Blackmill wrote:twyzted wrote:I would also say Lebron is very eager to be switched of player on defence. He would pick up butler coming over the half way line and as soon as he saw someone come he switched. He did same thing vs Kd in the finals.
I came away with a very different impression. Whether or not LeBron switched was due to the offensive scheme of Miami and the defensive scheme of LA.
Butler had yet explode on the scoreboard in games 1 and 2. At that point LA was commonly switching the PnR and they were winning. Moreover, LeBron was not Butler's primary defender on many possessions. This worked in part because Butler was attacking immediately after the screen and extra defenders were in the picture to help.
In game 3 Miami adjusted by focusing on clearing out and letting Butler ISO whenever he had a defender not named AD or LeBron on him. Because Butler was having scoring success this way, LeBron had more possessions on him, but LA hadn't modified their ball screen coverage (note that LA typically didn't make major in-game adjustments through the playoffs).
In game 4 LA adjusted by putting AD on Butler and having him go under the screens. In game 5 Miami countered by adjusting the screen angle and it didn't help that AD was hurt. In game 6 LA adjusted once more by putting LeBron back on Butler, having the guards show a bit more on the screens, and this limited Butler's switches. This was a big reason for LA's halftime lead. Once LA was up by 20 it was round robin with who was guarding Butler.
Point is, there's many schematic changes that led to LeBron switching off Butler or not. In G1 and G2 the switching was inconsequential. In G3 it hurt LA but was still by design. In G4 and G5 Davis had the responsibility of guarding Butler and LeBron saw relatively few possessions as Butler's defender. In G6 what happened was the opposite of what you're saying and LA won by halftime thanks to a new look on defense that, among other things, enabled LA to avoid switches so that LeBron could defend Butler.
Game 5 switched of butler many times in the 4th. that is the reason why they let butler iso. Butler fought to not be switched of lebron.
Same with durant vs gsw.