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Thunder, 17-18.
NBA Conspiracy theorists, start your engines.
Well, he's pretty good at complaining every time he misses a shot or someone scores on him. So there's that.
My wife just said before ..."Hey, it's the guy from the Fab 5!"
Love some of those ESPN doco's
This game is over
Has it, though? That flagrant call was some hot nonsense, but OKC has attempted 4 more free throws, and only committed two more fouls despite settling for a lot of jumpers. I think it's really about just whose shots are falling and who's executing.
Disagree, even with the ridiculousness of the flagrant call.
Aside, LeBron James is an exceptional passer. Your team is undisciplined defensively. Why...would you think it's a good strategy to double him?
Yeah, I never understood why people were saying that, as I said at the time.
This series has been pretty horrible. OKL has just missed too many shots.
That makes sense to me. If you let LeBron play in the post, he's basically unstoppable and he's shown that the last 3 weeks. I'd force someone else to beat you. Miller, Chalmers and Battier all had huge finals games (Battie had 2). You have to tip your cap to Miami this series.
Either way, it does come off as a joke. When you have a whistle every other trip down the floor, it really, really, sucks.
"In 1995, the Magic were led by a 22-year-old Shaquille O'Neal and 23-year-old Penny Hardaway. They beat a team that featured some guy named Jordan plus Scottie Pippen, Kukoc, Harper, Kerr, Longley...you may have heard of this group."
I was at this last game in Chicago - that was weird.
Wait, the season just ended - with Jordan on the court - and there's no trophy and no parade in a couple of days?
The bewildered vibe was memorable.
Only time that happened in the Windy City from 1991-98...
Ya gotta believe!!
(Not really. It's over. It's always been over.)
4 more turnovers from the quadruple double as well.
That wasn't the real Jordan. That was some minor league baseball player who couldn't hit a curve ball, who decided to try basketball instead.
Now that guy who played the next year, THAT was Jordan. I'm still not sure who the guy in the colored hair standing next to him was -- maybe he brought the mascot back with him from Birmingham?
In what way? They have a long, young, athletic team without a guy strong enough to guard him. That seems like exactly the personnel to do it.
4 more turnovers from the quadruple double as well.
Exactly why they should be doubling. You have to live with Miami role players scoring 45 points from 3 tonight.
The real (fake) answer is kind of KG or Duncan, isn't it?
They need to trade Harden and Ibaka for Dwight.
The same reason I thought the Spurs would beat them, I think they're a dumb/undisciplined defensive team.
It's over.
The pettier parts of my fandom are really happy that LeBron won his first ring after a postseason where Dwyane Wade contributed very little.
Amen!
Lloyd: What are my chances?
Mary: Not good.
Lloyd: You mean, not good like one out of a hundred?
Mary: I'd say more like one out of a million.
[pause]
Lloyd: So you're telling me there's a chance... *YEAH!*
Well, after they figure out how to stop Stuart Scott from being shoved in our faces.
I don't really even blame the officials. It's the rules/structure that's bad. This brand of basketball is -- and I'm speaking relatively here as I did enjoy watching the postseason -- is relatively terrible to watch.
Stuart Scott claims that how he actually talks in real life.
He'll have to leave the Heat to do it.
I'm much happier for lebron than i thought I'd be. And found myself rooting for the heat all game.
Lastly props to jc on the heat in 5 call. And I'm glad the best team in the league won a title for once.
Oh. I'm right here.
It was nonsense when it was said. It's nonsense now.
Random variation, better play from James or worse opponents/matchups?
Both of the latter two. Orlando was a terrible matchup for that Cavs team, and the next year, Lebron stunk it up (or choked, or quit or whatever you want to call it) against Boston. I felt that those Cavs teams were going to roll through the playoffs just like this Heat team did.
Random variation, better play from James or worse opponents/matchups?
Matchups, James' development of post game, and hobbled Wade>>>Mo ####### Williams.
I don't know why people treat this like its NBA Jam. I know, the 2nd best player on the team is a highly important factor, but those Cavs teams had a lot more weapons. They were fantastic on defense and on the glass, and had the perimeter shooting to complement Lebron.
He's a jackass who never gets called on his ####.
EDIT: Not Joe C & FTO, but that's how I feel.
I get that, but if you're in a spot where LeBron doesn't have it or needs a blow or there's a bad matchup, I'd much rather turn the reins over to Wade than Williams. This is without considering how badly Mo shat the bed in those runs (IIRC...no pun intended).
Hate is too strong for how I feel. First and foremost I like it because it undercuts any sort of pooh-poohing of LeBron's ring by pointing to how Wade won it "for" him. A decent chunk of why I've been pulling for the Heat in these finals is narrative, to free me from the Skip Baylesses of the world taking potshots at LeBron for not being a real winner. The way LBJ won this ring despite a diminished, though not completely ineffectual, Wade, removes that potential ammunition from the media.
Beyond that, Wade's game bugs me. Not his actual physical skills on the court, but the way he lobbies the refs, to the point of often seeming to play for the whistle, and then the and-one after that if he can manage. I also think it's unseemly the cheap shots he takes at other players occasionally (I'll freely admit how he dislocated Rondo's elbow probably colors this judgment more than a little, but that's not all of it), especially given how much he bristles at anyone doing anything to him. He's a damn good player, but he's overrated, huffy, and takes cheap shots, and his teflon reputation irks me.
The back to back years where the Cavs were the #1 seed each season and had a 66 win season was impressive, and those role players were good players. Nevertheless, they mostly sucked in the crucial series in the playoffs. LeBron got way more blame for that than made sense.
If Lebron didn't have it for this Heat team on a certain night in the playoffs, they were likely to lose too. And he was playing 40 mins/night in the playoffs. You can deal for 8 minutes with those pieces the Cavs had. Yeah, Williams played like crap, but I think the bigger issue was Varejao being banged up (and then the trades for Shaq and Jamison that kept Varejao off the floor).
He didn't really get blamed for Orlando much more than the grief that any top player gets for losing a series he was favored in. But when you're up 2-1 on Boston and shoot 34% in the last 3 games, including whatever that was in game 5, yeah, you deserve all the crap that is coming your way.
And that 2007 team that made the Finals did so because the East was so, so weak. They deserved it, but only because the league requires one team from east of the Mississippi to play in the Finals.
Addressing some comments here:
I thought the first four games were terrific. If the series had gone 7 games like that, it probably would have gone down as the greatest Finals of all time. Although, to be honest, I have no idea which series currently holds that distinction. YMMV. As I've mentioned, officiating almost never bothers me at all.
Yes, this team is a lot better than the Cavs teams that lost in 2009 or 2010. Dwyane Wade may not have played the way you expect, but he was still playing at...90%. 90% of Dwyane Wade is Joe Johnson or someone, who would be the second-best player on those Cavs teams by a decent margin. Chris Bosh is better than any other player on the Cavs. I actually think if there's no Wade or Bosh on this team, Chalmers would probably end up being as good a player as Mo Williams.
If you could go back and time and get Zydrunas or Jammison in their prime, it might be a different story.
Basically, I think what LeBron did was make the problem of meshing with Wade moot by transforming into a different type of player.
Heat over Thunder was my prediction before the season, and again before the playoffs. I did later change my pick to the Spurs, and then to the Thunder, which just goes to show that my first instinct is always right and I should never second guess myself. :)
I will reprint this:
Yes and no. He deserved no blame for the Orlando series because he played an all-time great series that deserved no blame. So saying he only got "X" amount of blame is already a bad argument. He lead the playoffs in WS without playing in the Finals. That has to be extremely rare. As for the Boston series, I suppose I should remind everyone that he had 26.8/9.3/7.2. And he appeared to be injured the last couple of games in the playoffs. Yeah, he didn't shoot well in the last couple of games, but as people have said I think that is mostly random (and I think he was hurt). Jamison and Williams and others were abysmal in that series.
Again, we're still treating this like its NBA Jam. In 08-09, the Cavs were 4th in ORtg, 3rd in DRtg and lost 4 less times in 82 games than this Heat team did in 66. This Heat team may have beaten them in a playoff series, but they certainly were not "a lot better".
I completely agree that he didn't deserve any blame for Orlando (at least offensively, I've seen him much better defensively, but whatever). But with the media, its all about RINGZ, so when you lose a series you were favored in, you're going to have to take some grief. It wasn't much and it was over quick.
And yes, Lebron played amazing against Boston, up through the end of game 3. Game 4, and all of a sudden he can't buy a shot, and reacts to that by playing a lot more passively on offense: passing up good shots, not moving without the ball, and being much less willing to show off his talent and creativity in initiating offense.
The only other thing I would add is that is the depth vs. star power issue when it comes to the playoffs.
EDIT: And yes, Lebron played amazing against Boston, up through the end of game 3. Game 4, and all of a sudden he can't buy a shot, and reacts to that by playing a lot more passively on offense: passing up good shots, not moving without the ball, and being much less willing to show off his talent and creativity in initiating offense.
Granted, I am a LeBron fan, but I buy the injury angle (and I also think it's fair to hold that year's failure as a mark against him in terms of considering him amongst the GOATs). As was pointed out at the time, whenever he had more than 1 day of rest, he played like LeBron James, when he didn't...he played like something much less than that.
I think this is overplayed. More often than not, the team with the best bench/role player play is what determines who wins.
No, the Heat are definitely A LOT better. Most of the things that made Cleveland a really good team would be negated in the playoffs against a team like Boston or OKC. Mike Brown is a good, maybe even great defensive coach, but if he can't match up athletically he has huge problems adjusting, which has basically been evident in every single series he has ever coached. I think the Laker fans here might have interesting comments on his coaching as well.
Also, he had no offensive game plan whatsoever other than let LeBron have the ball and make plays. Whatever you want to say about Spoelstra, the Heat made adjustments any time they lost a game or were faced with a mismatch problem.
The 2007-08 Cavs went 45-37 and were outscored in the regular season. The 2008-09 Cavs won 66 games with basically the same cast plus Mo Williams. Mo Williams isn't worth 20+ wins.
Also, the Cavs had pretty good depth, going about 8-9 deep with decent rotation regulars. That depth advantage is largely negated in the playoffs. And Ben Wallace was a big contributor who got hurt and was pretty worthless in 2009.
Odd observation, given how frequently and in what manner you have talked about James the last three years. I assumed you would be very happy about James's team winning. The ESPN guys in the Abbott/Arnovitz/Haberstroh group are all pretty giddy about this as well. I never pay attention to Bayless; I was not even aware until a couple of weeks ago that he has a hard-on about James.
I am not "happy for" James per se, but this is a good thing for "basketball reasons" in a lot of ways. The guy is by far the best player there is and got the job done in all respects. Also, after picking his team for three straight years, I was right for a change.
When this thing started with Miami,I was a big proponent of the Mike Miller signing. I was wrong, in that I simply was unaware of much Miller's body had deteriorated on him (by NBA standards). One secondary takeaway for me from Game 5 was "So this is how Miami can look when James, Wade and Bosh get some real, substantive help from Mike Miller."
I have a Laker fan buddy who really dislikes James and is a little grouchy about Miami's winning the trophy. I texted him that there is an upside: recall that Dan Gilbert "guaranteed" Cleveland would win an NBA title before James did and that Gilbert is probably pretty pissed off tonight.
I admit to being overly cynical about that elbow injury. He's been hurting for weeks before we finally hear about it. His personal PR guy - Windhorst first tells us that everything is a-ok after the left handed free throw, until they lose that first game to Boston, then immediately he jumps ship and hits the panic button. Then after they finish the series, we never hear a word about the elbow again. I guess its more than reasonable to assume that the elbow just hit its worst at the worst time, in fact, that is probably the most likely answer, but the way it was handled by Lebron and Windhorst causes me to be skeptical.
I expected to be relieved, but instead I feel like I did when A-Rod won his in '09.
He follows nobody and replies to nobody. He is the sound of one hand clapping.
I'm pretty much in the same boat. I have a friend who's a Heat fan and I said to him that the Miller signing was perfect for the team. Oops.
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