So, uh, I guess I'll try and get the ball rolling again here.
Rotation:
PG: Mookie 25 minutes/Jason Terry 23 minutes
SG: Vince Carter 30 minutes/ Aaron Afflalo 18 minutes
SF: Paul Pierce 34 minutes/Rodman 7 minutes/Artest 7 minutes
PF: Chris Bosh 30 minutes/Rodman 28 minutes
C: Hakeem 38 minutes/Bosh 5 minutes/ Tree Rollins 5 minutes
The offensive game plan is to run things through Hakeem, and ride him hard. He played relatively light minutes his last series. During the years selected, he averaged over 40 minutes per game as he carried the Rockets in the playoffs, so he is used to handling this sort of workload. The reasoning here is simple; no one can stop Hakeem. Sikma is a good center, but he can't stop Hakeem, and while Wallace was great defensively, he can't stop Hakeem any more than he could stop Shaq. Additionally, I suspect that Wallace will not get heavy PT due to being a complete 0 on offense, which he cannot afford.
Hakeem will be surrounded by shooters pretty much the whole game. They'll space the floor well for him and make it difficult to double him. Any doubles thrown at him will result in the ball getting kicked out to some combination of Blaylock (36% 3 point shooter in the years selected), Carter (40%), Pierce (40%), JET (42%), Afflalo (37%), Artest (37%). I have only two non-shooters in the rotation, Rollins and Rodman, as Bosh is a solid mid-range jump shooter (43% outside 16 feet, inside the ark) like Hakeem.
Furthermore, the group is unselfish and full of willing passers who will swing the ball around and guys scramble to recover.
Afflalo will get a single post up against Jordan, just to prove to you guys he can do it.
Outside of Hakeem, no body is getting ridden too hard, so they'll be fresh to play defense with intensity late in the game.
Cater will see a lot fewer touches compared to the last game, because Jordan is simply not the guy I want to be challenging on a regular basis. Carter is a great player, and he'll hardly get ignored here, but I will not be running my offense through him. Again, Hakeem is the first option. Marquese is no scrub on defense either, but Pierce's array of moves should be enough to get past him, and of course he can always shoot the 3.
On defense, I detailed a lot of my thoughts above. He has only 3 point shooters on his team, two at point guard, and then Kyle Korver at one wing position. Whevener Korver comes on, I'm going to attack him mercilessly. He will be replacing either Jordan or Johnson, so I'll be countering with Pierce or Carter against him, and abuse him. He will not have a chance at stopping them. So for most of the game, he'll have a single 3 point shooter, who will not be a significant threat outside of his shooting, especially with Mookie guarding them. Mookie will not be playing heavy minutes, but that's mostly because I prefer having JET's offensive spark over Mookie shutting down spot up shooters.
Carter, Afflalo and Mookie will be splitting duties on Jordan. Afflalo is a bulldog on defense, and will not let him get his easily.
His lack of spacing will hurt the effectiveness of his passers in Sikma, Johnson and Jordan, as they'll all be trying to squeeze the ball through tight spaces. Johnson is also a bit overrated despite his rep as the first point forward, as I mentioned in my previous post. However, without these guys the offense is going to collapse. Nagiro's bench consists of Korver, Captain Kirk and 3 defensive specialists. None of Cooper, Jones or Wallace will do anything to help his offense, they'll just compress the floor with their lack of even solid jump shooting (Wallace and Jones<Sikma and LMA).
I'd also like to make a point of mentioning that we're working off of 3 year peaks, so don't consider LMA to be the MVP candidate he is this year, but take into account his previous two seasons. He's a solid offensive player, but he's not going to swing this series with Bosh and Rodman on him.
In any event, Jordan is going to have to carry this offense. He'll have to do it with jumpshots, since he'll have no space in the crowded lane. Jordan was great, but we all know that jumpshooting is a poor way to run your offense, especially when I'll be getting looks at the rim with Hakeem or tons of 3 point shots from excellent shooters.
Late in games we all know who the ball is going to, so Jordan will see doubles coming his way courtesy of Afflalo, Mookie, Rodman, and so on, and hard fouls if necessary. In very limited minutes, guys like Artest and Rollins will be happy to tackle him rather than give him a quality look. Jordan is going to be exhausted, playing heavy minutes, getting beat up, scrambling around the 3 point line all game trying to keep up with Carter, and he'll have heavy legs and more attention than you'd want to handle. That said, I don't think he'll get too many opportunities to be 'clutch'. I expect to win. In any event, when it comes down to it I've got proven closers on my team too.
I'll be honest, I was sort of waiting to see what Nagiro would post, because naturally my strategy will change a bit depending on how he plays his team.
Let's get some voting done guys, we've only at the conference semi-finals!
