NBA Finals

I remember the rumor about the Cavs wanting a deal for Bosh. James tried to recruit him, but Bosh refused, at least that's what ESPN.Com reported.

 

It's a very apt comparison. Just like the Bulls were Jordan's team, this Heat team is Wade's team. Big difference is that Pippen didn't disappear during crunch time like Lebron has.

I don't think Lebron threw the games in the Boston series last year, but I do think he checked out. Whatever happened after game 3, whether it was Delonte West and Lebron's mom, or whatever, Lebron simply wasn't the same player the rest of the series. He also put up a triple double in this series' game 5, but still managed to disappear in the 4th quarter.

This isn't a shocking statement if you're only talking about power forwards. If you include centers, I can name 4 that I would put ahead of Dirk. As far as power forwards go, he's definitely in the top 5 behind Duncan and say, Karl Malone. Win the title, he's probably only behind Duncan.

 

That was my point. No question Lebron was not the same player he was at other times. But that's a far cry from saying he intentionally was trying to sabotage the series.

At the 4 or the 5, I can't think of someone as complete. He has the range of a 2 or 3, can handle the ball well, shoot FTs well, and play the 4/5 as well as anyone. He is almost single-handedly carrying the Mavs. I think we're seeing one of the great front-court guys to ever play, and we may not even realize it.

 

I meet Lebron and asked him if he had change for a dollar, but he could only give me 3 quarters. :laugh:


GO MAVS!!!

 

Let's go Mavs. Beat the Heat. As the latter team is overconfident, over-hyped, and arrogant. Sorry if I offend any Heat fans. The former team can show teamwork and wanting to win over star power anyday at anytime.

 

Dallas did it this time, they have won in 6 games.

 

Dirk is a great player, no question, but let's not go overboard. I disagree with your apparent stance of lumping power forwards and centers together. If we're going to lump PF and C together, I'd take 4 centers before I'd take even the greatest power forward ever, aka Tim Duncan.

Limiting ourselves to just the power forward position, Dirk belongs in the Top 5 list of great power forwards, but I'm not ready to take him over Karl Malone or Charles Barkley.


From July 8th, 2010:

It will be interesting to see what the Heat do in the offseason, because I don't think they can make another run with Bibby, Haslem, Mike Miller, et. al., which will mean they'll have another season with the big 3 plus a bunch of new teammates. Ultimately, whether the Heat are better next season is dependent on whether Lebron James wants to get better as a basketball player or not. He has things he has to work on and he's kinda soft. The Mavs took advantage of Lebron's weaknesses and it worked. It's a bit like what happened to Magic Johnson in 1984. The Celtics took advantage of his weaknesses and won the Finals. Magic dedicated himself to becoming a better basketball player that summer, and he grew himself a tougher skin. Both of things resulted in championships in 1985, 1987 and 1988. If Lebron takes the same approach to this offseason, making himself a better player and being thicker skinned, the Heat will take big steps towards winning the championships they all but promised after The Decision.

As it turned out, Tom, we were both wrong about Boozer. I think we both thought Boozer would make Chicago better, but he really didn't. By the end of the Eastern Conference Finals, Thibodeau wouldn't even play Boozer because he was such a defensive liability. The Bulls need to get themselves a 2 guard who can stop a team like the Heat from doubling Rose on every 4th quarter possession.

Let's not be misled. The Heat wanted to win as much as the Mavs did. But, Dallas has been together longer, they had better teamwork, and they were tougher and better coached.

 

Interesting series in that the Heat could have swept this series. I'm so glad the Mavs won, though. Did you hear LeBron's comments after the game against his critics? It's almost like he's getting less mature and less good as he hits his "prime." He was much better as a player and person when he was 21.

 

I did, and it makes me say that Lebron isn't going to get any better. After 8 years, he is what he is. He's the guy that's so gifted and has had everything handed to him and he's never had to work hard for it. And when faced with a team with more determination, he shrinks. I think he thinks that everybody's a hater and haters are gonna hate, not recognizing that it's his own arrogance and non-self-awareness that are the real problem.

Wouldn't it be ironic that, at the end of his career, when he hasn't won anything, what was supposed to be a great thing for Miami turns out to be the exact opposite? And what was supposed to be very bad for Cleveland turned out to be a good thing. Dan Gilbert might just have had it right.

 

I am not necessarily lumping all 4s and 5s together. That said, I believe Dirk is not given the credit for his touch, smarts, and perimeter play that makes him such a deadly weapon. It's telling that even while he was having a tough game, Miami couldn't capitalize.

I would. In a heartbeat. But the style of play I'm accustomed to makes me lean more toward a Dirk than a Karl or Charles. Put Dirk in the 80s and Karl/Charles in the 00s, and maybe I change my mind, but today it's Dirk....easily.

Ultimately, the Heat did not get something you have to have: a fairly legitimate frontcourt player. Bosh is very good. However, he gets taken out easily on defense and rebounding. In short, the Heat have no "windex" guy. Then again, is there room on this team for such? Nor do they have a quarterback that can be counted on. Wade and Lebron are not that type of player. This may be Miami's bigger need. If they're all in with Bosh, they need to go out and get an experienced 1.

You're right when you point out that:

Well said.

Last year when I pointed out the deficiencies of the Bulls even with Boozer, I believe you took offense. I think you and I miscalculated how much better Boozer would make the Bulls, but I didn't believe they were a Finals capable team and I still don't think they are. Noah is going to have to use his head, and Boozer is going to have to complement the puzzle better. Like I felt last year, there is no one that can alleviate pressure on Rose, be it a 2 or a 1 that can drive and dish to a legit threat in the post or kick. Rose is as advertised. However, I don't think they can win a championship solely on Rose's shoulders. They need a Terry for their Nowitzki and a Kidd for their Terry. The supporting cast in CHI isn't as good. In other words, they are a poor man's Heat.

Did you see Bosh collapse in the hallway back to the locker room? He has more passion than Wade and Lebron.

One overlooked fact in all this is how good Carlisle is. He has been a great coach for a long time but hasn't had all the pieces he wanted until Dallas.

 

How quickly we forget. Mark Jackson called him one of the top 20 players to ever play basketball. How much more credit should he get? :tongue3:

There are a number of pieces they were missing, and this was one of them. I think they were counting on Haslem being that guy, but he really wasn't that guy even before being injured.

What do you mean by this? Wade is their guy. He's easily the best player on that team and he pretty much carried the 2006 Heat to the championship (along with more than a little help from the refs).

We totally did. Boozer was supposed to be a difference maker, but turned out to be pretty much a bust, I think. My point was that adding Lebron to the Bulls would have made them championship contenders. I also thought Boozer was going to be the additional scorer that they needed.

Uh, Tom, they already have the point guard that can drive and dish. There was a rumor that the Bulls were going to try and land Richard Hamilton. That's exactly the kind of player the Bulls need to go to the next level.

Agreed. Everything Carlisle did worked. As was pointed out in something I read yesterday, the Mavs had the Heat's defense figured out by the end of game 3. The difference between Carlisle and Spoelstra is that Carlisle made tactical adjustments, such as how he changed who was defending Wade and Lebron while Spoelstra made no adjustments and kept talking about "mental stability".

BTW, for everybody that says anybody can coach great players and win, please see the 2010-2011 Miami Heat. Spoelstra had 2 of the best players in the league and he couldn't coach them to a championship. You simply can't roll the balls out and expect to win. You must coach your superstars, you must have role players, you must have 8-9 solid players filling all the roles, not just x number of superstars. The Miami Heat never really developed role players. They tried to buck this system and it didn't work.

 

Yes, but if the Mavs don't win the title next year, Dirk will be just another great player in the minds of the ESPN crowd. They'll be in love with someone else.

Haslem isn't even almost this guy. You're right about this team not being as full as one would think.

No question Wade is their guy. However, it's difficult to have your 1 be the best player on the team. You have to be able to create some offense for him as well as let him create. If it's all the latter, a double takes him out. Think a Derek Fisher, a Jason Kidd, a Mark Price from back in the day. You have to have a "quarterback" who can create, give you solid defense, and be a scoring threat but not carry the balance of the weight. For all Lebron's talent, Wade is Miami's guy. It's all on him. And he can't run the whole team from the 1. Lebron won't let him and the game isn't that kind of game now.

I think Lebron could have diminished Rose's excellence, just as I think he did so to Wade a bit. I don't think Lebron has figured out how to be complimentary yet. I think he's either the guy, or he gets lost. But I agree on Boozer. I don't know if I'm ready to call him a bust, but he isn't far.

You just made my point. If CJ Watson (a great Christian) were more of a scoring and shooting threat, he could be that guy. However, a Rip, Kidd, Billups....someone of this ilk would make Chicago better. If Thib is going to try to make Rose the 1 and try to win it on his shoulders, there must be a more solid 2/3 option and a more improved frontcourt option. I'm not saying everyone has to have a "Big 3," but it's hard to ignore the pattern that is emerging.

Agreed 1,000%. It amuzes me when people criticize Phil Jackson along these lines. In today's NBA, you simply cannot out-talent another team all the way to the Championship. Some say the Heat did that to the Bulls. I disagree. The Heat just stumbled onto a plan to beat the Bulls and are the better team. However, give the Bulls a piece or two, even the playing field a bit, and I think in a couple of years, Thib coaches circles around Spoelstra.

Let's not lose sight of something here, though. The Heat won the East. They won two games in the Finals. They're not in shambles. However, I don't think they can stand pat and cruise to a title. No one can. Well, not in the East anyway :laugh:

 

I see what you're saying now. Basically, the Heat need a point guard, which Wade is not. Neither is Lebron for that matter. The problem that the Heat have is that Lebron and Wade are pretty much the same kind of player. I continue to say that Lebron would have been much better suited to go to Chicago. Even with Boozer not being as good as we thought, I think that Bulls team goes to the Finals with Lebron.

It's not really an emerging pattern though. The 80's Lakers had Kareem, Magic and Worthy. The 80's Celtics had Bird, Parish and McHale, and almost a big 4 because Dennis Johnson was so good. The 90's Bulls had Jordan, Pippen and Grant, then Jordan, Pippen and Rodman. Basketball will always be a team game, but the pattern is that championship teams are built on a core of 3, then you fill out the team from there.

Among other problems, the Heat have 2 of their big 3 playing the same position.

You might be right about that. What we don't know is whether Rose took the scoring load offensively because he had to, or whether he would have been happy deferring to Lebron at crunch time. I happen to think he would have deferred, but you never know until it actually happens.

FWIW, I think he can outcoach Spoelstra right now.

I firmly believe that had Danny Ainge not traded Perkins away, the Heat wouldn't have made it past Boston. Not because Perkins was such a great player, but the chemistry of the team got messed up. The Celtics with Perkins were tougher and could have controlled the paint, but they were unable to do so without him. FWIW, I think Dallas would have beaten the Celtics in the Finals had Ainge not traded Perkins away.

 

Yes. You just said it better than I did

Possibly. I still believe the jury's out on that, and we'll likely never know for certain. I think time may tell it says more of Lebron than anything else.

That word "emerging" is unfortunate. I didn't mean it as in "new." I meant that it seems that it was the unifying thread of the championship teams. The 1/2, swing, & center can be traced back to the Celtics and forward. The Pistons had it. The Spurs had it. Other teams tried to copy only two of the three and didn't do well. The Suns never got the frontcourt help they needed though they had two pieces, for instance.

Maybe "evident" would be a better choice of a word.

Or essentially the same role. Wade is hardly a swing in my mind, but neither is James. He hasn't proven he has the physical toughness yet. Unless and until they get a coach who can scheme around what they have and hide their weaknesses, they will have overlap between Wade and James.

Good point. But this can be an issue like we saw, say in game 6. Would the added pressure on a Rose (like Wade) be too much if Lebron starts to fade? Can Rose step it up? What if Rose is off? Could Lebron do what Terry did for the Mavs? Again, we'll have to do this in our minds, but it's back to the Wade/Lebron overlap again.

Perhaps. I think the Heat definitely got the better of the Bulls in the Eastern finals. Whether that was too much Heat and not a matter of Spolestra at all is up for debate. My three year old could probably figure out that if you stop Rose, you stop the Bulls. But give the Heat credit there. That all said, give Thibs and Spolestra IROC teams (there's a racing shout-out for ya) and I think Thibs probably bests Spolestra.

It was definitely a big trade. I frankly don't know what Ainge was thinking. The window is closing in Boston. It's not closing quickly. But the clock's ticking.

The way Dallas played, I don't think anyone in the East could've beaten them. I hope that in all the "Hey...the Heat lost!" stuff, that we don't lose how good the Mavs are and what we saw. Unfortunately, thanks to Gilbert et.al.,, it's all "Lebron lost" when the storyline should be "Dallas wins."