except the 56% was his overall percentage in the first 3 games

if you remove the 1/3 where durant shot 62% on lebron, we'd see durant's percentage be much lower than 56%

btw, if durant had struggled like we've seen him do in other playoff series, it would've changed the whole series - there's a big gap between 35 ppg on 57%, and 25 ppg on 50-53%.. the latter was durant's RS and first 3 round averages

except that teammates assists is a completely useless stat.

heres a useful fact, lebron has beat 2 all time great teams by putting up amazing and clutch performances.

Okay, two shots then...

lol, Durant struggled in the earlier playoff series? Now I've heard everything.

Warriors cruised remember. He didn't need to get out of 2nd gear in the first 3 rounds. He could have probably sat out the first 3 rounds and the Warriors would have won.

He also had an injury in the first round which effected his next two games outputs.

Also, he only averaged 33 mins/game in the first 3 rounds, before averaging 40 in the Finals. That's 5ppg right there. He also shot exactly the same from the field in the first 3 rounds as the Finals.

in other seasons.. he's struggled several times b4

and regarding lebron's defense - it's a pattern... kawhi, iggy, and durant all scored much more against lebron than their RS and playoff averages.. 5 ppg higher for kawhi, 9 ppg for iggy, and 10 ppg for durant

clearly, lebron is doing something wrong.. the reality is that tristan only averaged 5 rebs in finals and defensive rebounds are replaceable - so lebron should've spent less time inside grabbing tristan's rebounds, and more energy on the perimeter being a lockdown defender like mj was

he has a handful of playoff heroics

but nowhere near the VOLUME of heroics that mj has

and of course, lebron has the goat choke to his credit, several losses as the favorite, and many other bad series and questionable moves with the game on the line..

whereas mj doesn't have these issues because he's the goat closer and clutch player.. he's the goat, so there's not much to knock him for period.. certainly less than anyone else

I think you're overthinking how much energy LeBron is using to get those rebounds.

And it's been said a million times already, but Cleveland's game plan was to let Iggy shoot jump shots (over Klay and Steph). He made them. Good for Iggy. That's one of the reasons he was Finals MVP. His minutes were also up considerably.

You can't blame LeBron for that.

What? How about Ruth then? Should hot dogs and beer be banned substances?

banging inside for boards takes effort and energy, obviously

but i see that you've resorted to playing dumb rather than keep defending another "next jordan" failure


cool story bro

got any cool ones for why kawhi and durant destroyed him too?

i can't wait to hear those yarns..

mj fans never have to make bad excuses like that (i.e. "oh no, really, the gameplan was hand down, man UP, yeah it was supposed to work but it didn't, so it's not bron's fault")

smh.. if an 8 ppg bench player can double his scoring average with better efficiency, than tons of guys could do it
.

Guys left wide open due to game plan are just that. As mentioned, Iggy has been a starter and i believe an all star and his minutes and scoring jumped. Iggy was a really poor finals MVP, same with kawhi and only given to said players because lebrons teams lost. LEbron was the best player in the 2014 and 2015 finals and it wasn't that close.

lebron gave up 3 fmvp's and 3 guys scoring way above their average

jordan didn't

advantage jordan

______________

(fill in excuse above)



his minutes only jumped against the cavs..

apparently, lebron was a 'spot' on defense, so the warriors bum-hunted him with a bench player

and this was not a one-off


think about what you're saying - you're saying that the best player is the guy that accumulates the most boxscore stats regardless of the team result

if that's the case, than guys like iverson are really underrated

iverson doesn't seem analogous because of his inefficiency, but lebron's form of inefficiency is to add a pg's time of possession to the forward position, thus reducing teammates' time with the ball and playmaking..

sure lebron is the best player on the team, but the team is easier to defend with one guy holding it most of the time, or less guys holding it in general.. that's why they're never the team with the unstoppable offense that wins via blowouut and a 120 ortg, despite having a superstar big 3 - instead, they get beat by those teams.

(and of course, lebron > iverson, that's not the point here)


Lebron's defense was good the first 2 games against Kawhi (9 ppg on 43%), and not surprisingly, the Heat were tied 1-1... They were competitive with the Spurs, just like OKC and Dallas were, who held Kawhi to 12 ppg on 45%.

But then Kawhi ran roughshod the last 3 games (all wins) for 24 ppg on 69% - this is the biggest reason the series changed - that's a 15 point swing.. kawhi's emergence as #1 option for the first time unlocked the spurs optimal offense for the first time - the spurs played far better against the heat than anyone else.

Better defense on Kawhi would've kept the games closer, and the Heat could've WON the series if Lebron had more offensive aggression - he only averaged 17 shot attempts, which was HALF the attempts he took in the 2015 Finals when he won 2 games with a worse supporting cast (the injured Cavs) against a better team (Warriors).

Obviously, if Lebron plays good defense on Kawhi AND doubles his shot attempts to 33 per game like the 2015 Finals, the Heat would've won..

however, better teamwork would've won it more than anything - the spurs didn't have more talent, so their record margin of victory reflects the gap in teamwork between the 2 teams.. indeed, lebron's stats were achieved while his team had the biggest teamwork deficit ever in a finals.. therefore, his stats can be criticized as "empty", and his style of play as self-serving.. he isn't capable of great teamwork needed to beat those spurs
.

How is any of that comparable to steroids?

fwiw, if Kawhi had shot 20% in those last 3 games, SA still win each game.

Yeah, I can't think of the logic why LeBron's shot attempts doubled when he had no supporting cast. And his minutes per game went from 38 minutes to 46. Amazing.

i thought the 2014 Heat were broken down and nothing?.. i thought wade could barely run up the court?

so why is lebron taking 17 shots per game?

regardless, jordan's heat would've had far better teamwork, so role players wouldn't underperform, wade/bosh would play near capacity, and the team would be entirely more productive..

since wade/bosh are better scoring options than jordan had in chicago, his heat would've had the goat offense - the ball would've been whizzing around.. it would've been not 5, not 6, not 7



nonsense

think about what you're saying- the best player in a series is always on the team that wins. that's absurd.look at 2015. lebron was clearly the best player in the finals the problem was the next (3,4,5?) players were on the other team. the other team won.

i've seen it in other sports too. for example in the 2009 world series the best pitcher in the series was clearly cliff lee, the best position player was utley who hit 5 home runs in a 6 game series. but the yankees won so they gave matsui the mvp. that's how the voting always (at least in the last 50 or so years) works. that doesn't make it right.

how are many of them not?
you think guys were taking greenies bc they like the way they taste? or many of those same people wouldn't have taken other peds were they available to them?

tommy john and other medical procedures help guys play when they otherwise would have had to retire. they're helping just as much if not more than steroids.

the bolded- you said i either made up or assumed aaron and mays took amphetamines when those are facts. thanks for making this so easy for me.

if you honestly didn't know about aaron and mays taking them (like many anti steroid guys) a reasonable response would be "i didn't know that about them,thanks for telling me" instead of accusing me of making it up then totally ignoring it when it's pointed out to you to be fact.


so either

1) you genuinely didn't know about mays and aaron-but now you'll remove them from your all time great list for the same reason bonds can't be on your list.
2)you genuinely didn't know about mays and aaron-but you'll keep them on there anyway bc you're a hypocrite.
3)mays and/or aaron weren't on your all time great list to begin with in which case you know even less about baseball history than i thought.

so which is it?

can u guys make ur own aids containment thread

i agree some gms are ******ed. but we've seen it work with kobe, eli, tons of guys in the baseball draft.i'd love it if more gms told the players to stfu and play. same with irving requesting a trade.

I'm sure you can do the math. That's not even allowing for any second chance points from his misses.

In Sports:

Flying on airplanes = same as steroid use

Only 2+2 could come up with these Hot Takes!

no i said(or implied) am i supposed to believe you because you said so(some dood named borg on 2+2)? show me the facts. where are your sources? did they fail some tests? or is this from news articles that assumed certain things? but no its fact because high and mighty, 2+2, know it all, poster says so. lol. ok. got it.

but let me entertain your dumbass question for a minute. if i had made a list(which i never gave much thought because these lists are arbitrary and waste of time) and they were on it, i would take them off if they were factually known as steroid users or other illegal peds. why. because i am consistent with my beliefs. something that is hard to grasp for those who lack character such as yourself.

In Sports:

Certain Advantages disqualify a player for consideration of GOAT status but others don't and there's no rhyme or reason for which are ok and which are not but some dummies in 2+2 don't understand anything outside of black and white so they try to make funny jokes but instead just show their ignorance.

thank you. yet they are so adamant everyone else is so dumb