the adjusted ratings look like). Hard to look too much into the impact of his scoring volume if it was leading to worse results, and keep in mind, Wade was much better last year, as well as Chalmers and Battier, so I don't think his cast is playing any better this year.
What about the injury to Chris Bosh last season? Don't you think that may have affected the ORTG? Especially with Udonis Haslem and Joel Anthony being his replacement at Center. I think even the Birdman is a better replacement offensively than those two.
Bosh's ability to stretch the floor is huge.
It was shown last year in the Finals since he pulled Ibaka out of the paint and many of the shooters especially Shane Battier started going off. Personally, I don't think the Heat would have won had Bosh not been hurt and Lebron not been placed as the PF. Spo would have never thought about starting a front-court of Battier, Lebron, and Bosh.
It was a true blessing in disguise for the Heat
His passing has been clearly better this year too, and it's showing up in his assist totals. He's been spoonfeeding easy baskets to his teammates all playoffs, much more often than last year. Amazingly, 8 of his assists yesterday were setting up teammates for dunks/layups, the other 2 being threes.
True, he has been receiving great defensive attention and obviously he's a great passer so he'll find the holes in the defense.
"Never say never, because limits, like fears, are often just an illusion." - Michael Jordan
