so i no longer care about the NBA season, though i hope the spurs or thunder shred the heat like they were tissue paper. something interesting. LeBron James played 253 minutes in this series and was called for a TOTAL of 5 fouls. Danny Granger was called for that many fouls in 38 minutes tonight alone. that's ridiculous. no way lebron played that clean (not that i expect lebron will ever be called for fouls)
i have twitter now. follow for random musing on sports, movies and other stuff.
I've also begun a movie review blog. reviewing both new movies as well as older favorites.
You know I was thinking that this was funny today. It was as recently as 2008 that they were telling us that the dominance of the East had returned.
And it is especially funny because they were not picking the Celtics, the Heat or the Pistons to win they rings that they did win.
Counting fouls doesn't prove anything. Lebron is a low foul rate player like Deng and Iguodala at the same position. By contrast, Danny Granger fouls a lot against everyone in the league.Originally Posted by Cradleman
Granger also does not attack the basket, while Lebron does. In the first 5 games of the series, Granger attempted 7 shots at the rim total. In those same 5 games, Lebron attempted 7, 4, 8, 7, and 11 shots at the rim in those games. Since Lebron was defending a perimeter player that rarely went to the rim and was both smaller and slower than him, he played his typical sag off the player and use the his long arms to contest shots while disrupting the passing lanes defense and thus didn't get in foul trouble. Danny Granger was tasked with the opposite challenge. He had to defend a player that was bigger, faster, and committed to going to rim a lot, so he ended up fouling a lot.
Also, Spoelstra basically has used Battier as foul buffer for Lebron in the playoffs. The guy on Indiana's roster that Lebron could defend but might get him in foul trouble is David West so they put Battier on him to keep Lebron out of foul trouble. Battier did stretches covering Carmelo in the Knicks series for the same reason despite clear evidence that Lebron was much better at defending Carmelo.
(Note: The reason why I listed data from only the first 5 games is because I don't have the game 6 numbers, yet)
Jerry Sloan to interview with Bobcats
Loki to Jerry Sloan: How desperate are you that you would call on such lost creatures?
Vogel might have coached 4 of the worst games this season in that series. The Pacers shot jumpers and refused to take it to the basket it seemed like. The Heat didn't have their starting PF and they were relying on Lebron to play PF. They were marshmallowy soft in the middle and the Pacers never took advantage of that. Hell they were even getting out rebounded. Last night West and Hibbert finally got the hint and they had a ton of points in the paint in the first half then they abandoned it and went back to shooting jumpers in the second half. The had even less of an excuse last night with both Haslem and Pittman out. And it was funny because I checked in at half time and Magic Johnson was saying the same thing "they finally discovered some interior offense"
Last edited by web_head02; 05-25-2012 at 06:53 AM.
This article does a great job of explaining that post entry passes are very tough against a fast defense with the current rules:
Vogel might have coached 4 of the worst games this season in that series. The Pacers shot jumpers and refused to take it to the basket it seemed like. The Heat didn't have their starting PF and they were relying on Lebron to play PF. They were marshmallowy soft in the middle and the Pacers never took advantage of that. Hell they were even getting out rebounded. Last night West and Hibbert finally got the hint and they had a ton of points in the paint in the first half then they abandoned it and went back to shooting jumpers in the second half. The had even less of an excuse last night with both Haslem and Pittman out. And it was funny because I checked in at half time and Magic Johnson was saying the same thing "they finally discovered some interior offense"
http://hoopspeak.com/2012/05/you-can...t-in-the-post/
They changed the rules to favor mobile guys over big guys. It didn't just happen in the Miami - Indiana series. The Lakers had the two best big men in the OKC series and OKC won in 5. Memphis lost to Clippers because Chris Paul was better at the end of games than Memphis's attempts to involve their post guys despite Gasol & Randolph being better than the Clippers' frontline. OKC doesn't have a back to the basket scorer that is even above average and they coasted to the conference finals. San Antonio has Tim Duncan who is great but their special offense is lead by Parker, Manu & great spacing because everyone except Duncan can make threes.
Or lets go back to the last years playoffs, Miami beat the Sixers in 5, the Celtics in 5 and the Bulls in 5. The Celtics & the Bulls had better centers than Miami and it didn't matter. The team that beat them was the Mavericks and how did the Mavericks beat the Heat? Did they spend the series force feeding Chandler? Nope, they used their great shooting to spread the floor and make life easy for Dirk.
But scoring in the paint doesn't just mean getting your big men involved. It means your guards need to slash and cut to the basket too. Now yes I am aware that the Heat are very good at clogging the lane and forcing you to settle for unwanted shot sometimes. But as was stated there was so much room to do that with Bosh out and Lebron doing double duty trying to defend against bigger forwards. The Lakers two big men disappeared in that series. Bynum is lazy and Gasol is softer than wet tissue anyhow lol. Chris Paul takes it to the inside and he will take the jumper, and he distributes the ball well also he forces the defense to be honest always. There is no one on the Pacers like that. Same thing with OKC. When you have players like Harden and Westbrook who can shoot very well as well as slash to the basket you put pressure on the other teams defense. You're right you have to spread the floor with Miami but you need a balanced offense to do that. Dallas killed them from beyond the arc yes but you also had players like Shawn Marion going inside and outside. It's like football. If you rely on your passing game all game you are making your opponent's job on defense that much easier. Now if you run the ball and pass it you keep the defense guessing and you force them to work to stop you. Granger was one of the worst offender to me. He spends too much time shooting and not enough time slashing to the basket. Worst case secario he gets fouled and has to shoot free throw, which would've been tough last night because they had no back up so the Heat would've been trying not to foul him. He would have gotten a lot of easy baskets that way.
The Pacers didn't play perfectly, but it isn't like Miami just left the door open either. Bosh is very important to them but on defense as well as offense Lebron & Wade are the key guys. On the season, the average team attempted 24.8 shots at the rim and made 62.6% of them. Miami allowed 24.1 shots at the rim and their opponents made 57.7%. Indiana's opponents made 60.1% of their attempts at the rim on 24.0 shots per game. For comparison, Chicago allowed 24.9 shots at the rim and their opponents made 56.3%. (Chicago was the only team to allow a lower shooting percentage at the rim than Miami.)
Granger has his flaws but saying he should have gotten to the rim more when Lebron was guarding him, ignores that Lebron is an elite defender who is both bigger & faster than Granger. Also, Granger is not Lebron who shoots 75.4% at the rim, Danny makes a below average 55.7% at the rim. David West dominated his match up against Battier by scoring 24 points on 16 shots when his season average is 13 points. Hibbert only scored 12 points but the Pacers were plus 13 with him in the game so it isn't like he played poorly. The biggest problem that the Pacers have is their bench is terrible. The Pacers starting lineup played very well together, but anytime someone from bench showed up, it was bad. The executive of the year assembled a below average bench and it cost them.
The Pacers are very good but bottom line, the Heat are just better.
Game 7 time!
Sixers did not end that first half well at all.
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