Orin wrote:Heej wrote:eminence wrote:
Iggy/Crowder?
True that ahaha forgot about Clam Chowder I'll give Iggy bottom of Tier 4 cuz of how washed he still as and how much he fouls. And Chowder bottom of Tier 3 cuz his shooting has been inconsistent this series.
So 7/12? Only guy who really screwed up my predictions was DG. If he's hitting 35% I'll take that and his help defense over Chowder. Again, nowhere NEAR the pre-series chatter
If we are strictly talking about performance like you seem to be doing, you don't think that Dragic and Bam's injuries had an effect on the performance of the role players of both team?
No Dragic means that it is much easier to focus on Herro and Robinson, it also means more minutes to Nunn who has been beyond terrible. They are also all worse on defense than Dragic, and Bam being out also means that the Lakers role players have it easier on that end. Kelly is a good offensive player and had a great game 2 and 3, but even on that end he is not better than Bam. Bam hand-offs, screens, offensive rebounding, and ability to find cutters also enhance his role players. It's not magic than Robinson had his best game with Bam back, he is his best dancing partner.
And for all the KCP talk, who won them game 4, he is shooting .286% from three so far. He has the luxury of being able to be wildly inconsistent on offense because his team doesn't need him to have a great game to have a chance. Herro on the other hand is forced to chuck and carry a huge load on offense because of our injuries, while being hunted on defense. Their pressure to perform and situation are not comparable at all.
While I can see why you'd feel that way, the fact that Herro in particular is only able to play competently in a reduced role just means to me that's he's not actually all that good in the first place ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
They should've been made mincemeat in the ECF by Boston, hell I rewatched Game 5 and am in the midst of rewatching Game 6 before writing this so I can actually get a grasp of how they were able to skate by. Brad Stevens to me is basically nothing more than a rich man's Mike Budenholzer who straight up lacks killer instinct and coaches a team full of low IQ derelicts.
You would see 10 offensive possessions in a row from Boston where not one of the white dudes gets targeted. It's just Brad going to his same "Chest series" (his fundamental offensive structure with the big at the nail downscreening for a zipper cut by one of their wings is apparently called this according to a Reddit post I read years back) system ball that got sniffed out by Spoelstra a week ago. Kemba would frequently have Herro on him not even attempt to go at him or run 1-3 PnR instead opting to go for a screen from a big, getting Adebayo switched on to him and giving it up. These dudes were soft as baby s***. Good luck doing that against more competent and ruthless offensive coaches like LeBron and Mike Malone that will spam you to death with the same play until you either adjust or submit.
That's why Miami has to play gimmick defenses like the 2-3 zone with their white guys hiding in the corners and providing zero interior presence. Good luck trying that against a real offensive team like the Nuggets instead of a joke squad of mental midget pretenders like the Boston Celtics. The Nuggets carved up a far more athletic and Rangy zone defense that the Lakers deployed after 1 off-day installing counters. The Heat would get molested trying to play that on them. After that they'd get exposed on defense trying to hide their liabilities when they're not playing coaches that think they're too clever for their own good and stick to their systems to a fault rather than doggedly attacking weaknesses.
So if you want to make the argument that Tyler Herro raises your true championship odds more than a competent 2-way role player, then be my guest. To me, when you're facing a competent coaching staff that actually understands the metagame of hammering away at weaknesses and treats the playoffs as its own entirely separate game rather than an extension of the regular season the 1-way archetypal role player like Herro or Robinson or Olynyk is far more detrimental to your championship odds than a 2-way role player in the same tier. But if you wanna nitpick at this one granular detail of my overall argument and take your guy over ours, go right ahead because my main argument remains relatively unbothered by that lmao.
So even if you want to take that, that doesn't come close to deconstructing the main Crux of my argument that the Lakers had the better cast of supporting players overall, and that the distribution of higher end players was nowhere near as lopsided as "MiAmI hAs tHe bEsT 3-8!!11!". Looks to me that at the very worst the Lakers always had the best 7/12 players going into the series, and if DG turns it around even slightly with his shooting that goes up to 8/12 as I originally predicted.
I don't see anyone trying to beat back that point, and instead just get caught up in the weeds arguing a much smaller point because they know the main argument has shown itself to be true. If the Heat role players were really that much better, this series would be tied
LeBron's NBA Cup MVP is more valuable than either of KD's Finals MVPs. This is the word of the Lord
