NBA Finals Thread: San Antonio Spurs vs Miami Heat

[Boris.]

I think game 4 (the next one) is where this series breaks. If SA wins, I don't see them not being able to get one more out of three (their shooters are bound to go off again in one of those games). If Miami wins, they regain their confidence and home court advantage.

Next game will probably be very physical from the start. I hope the Spurs will be up for it. There's also a big reserve in Ginobili, who's been cold from outside but still played well enough.

[naturalborn103]

I know this isn't from last night, but it is comedy.

[Gregg Popabitch]

honest question, why so much hate for the heat? I know Boris is a spurs fan. Dwade is a flopping dirty faggot. but what else am I missing?

I've hated D-Wade since halfway through his 3rd year in the league. There's always been something suspect about him.

It might have something to do with the fact that he's a faggot like you've said before. That has nothing to do with his flopping. He's just a plain, old faggot.

Also, one of my closest homies is from San Antonio and is a humongous Spurs fan. Also, me and Timmay have been kindred spirits/bank buddies since day one.

[Gregg Popabitch]

I feel like the decline of the NBA can be exactly correlated to when the coverage switched from NBC to ABC/ESPN.

Mike Breen/JVG >>>>>

I miss Mark Jackson though

Marv Albert shits all over Mike Breen. If Gus Johnson still did NBA, he'd be shitting all over him too. Hell, Kevin Harlan is on par with Breen and would probably be getting daps if it didn't look like he used to wear plaid suits at one point in his life. Mike Breen sucks on the refs cocks until JVG usually points out why the refs fucked up and then Breen backs the fuck up.

JVG is a thug. One of the best color commentators in my lifetime.

[Gregg Popabitch]

So sexy.

Kevin Love can kiss Duncan's ass.

EDIT: For my basketball junkies:

[peanut butter]

Popp and the Spurs coaching staff deserve immense amounts of credit for mindfucking the Heat by giving them open looks and challenging them to make shots. They recognized that Bron's biggest weakness has always been his jumper, so they built a wall around the rim, and let him miss from the top of the key all day. They did the same with Bosh, but pushed him from the wing where he excels, to the three point line and allowed him to launch. The result, for the most part, has been an endless string of long misses. And more importantly, Bron has no confidence or ability to get to the rim, Bosh and Wade are useless, and the Heat's role guys need to shoot 75% from the three point line for the team to compete.



PEACE

[Philaflava]

It's funny how the best players on the Spurs don't necessary need to play all that well in order to win (and in a big way), whereas if LeBron doesn't play outstanding the Heat stand little to no chance. Didn't all 3 of the Spurs best players score a total of 25 points? Danny Green scored 27 alone.

[naturalborn103]

Popp and the Spurs coaching staff deserve immense amounts of credit for mindfucking the Heat by giving them open looks and challenging them to make shots. They recognized that Bron's biggest weakness has always been his jumper, so they built a wall around the rim, and let him miss from the top of the key all day. They did the same with Bosh, but pushed him from the wing where he excels, to the three point line and allowed him to launch. The result, for the most part, has been an endless string of long misses. And more importantly, Bron has no confidence or ability to get to the rim, Bosh and Wade are useless, and the Heat's role guys need to shoot 75% from the three point line for the team to compete.



PEACE

Thing is Lebron midrange has been great this year, especially in the playoffs. Of course it is better him taking midrange jumpers then driving, but all Lebron has to do is start hitting that shot like he has been all playoffs and Spurs will have to readjust. They are playing him like they did in 07, Mavs did in finals, and Cs did when he used to be on the Cavs. Lebron got his jumper just so teams couldn't play him like that and that shot is just not going in.

[Gregg Popabitch]

The guy shot 41% from 3 during the season too. But I feel like the Spurs are pushing him towards the free throw line extended to shoot most of his shots.

[peanut butter]

Point is, no matter how improved his shot has been this year, you want to make Lebron try to beat you with the jumper.



PEACE

[Prophecy]

Point is, no matter how improved his shot has been this year, you want to make Lebron try to beat you with the jumper.



PEACE

Yup, limits the looks the Heat's outside shooters get due to not having to collapse on James and helps keeps your bigs out of foul trouble. If James beats you with his jumper so be it but when he's attacking the rim that's when the heat as a whole can fire on all cylinders

[Gregg Popabitch]

Point is, no matter how improved his shot has been this year, you want to make Lebron try to beat you with the jumper.



PEACE

Yup, limits the looks the Heat's outside shooters get due to not having to collapse on James and helps keeps your bigs out of foul trouble. If James beats you with his jumper so be it but when he's attacking the rim that's when the heat as a whole can fire on all cylinders

Pretty much.

[Gregg Popabitch]

Article from ESPN Insider about Lebron James' struggles.

What's wrong with Lebron James by Kevin Pelton (ESPN Insider)

In Tuesday's Game 3 of the NBA Finals, Gary Neal of the San Antonio Spurs had a "podium game" -- an unexpected appearance in the postgame news conference by a role player. LeBron James had the opposite. Somehow, after scoring 15 points on 7-of-21 shooting in a blowout loss, the league's reigning MVP and Finals MVP wasn't among the Miami Heat players who were brought out to speak to the media. Clearly, James is off his game. Does that say more about him or the Spurs' defense? Let's take a look at the numbers.

The signs of trouble
The James we've seen in the Finals so far is very different from the version who led the Heat to a 66-16 record and an Eastern Conference title. James has scored a combined 50 points in the past three games, his lowest three-game stretch of the season. Just twice before -- centered on back-to-back games in mid-March in which he combined for 28 points -- has James been held to fewer than 60 points over a three-game stretch this season.

Even when James has slumped as a scorer, rarely has it lasted this long. The last time he was held to fewer than 20 points in three consecutive games was another NBA Finals matchup with a team from Texas -- 2011 against the Dallas Mavericks, when James totaled 42 points in Games 3-5 of the Heat's Finals loss.

Of course, looking at all three games does James a disservice. Through the first two games of the series in Miami, he was making the right plays against a San Antonio defense designed to keep him out of the paint, as reflected by his combined 17 assists. With the glaring exception of the fourth quarter of Game 1, Miami was happy with the results. The attention the Spurs placed on James opened things up for his teammates.

Something different happened in Game 3, particularly after halftime. James handed out five assists, just one of them after halftime -- and that one set up a Chris Bosh midrange jumper, not the high-percentage 3-pointers and finishes at the rim the Heat count on him to create.

At the same time, James was less efficient offensively. He shot 7-of-21 (.333) from the field, his third-lowest percentage in any game in 2012-13. Just twice before had James missed at least 14 shot attempts -- a 14-of-31 effort in a January loss at Boston and an 8-of-22 outing at Cleveland in March.

To that, add the incredible stat that James failed to reach the free throw line for the first time since December 2009. According to Basketball-Reference.com, James had been held without a foul shot eight times before in his career -- half of them during his rookie season.

When the inaccurate shooting is combined with the missing free throws, James' true shooting percentage during Game 3 (.357) was not only his worst of the season (previously .412 in a January loss at Portland) but his worst since -- you guessed it -- the 2011 Finals, when his eight-point Game 4 produced a .312 true shooting percentage.

Diagnosing the problem
There are two factors in James' poor shooting numbers in this series -- the types of shots he's getting and the rate at which he's hitting those shots.

We can assess the former by looking at the percentage of James' shots that have come from various spots on the floor, according to NBA.com/stats. By walling off the paint, San Antonio has taken the Indiana Pacers' effort to keep James away from the rim one step further. After taking 41.3 percent of his shots in the restricted area around the basket during the regular season, James got just 35.0 percent of his shots there in the Eastern Conference finals. During this series, that's all the way down to 28.3 percent.

On the rare occasions James has gotten to the rim -- often in transition -- he's actually making his attempts at a better rate than usual. James is 12-of-15 (.800) there in this series, superior to his .750 accuracy around the basket in the regular season. But because James is so much better at the rim than anywhere else on the floor, limiting his attempts is more important than cutting down on his percentage.

The extra shots have been shifted outside, although maybe not as far as you think. More than any other spot, James has increased his attempts from inside the paint but outside the restricted area. (Surprisingly, James didn't take more of these shots than usual against Roy Hibbert and the Pacers.) Despite their relative closeness, those aren't usually great shots; James made them at an even 50 percent clip during the regular season. He's also taking slightly more 3-pointers and midrange jumpers.

If James were making these same shots at his regular-season rates, he would be shooting 51.9 percent from the field in this series -- down from his 56.4 percent mark from the regular season, certainly, but also far better than the 38.9 percent he's actually shooting.

That analysis suggests the bigger problem for James is shot making, not the shots he's taking. Besides the rim area, James has been less accurate from every other location on the court than during the regular season.

Location RS FGA% Finals FGA% RS FG% Finals FG%
Restricted area .413 .283 .750 .800
Paint (Non-RA) .102 .170 .500 .222
Midrange .298 .321 .432 .235
3-pointers .188 .227 .406 .250

At this point, the explanation starts to become more of a guessing game. If the Spurs are giving James open midrange jumpers by playing off him defensively and going under screens, why would he make them at a lower rate than he usually does against more defensive pressure?

Part of the issue might be that James is making these plays off the dribble or from a standstill rather than in the flow of the offense. None of the six makes he does have from between the restricted area and the 3-point line has come off a catch-and-shoot situation. Then again, based on his regular-season rates, only one of those shots would have been set up by an assist. So this difference is probably not meaningful.

Teammate Dwyane Wade pointed out postgame that San Antonio's strategy may be causing James to second-guess himself.

"Their defensive scheme, it's to go under a lot of the pick-and-rolls, to play off a lot," Wade said. "And when they do that, you have the shot most of the time. So it takes away some of your aggressiveness at times, because you have the shot that you can make in your sleep, and you're like, 'I'm going to shoot it,' and then it don't go in. But you have to keep shooting it."

For a player of James' caliber, continuing to shoot when open is the only choice. Miami has to hope that his shots go in at their usual rates starting in Game 4.

[peanut butter]

Sounds like TP's leg/hamstring might be a real issue




PEACE

[Shade Tree]

honest question, why so much hate for the heat? I know Boris is a spurs fan. Dwade is a flopping dirty faggot. but what else am I missing?

They are a team of people who wouldn't think twice about wearing white suede loafers.

[naturalborn103]

please keep posting shade tree.

Royce Young ‏@dailythunder11m Tim Duncan was asked what he would hate most about the spotlight the Heat get, the second-guessing, the over-coverage, etc. Answer: "Yes."

Royce Young ‏@dailythunder3m
Pop on Kawhi Leonard's confidence: "Kawhi has never spoken to me so I don't really know what his confidence is."

[Gregg Popabitch]

Yeah, Shade Tree might be Sports Bar Rookie of the year and he's only been posting for a week.

[Big Breeze]

LeBron had a garbage triple-double last night with a -29 +/-. Ouch.

[drobizhek]

[Gregg Popabitch]

I've been waiting for this Gif.

Thank you drob god.

[drobizhek]

For the record I like Spo. But that's awesome.

[Hayzoos]

Nets offered J Kidd a 3 year deal

[alpha]

Rivers thinking about leaving the c's

[Gregg Popabitch]

For the record I like Spo. But that's awesome.

I love Spoelstra. I think people that hate on him don't know what the fuck they are talking about. He's a helluva coach and you can see him make adjustments from game to game. I also feel he deserves some credit for not poo pooing D'antoni's/Don Nelson's ideas of point forwards and playing big SFs at the 4 to create spacing and thus somewhat changing the way the game is played. I know it's easy to do that with Lebron on your squad but someone has to convince the guy and have the ability to implement it.

But THAT GIF

[Vlad Analogue]

LOL @ that broad's eyes, SHE HONGRY

[drobizhek]

For the record I like Spo. But that's awesome.

I love Spoelstra. I think people that hate on him don't know what the fuck they are talking about. He's a helluva coach and you can see him make adjustments from game to game. I also feel he deserves some credit for not poo pooing D'antoni's/Don Nelson's ideas of point forwards and playing big SFs at the 4 to create spacing and thus somewhat changing the way the game is played. I know it's easy to do that with Lebron on your squad but someone has to convince the guy and have the ability to implement it.

But THAT GIF

Yeah I agree Riley was right not to fire him in their first year. Can't wait to see what he and Miami are going to do in game 4.

[VideoKilledThe]

Point is, no matter how improved his shot has been this year, you want to make Lebron try to beat you with the jumper.



PEACE

Yup, limits the looks the Heat's outside shooters get due to not having to collapse on James and helps keeps your bigs out of foul trouble. If James beats you with his jumper so be it but when he's attacking the rim that's when the heat as a whole can fire on all cylinders

Pretty much.

To add to this...I don't care how fit you are, everyone gets tired. And just logically speaking the bigger you are, the more weight you're carrying, the more tired you'll be.

If you want to be the point-forward, the leading scorer, the distributor of the ball, the best rebounder, and the best defender on your team you're gonna get pretty gassed. Throw in that the lead up to the Finals for the Heat was a physical series vs the Bulls, a draining 7 game series against the Pacers, and that now that they are here on the big stage they get to play the most defensively disciplined team in the league, and the cumulative affect is you're legs get heavy and wide open shots you would have normal made just aren't falling anymore.

With their backs against the wall I expect the Heat to come out swinging tonight.

[naturalborn103]

now that they are here on the big stage they get to play the most defensively disciplined team in the league

I'd give that title to Pacers or Memphis.

[Pronay]

put these together yesterday:

[capable_keL]