+1

yeah this is a really good post

it fits in the above somewhere and it's probbaly pretty obvious - but lebron of the 3 also easily had the most to lose (which magnifies on a relative basis how bad his mistake was)

Labron almost single-handedly unseated one of the top five teams post-2000 (the '08 Cs). He was an absolute monster.

The only reason the '09 cavs lost was Mo Williams played absolutely awful and scared the entire ECF, I think delonte did too, and the magic ran pretty hot from deep (both rashard and turkeyglue hit very tough, low % 3s at the end of two games). Labron had a 37 PER that playoffs and averaged something like 39/8/8 vs Orlando.

37 PER lmao

don't forget some coaching blunders on mike brown's part, like trying to guard orlando's stretch 4 with slow varajao (rashard lewis hit the series changing game winner over him after creating space by jab stepping the slow varajao and then hitting). and also trying to guard the deadly hedo (at the time) with delonte.

both of these coaching moves i thought lost cleveland the series and possibly a championship that year. the loss to orlando was somewhat inexplicable at the time, except for this mind-boggling defensive strategy, which conspicuously hurt them.

the way lebron plays defense...kg cant f with him, dominated indy like i have never seen before, makes kobe look like a little kid...he will be alright. he may have lost a few years but listen mj had one ring at lebrons age, right? he can find the right situation and mj scored 40 at 40 but was a shell of himself. lebron is still gonna be a see the whole court monster.

now that i remember it, mike brown actually switched the positional matchups in that series and had lebron guard rafer alston for most of the series. this was excrutiatingly painful for me to watch at the time, because it was like brown was GOING OUT OF HIS WAY to blow it. and orlando's offense couldn't be stopped. hedo was so comfortable looking over delonte west and picking the cavs apart.

to this day, i think mike brown should take a lot more heat for this enormous blunder. mo williams underperformed, sure, but lebron is used to that. that orlando magic team wasn't better than the detroit team lebron knocked off or took to 7 games with a weaker supporting cast years earlier. but they lost to this orlando team in 6 games. it was the defensive matchups that lost the series. lebron was good enough to handle underperformance of his supporting cast and still beat orlando.

Something's changed since then. And I think part of it is the pressure from acting like the Heat won a bunch of championships just by signing up to play together. (Take a look at the article I linked in the NBA season thread.) In 2007 the Cavs were underdogs and there was no pressure on LeBron to win. Now the pressure is on to deliver "not 5, not 6, not 7" championships, and it's overwhelming him to the point where he can't deliver one. And even that pressure is overwhelming him to the point where he can't close out playoff games, doesn't even want the ball in his hands.

I said this pretty much the day of the decision. Hate to go all "I told you so" on everyone, but I've been saying that this would not be a good fit all along... Also I thought Cleveland was his best landing spot because the pressure wasn't really on him there.

holy crap lebron averaged 39ppg, 8 and 8, 49% in that series. but orlando averaged 103 pts for the series as well and cleveland led the league in d that year (or close to it).

The difference is MJ was on a great team whose parts were pretty much set. labron still isn't on that team. He's locked in for at least 1 or 2 more years.

he was closing games like no one else in the nba during last year's playoffs

KG has to get alot of credit for Labron's "passiveness" this series. Second he goes to the bench, Labron is attacking the rim like crazy again. Saw what happened when Labron tried to go at him in crunch time and KG stuffed him. Labron could just shoot open jumpers, but that is not the type of aggressiveness that will carry his team, sad (and very impressive for KG) that you have 10x moar confidence in KG knocking down the jumper at the top of the key than Labron or D-wade.

Best way for Labron to be aggressive is attack the paint then kick to the open 3 point shooter. Unfortunately, their shooters have been abysmal this series, and not only that but have been hesitant and pump-faking out of open looks. Think this has contributed to Labron not being as aggressive.

starting backcourt for orlando was rafer alston and courtney lee. cavs backcourt was mo williams and delonte.

seems like an easy matchup of course right? no. mike brown has lebron guard rafer, an delonte guard hedo. this is why they lost. i bet my house on it.

recency bias itt

Broussard also called Spoelstra’s explanation of keeping Miami’s Chris Bosh out late in the game “ridiculous.”

“Fair?” Broussard said. “Was it fair for Doc Rivers to play Rajon Rondo 53 minutes? Was it fair to play Ray Allen on bone spurs? It is fair to play Paul Pierce on a sprained MCL? This isn’t about being fair. Bosh wanted to play. These are grown men. This isn’t the YMCA league.

I have a feeling that was a poor choice of wording by Spo more than anything else.

What Doc Rivers has figured out the heat are an excellent scoring team but a below average passing team. I dont think the heat wll fix it by game 6

that may be the greatest series ever by an individual player. szczerbiak sucked balls that series too. pretty much the whole team did.

turkoglu ran so unreal hot that 2 teams offered him max deals.


varejao aint slow.

shard hit a redic 180 3pter to send the game to ot.

the loss to orlando wasnt inexplicable. they straight up played a lot better. it wasnt mike brown's fault mo, delonte and wally went delhomme on open jumpers.

Grunching, but on cable

There was someone itt that made a comment about ESPN being pissed for having the worse series.

lol

I never would have guessed after Wade won his first title that he would be someone I would end up despising. Guess lil bitch is contagious and he caught it from Lebron.

If anything I think it's the other way around. I found LeBron to be pretty likeable when he was on the Cavs, and I thought he took WAY too much flak for "The Decision." Was it a little tacky? Yes. But he was well within his rights as a player, and he was (and is) acknowledged as the biggest superstar in the league. He can be forgiven for some really, really bad advice from his media consultant and agents regarding his plans to move to Miami. Since last year's playoffs, however, he and Wade have acted like self-entitled pricks who jump around like they've already won a title, and seem outraged that the other teams won't just get out of their way. Pleading every call, refusing to get back in transition, getting lazy on sets... it's horrifically unbefitting of alleged superstars promising multiple championships.

Wade I have never found particularly likeable on the other hand. I thought he was a flopping bitch in 06, and very little has changed. He's also made some extremely dirty plays that don't seem to get nearly the same scrutiny as those of, say, Kevin Garnett, widely acknowledged as a "mean, dirty player."

I agree with pretty much all of that. I never really cared about LeBron till he went to Miami. And I actually still don't really "mind" him. If he leaves the Heat I'll go back to being impartial about him. Wade on the other hand, I hate. And that won't be changing. He's a dirty crybaby, but for whatever reason is still not perceived that way.

Wade gets a pass because he doesn't look like the LOTR trees