Magic Set Finals Single Game Field Goal Percentage Record, Beat Lakers 108-104
The Orlando Magic set an NBA Finals single game record by shooting .625 from the field and had five players score between 18 and 21 points as they defeated the L.A. Lakers 108-104, cutting the Lakers' lead to 2-1. The 1991 Chicago Bulls had held the Finals single game field goal percentage record (.617), narrowly edging the 1987 Lakers (.615); both of those teams went on to win the championship, though the 1985 Celtics shot nearly as well (.608) in one game but still eventually lost to the Lakers. Dwight Howard led the Magic with 21 points and a game-high 14 rebounds. He also had just one turnover after committing seven in game two. Howard shot 5-6 from the field but his field goal attempts in this series do not accurately indicate how involved he is offensively because the Lakers are fouling Howard when he catches the ball deep in the paint; Howard shot 11-16 from the free throw line. Rashard Lewis also scored 21 points in addition to contributing five rebounds and five assists. Rafer Alston provided some much needed scoring punch from the point guard position with 20 points--but no one who understands basketball is surprised that Alston shot much better at home than he did in the first two games of the series on the road. Mickael Pietrus added 18 points, including what proved to be the game-winning putback dunk plus two free throws that pushed Orlando's lead to four points with :28.7 remaining. Hedo Turkoglu played the point forward role to perfection with 18 points, seven assists, six rebounds and just one turnover. The Magic only attempted 14 three pointers, making five, but they killed the Lakers with pullup midrange jumpers and scored some timely uncontested layups. The Lakers' matchup advantages and length on defense have been much discussed but the Magic hardly seemed overmatched or too small in this contest; in fact, they pretty much picked the Lakers apart--literally, by using pick and roll plays--from start to finish.
Kobe Bryant scored 69 points and had 16 assists in the first two games of the Finals. The last four players who reached both of those marks in the first two games of the Finals--Michael Jordan in 1997, 1992 and 1991 and Jerry West in 1969--won the Finals MVP, though of course West's Lakers lost the Finals in seven games to the Celtics despite his triple double (42 points, 13 rebounds, 12 assists) in the last contest. Bryant produced 31 points, eight assists and three rebounds in game three--and became just the third player to amass 100 points and 24 assists in the first three games of an NBA Finals series--but he shot 11-25 from the field and just 5-10 from the free throw line. When the Lakers win, their talent and depth receive high praise but when the Lakers lose the bulk of the attention is usually focused squarely on Bryant. All of the self-proclaimed experts surely have their "Michael Jordan would have never missed that many free throws" articles ready but students of basketball history recall that in the game before Michael Jordan hit "The Shot" over Craig Ehlo he missed free throws down the stretch that cost his Chicago Bulls a chance to win; so before Henry Abbott, John Krolik and crew carry on about how THIS was the BIGGEST game of Bryant's career, let's just see how the series plays out, instead of trying to write history before the history has even taken place.
After the game, Bryant said, "We lost this game on the defensive end. We had been playing very good defense and the team tonight shoots 62 percent from the field." Look at Orlando's team and individual numbers again: a Finals record field goal percentage spearheaded by five players scoring between 18 and 21 points, each of whom shot at least .583 from the field. That is just unacceptably bad defense; any good defensive game plan focuses on stopping certain things that the other team does well while potentially conceding other shot opportunities but the Lakers did not contain any of Orlando's key players. All season long I have written about how inconsistent the Lakers are defensively, in contrast to Kevin Pelton, who bizarrely claimed that the Lakers are using some kind of revolutionary defensive tactics, a contention that Lakers assistant coach Jim Cleamons
flatly rejected when I asked him about it early in the season; Cleamons told me at that time, "The only thing we’re doing is what a lot of teams have decided to do: basically, playing a man to man defense that is actually a zone; we’re sending an extra defender over in situations that we feel threatened. There’s no big secret about it; that’s what we’re trying to do: give more help when we can and we’ve been fortunate thus far." Around the midpoint of the season,
I spoke with Cleamons again and he provided this candid assessment of the Lakers' defense:Anyone who watches film and is a student of the game would see that we don't play with the same intensity day in and day out, game in and game out. If you are going to be a championship caliber team, your defense is the one area that doesn't waver. We aren't good enough on a game by game basis to do what we need to do to say that we are going to be accountable in the end. Then, our rotations are not always what I like to call 'on point.' Sometimes, they are nonexistent, sometimes they are a little bit slow. If you are a good defensive team, then you play better on the defensive end than you do on the offensive end, because that (defense) is where you are really linked together; (in that case) the team has a feeling of when they have to help and a sense and a presence of how they need to get there so that when the ball moves and flows your defense is not always reacting. You are kind of ahead or you arrive right on the catch so the offense knows that you are there and there are no gaps in your rotations.The Magic are a tough team to guard because they surround Howard with several players who not only can make three pointers but are also able to put the ball on the floor and either get to the hoop or pull up and shoot midrange shots--but the Lakers' defensive rotations in game three were late and/or incorrect. This is a problem that you could actually see starting to crop up in the second quarter of game two, when Lamar Odom fell asleep and let Lewis go off for 18 points, mostly on uncontested shots. The most effective defense against Orlando--the one that I have been mentioning since the Pistons beat the Magic in the playoffs last year--is to single cover Howard, foul him to prevent any dunks, and play the rest of the players straight up. Howard should only be double-teamed once he puts the ball on the floor, because that is when he is vulnerable to being stripped by smaller players and because he is not a great passer when he is on the move. Doubling Howard when he is holding the ball is not a good idea because that provides him with an easy read--and doubling Howard with a small player like Fisher when Howard is holding the ball is particularly pointless because Howard will simply throw the ball right over Fisher's head. However, Fisher has done a good job of trapping Howard when Howard is on the move, "digging" at the ball and creating a lot of disruption. The problem is that in the last game and a half the Lakers seem to have lost some of their discipline and focus defensively. Of course, the other obvious factor is that teams shoot better at home than on the road, so what Orlando did in game three is only surprising from the standpoint that the Magic set a Finals record.
Pau Gasol had 23 points on 9-11 field goal shooting but grabbed just three rebounds in 39:47. Trevor Ariza scored 13 points and had a team-high seven rebounds but shot just 5-13 from the field. Lamar Odom had just 11 points and two rebounds in 32:23, while Jordan Farmar chipped in 11 points in 15:56 off of the bench. Derek Fisher had solid numbers (nine points, two assists, no turnovers) but was burned repeatedly by Alston. If the Lakers truly are a deep team, nine-time champion Coach Phil Jackson apparently does not realize it because other than Odom and Farmar only three other reserves saw action and that trio combined to play fewer than 15 minutes--and listing Odom as a bench player is really just a matter of semantics because he plays starter's minutes and is usually on the court at the end, while nominal starter Andrew Bynum plays reserve minutes and has rarely had an impact during the postseason; Bynum had just four points and four rebounds in 23:20.
Despite Orlando's hot shooting, the Lakers actually led 31-27 after the first quarter, mainly because of a spectacular 12 minutes by Bryant, who had three assists in the first 2:57 and then erupted for 17 points on 7-10 field goal shooting. Overall, he accounted for 10 of the Lakers' 14 made field goals but ABC commentator Mark Jackson made an important point about how Bryant's impact extends beyond the boxscore numbers: "What people don't realize is that the reason why Pau Gasol is able to play one on one is Kobe Bryant is on the strong side so that eliminates his man's double teaming." That is why the Wages of Wins approach--which concluded that Gasol outplayed Bryant in the 2008 Finals even though anyone who understands basketball realizes that is false--is so deeply flawed: baseball is a station to station game with discrete actions that can be quantified but basketball involves a complex interaction of 10 players and sometimes one player scores an easy basket because the other team is focused on stopping his teammate. Along similar lines, Jackson's broadcast partner Jeff Van Gundy was amused by the idea that Bryant had a subpar game two: "When you get 29 points and eight assists and you're unhappy, you're really, really good." After Bryant concluded his first quarter onslaught with a four point play, Van Gundy concluded, "That could have been the best quarter I remember watching someone play in the Finals in recent memory." Bryant cooled off in the second quarter but he did execute a great shot fake to draw a foul on Pietrus, though in a bit of foreshadowing Bryant only split the resulting pair of free throws. Van Gundy said, "If you want to look at (a) textbook, fundamental shot fake--watch how hard he went on the dribble and then raised the ball all the way above his head, imitating his jump shot to perfection. Talk about his great athleticism--this is honed in the gym: two hard dribbles, great pullup shot fake." Why does this matter? Henry Abbott--and a lot of the "stat gurus"--contend that Bryant plays a more aesthetically pleasing game than other stars such as LeBron James and that the beauty of Bryant's game masks his flaws but Abbott is not just wrong about this, he is in fact completely missing the point: while James and some of the younger stars like Dwyane Wade may have more athletic ability now than Bryant does and are able to do some flashy and visually impressive things (such as the so-called "chasedown blocks") what Van Gundy correctly notes is that Bryant is in fact an extremely fundamentally sound player and that is the real basis of Bryant's greatness; NBA TV commentator Steve Smith--who played against both Bryant and Michael Jordan--recently said that he considers Bryant to be the most fundamentally sound player in the history of the game, possessing better footwork even than Jordan. Whether you agree or disagree with Smith's statement, the important thing to understand is that when actual NBA experts like Van Gundy and Smith watch a basketball game and analyze Bryant's skill set they are seeing a much different game than 99% of the people who write about basketball, which is why such a high percentage of what is written about basketball is wrong.
The Magic led 59-54 at halftime, setting a record for best field goal percentage for one half in any Finals game (75%). Why even mention Bryant's first half performance when the Magic had the lead, ultimately won the game and Bryant did not come through in the clutch? Simple--while so many people ramble on ad nauseam about how talented the Lakers are and how deep the Lakers are, the reality is that the Lakers are highly dependent on Bryant creating shots for himself and shots for his teammates. When Bryant is not able to do that the Lakers have problems. It is interesting how so many people (erroneously) call the Cleveland Cavaliers a one man team but apparently don't recognize just how dependent the Lakers are on Bryant. In the wake of Bryant's 21 point first half, the Magic understandably focused more attention on Bryant in the third quarter and he responded correctly by drawing multiple defenders--Bryant later said that the Magic threw the "kitchen sink" at him--and then passing to wide open teammates. Bryant did not make a field goal until the 1:20 mark of the third quarter but what was really odd was that he shot just 2-5 from the free throw line, including 1-3 after he was fouled while shooting a three pointer. As Phil Jackson said after the game when asked to explain Bryant's shooting, "We're all frail as humans." Meanwhile, the Magic received third quarter contributions from multiple players, with Howard scoring seven points, Alston adding six points and Turkoglu, Lewis and Courtney Lee also making shots.
The Magic led 81-75 after three quarters. In game two, Bryant played the whole second half and overtime but after playing Bryant for the entire third quarter Coach Jackson decided that he had to give Bryant some rest. As highly conditioned as Bryant is, people seem to forget that he is indeed human and that for this team he is asked not only to shoulder the Michael Jordan scoring role in the Triangle Offense but also the Scottie Pippen playmaking/ballhandling role. Coach Jackson said after the game that he had planned to keep Bryant out for at least five fourth quarter minutes to try to rejuvenate him but that circumstances did not allow him to do that; those circumstances were the fact that the Lakers looked dead in the water without Bryant in the game as the Magic built a 91-82 lead, their biggest of the series. Once Bryant returned, the Lakers mostly ran the Bryant-Gasol screen/roll action for the rest of the game and that proved to be highly effective, enabling the Lakers to tie the score at 99 with 2:41 left. Bryant only had five points and two assists in the fourth quarter but he played a critical role in the Lakers' comeback, as Mark Jackson noted: "Right now, Kobe Bryant is running the pick and roll as a decoy. He is a willing passer making plays." Here is what Jackson is talking about: after Gasol set a screen for Bryant, two Orlando defenders trapped Bryant, who swung the ball to the weakside where either Fisher, Ariza or Farmar were open. Those guys either took uncontested three pointers or fed the ball in the post to Odom, who could establish deep post position and go one on one because the Orlando defense had tilted to Bryant and was now in full rotation. It is this type of action that "advanced basketball statistics" completely fail to accurately describe, because other than a couple assists there is no boxscore record of Bryant's impact but he essentially created virtually every shot that the Lakers took after he returned to the game. One of the assist passes--a feed to Fisher for a three pointer that cut Orlando's lead to 95-93 at the 5:25 mark--merited special praise from Van Gundy, who does an excellent job of specifically explaining why certain plays are not as easy as great players make them appear to be: "That hook pass going to your left is an incredibly difficult pass. He made it on time and on target."
Bryant and Gasol did an excellent job of changing the angles of the screen and the way that Bryant attacked the defenders--and the other Lakers came through by knocking down shots but after exerting all of that energy to wipe out a nine point lead the Lakers simply did not have enough in the tank to finish things off; the final 2:41 represents a wasted opportunity for the Lakers, starting with a missed Turkoglu jumper that the Lakers failed to rebound, enabling Pietrus to crash the boards from the weakside and get a tip dunk. Bryant then missed a three pointer and Alston split a pair of free throws to put the Magic up 102-99 with 1:54 left. Gasol answered with a layup on a feed from Bryant but then Lewis hit a jumper with his toe on the three point line to make the score 104-101 Magic. Bryant drew a foul on Howard but only made one of two free throws. The Lakers got a crucial defensive stop as Gasol blocked Lewis' runner but the Bryant-Gasol screen/roll that had sparked the Lakers' comeback fell apart on the next critical possession, as Howard poked the ball loose from Bryant. Gasol recovered the ball while lying on the court but instead of calling timeout he tried to pass in tight quarters to Bryant and Pietrus came up with the steal. Bryant fouled Pietrus, who coolly knocked down both free throws. The Lakers missed four three pointers--and got four offensive rebounds--in the final 28 seconds before Bryant got an offensive rebound under the hoop and made a layup with just :00.5 left. Bryant fouled Lewis as Lewis caught the inbounds pass but with just :00.2 showing on the clock and the Lakers out of timeouts the game was already effectively over. Lewis capped off the scoring by making both free throws.
You can expect that the same people who were foolishly speaking of a Lakers' sweep just 24 hours ago will now overreact to this game and talk about how the Lakers are in trouble. The basic realities of this series have not changed. The Lakers have the best player, they own homecourt advantage and--when focused--they are quite capable of matching up defensively with the Magic, who needed record field goal shooting on their homecourt plus a highly unusual free throw shooting performance from Bryant to eke out a four point win. The next game will be completely different--the Magic will not shoot .625 from the field, nor will Bryant shoot .500 from the free throw line--but it most likely will again be very competitive. The Magic need to win three straight home games to have any realistic chance to win this series and it will be very tough for them to pull that off. The most likely scenario is that the Lakers will get one win in Orlando and then close out the series at home in game six.
Labels: Dwight Howard, Hedo Turkoglu, Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers, Lamar Odom, Orlando Magic, Pau Gasol, Rafer Alston, Rashard Lewis
posted by David Friedman @ 4:03 AM
Brilliant Performance by LeBron James Lifts Cavs Over Magic in Game Five
LeBron James added yet another chapter to his book of impressive playoff performances, authoring a huge triple double (37 points, 14 rebounds, 12 assists--numbers no player has matched in the same playoff game since Oscar Robertson had 41-15-12 on March 21, 1963) and completely dominating the fourth quarter as the Cleveland Cavaliers defeated the Orlando Magic 112-102 in game five of the Eastern Conference Finals. James had already compiled a triple double with more than 10 minutes remaining in the game but he only made five of his first 13 field goal attempts in the first three quarters before he scored 17 points on 6-11 field goal shooting in the final stanza, adding four rebounds and four assists and not committing a turnover while playing all 12 minutes. For most of the fourth quarter, the Cavs used a small lineup featuring James, one big and three perimeter shooters; they isolated James at the free throw line or the top of the key area with a live dribble while the perimeter players spotted up behind the three point line and the big waited to dive to the hoop along the baseline if Dwight Howard went to trap James. This set looked stagnant initially as four Cavs stood around while James faked, jab stepped or backed down his defender but inevitably James would either break free for a score and/or a foul or else he would draw another defender and pass to a cutter or a three point shooter. James accounted for 32 straight Cavalier points with his scoring or passing from the :39.9 mark of the third quarter until the 1:07 mark of the fourth quarter.
There is so much talk about Orlando's mismatch advantages versus Cleveland but the reality is that in any series between quality teams each team has a set of strengths and weaknesses relative to the other team. The biggest mismatch in this particular series is James versus anyone Orlando uses to guard him; Orlando Coach Stan Van Gundy said after game one that he has no answers for James and that was not a matter of hyperbole or trying to butter up the opponent-- he was speaking the truth: James is averaging 41.2 ppg, 8.6 rpg and 8.2 apg in this series while shooting .500 from the field. He made an incredible shot to win game two, hit two pressure-packed free throws to force overtime in game four and has scored at least 35 points in all five games. James is putting together one of the greatest performances in NBA Conference Finals history.
In game five, James finally received some help from his teammates. All-Star Mo Williams broke out of his dreadful shooting slump to tie his playoff career-high with 24 points, shooting 7-14 from the field and 6-9 from three point range. If the Cavs had received just a mildly subpar performance from Williams in the first four games then they probably would have already won this series; even including those excellent game five numbers he is shooting just .353 from the field and .333 from three point range versus Orlando, well below his regular season averages (.467 and .436 respectively). Delonte West had another solid game with 13 points and three assists, though he suffered a hip pointer that caused him to miss some action; he will be evaluated by the team's medical staff after the flight to Orlando. Zydrunas Ilgauskas had 16 points and six rebounds before fouling out and Daniel Gibson provided a huge boost off of the bench with 11 points in 22 minutes, including 3-4 shooting from three point range.
Hedo Turkoglu led Orlando with 29 points. He also had six rebounds but he passed for a series-low two assists as the Cavs did less crossmatching and double teaming, opting instead to stay at home on Orlando's three point shooters (the defensive strategy that I advocated before the series began). Dwight Howard scored 24 points on 8-10 field goal shooting and had 10 rebounds but even before he fouled out with 2:22 remaining and the Cavs leading 101-93 it was obvious that the Cavs were much better off having him shoot free throws (he shot 8-13) and contested field goals than forcing him to give up the ball to proven three point shooters; the Magic made a team playoff record 17 three pointers in game four but shot just 8-25 (.320) from three point range in game five. Rashard Lewis finished with 15 points on 4-13 field goal shooting, while game four hero Rafer Alston suffered through a miserable shooting performance (1-10, three points). Mickael Pietrus again performed well in a reserve role (13 points on 3-5 shooting in 23 minutes).
The Cavs took a 32-10 lead in the first 8:57 of the game and they seemed completely unstoppable; even though they repeatedly squandered double digit leads earlier in the series this time they appeared to be in total command at both ends of the court but barely two minutes into the second quarter the Magic had slashed the lead to single digits and after Lewis drained a three pointer just before the halftime buzzer the Cavs were only up 56-55. I cannot recall ever seeing a series that repeatedly featured such dramatic shifts in momentum in such short periods of time within games. The Magic have an uncanny ability to take advantage of Cleveland's missed shots/turnovers by making three pointers and the Magic also play very confidently against the Cavs even when nothing is going well for them; most teams crumble sooner or later in the face of Cleveland's swarming defense but the Magic simply continue to quickly rotate the ball, fully expecting that they will resume making shots. After the game, Williams talked about Orlando's resiliency and ability to go on big scoring runs, admitting, "We haven't seen that a lot throughout the season. So first couple games when it happened, we (were) kind of shell-shocked. We kind of held our heads and we (were) kind of looking for answers...this is a damn good basketball team over there...When they score, let's get the ball out, let's go."
The Magic opened the third quarter with a 9-0 run to take a 64-56 lead and the sun seemed to be rapidly setting on Cleveland's season. This time, though, the Cavs answered Orlando's rally in kind, starting with a turnaround jumper by West and a three pointer by Williams. A few minutes later, a jumper by James put Cleveland back on top. The rest of the quarter was a seesaw affair, with Gibson's three pointer off of a feed from James cutting Orlando's lead to 79-78 heading into the fourth quarter.
It is well known that teams that use a full court press do not like to play against that defense. Similarly, the Magic are adept at feeding the ball to Howard in the post and then spreading the defense too thin by spotting up shooters all over the perimeter but we found out in the fourth quarter that they do not like to defend against that kind of attack: instead of putting James in the low post, the Cavs stationed him in the middle of the court and he started most possessions by catching the ball with his back to the basket as if he were posting up. James either backed his man down, faced him up and drove or if the Magic sent an extra defender toward him he fed the ball to a cutter or an open three point shooter. A Pietrus three pointer put Orlando up 90-89 with 6:44 left but then Cleveland went on a 13-3 run featuring a three point play by James, a turnaround jumper by James, a Gibson three pointer assisted by James, a jumper by James and another three point play by James.
After the game, Cleveland Coach Mike Brown and Orlando Coach Stan Van Gundy both talked about how difficult it is to trap a great player in the middle of the court, particularly when that player passes as well as James does. Van Gundy hinted that he has some ideas about how Orlando can counter that tactic in the next game but if James' teammates continue to make open shots there really is not a whole lot that the Magic can do; they can alter the timing of the double team and they can obviously choose who they want to leave open but if the Cavs execute properly then they will consistently obtain open shots out of this set. I would expect that in game six the Cavs will start out using their normal motion offense--that attack has consistently provided them double digit leads--but if things bog down later in the game then the Cavs will almost certainly use the James high post isolation set down the stretch. That is a matchup problem that the Magic simply cannot solve--with the important proviso that James' teammates must make shots in order for this to work.
*****************************
Notes From Courtside:
The Magic rely very heavily on three point shooting and some people remain skeptical that a team can win a championship playing that way. In his pregame remarks, LeBron James noted that the traditional saying is "Live by the jumper, die by the jumper" but that the Magic have found a way to keep living by the jumper. Someone asked Coach Van Gundy before the game if his team could force people to take a different view of this issue if Orlando goes on to win a championship. He replied, "As a coach what you do is look at the personnel you have and you have to play the style that fits them best. I think that one of the tried and true things in the NBA playoffs--especially down the stretch in games--is you have a great perimeter player like Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and you give him the ball, you isolate him and either they make a play one on one or a double team comes and then they make a play. That's great that this is a proven way to win but if you don't have a guy like that you can't play like that. You can't just take a page out of a book and say this worked for Team A so we are going to play like that. You have to fit it to your personnel and I think that the way we play--I could be wrong, people can be critical and have their opinions--is the best style of play for our team to have a chance to win."
Although several Cleveland players are shooting well below their regular season averages during this series, Coach Van Gundy said before the game that he is not pleased with his team's defensive effort: "I don't think that in this series we have really come into any game with a good defensive mentality. I think that we have relied on our offense. We have shot the ball well. I am happy for that--I will take wins any way that I can get them--but I think that it is dangerous when you are going into a series against a quality opponent like this and relying on your offense and your shooting."
After the game, Van Gundy emphasized that point again: "We are going to have to defend better." He also said, "I think it is really good that we'll continue to fight and dig out of holes but I think we've proven to the nation that we have mental toughness and that we'll fight back enough. Okay? We don't need to keep trying to prove that by being down 20-plus points at the start of games. It takes a great deal of energy to dig out of those holes every night."
***
Before the game, I asked Coach Brown, "The pattern in this series so far has been that you take big first half leads and then generally Orlando has outscored you in the second half. When you look at the film, what are you seeing that is happening differently between the first and second halves?"
He replied, "In general, if I had to pinpoint one thing I would say turnovers. In the first two games I would say that they made some adjustments in their pick and roll coverage that hurt us in the second half but looking at all four games the one area (that has hurt us) in the second half is turnovers."
The Cavs had no turnovers in the fourth quarter of game five and that played a major role in helping them secure the win.
***
There is an old saying that if you saw how your food was prepared you would not want to eat it. Something similarly dire could be said about the way some organizations gather news and the qualifications of the people they hire. During Coach Brown's postgame press conference, Vincent Thomas from Slam Magazine (he also writes for ESPN.com and NBA.com) asked a weird, rambling question in which he asserted that Cleveland's fans are like a "support group" for Daniel Gibson but that Gibson would be without that "support group" on the road in game six so does Coach Brown still have confidence that Gibson will be productive in game six and, if so, why does he have confidence in him. Coach Brown answered simply, "Yes. I'm confident that he can because I trust him." After Coach Brown left and we waited for Dwight Howard to arrive, one pressroom wit whispered what any sensible writer had already thought: "That was a crackhead question. 'Support group'? What is this, psychotherapy?" Another writer said that this idiotic question reminded him of the dumbest question he had ever heard in a press conference, when a young reporter asked legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno what it was like to coach a white wide receiver. I am well aware that the people at Slam think that they are reinventing journalism with their "cutting edge" ways and that their loose style is superior to the "what-when-how-where-why" format but the reality is that to reinvent anything you must first actually master the basic fundamental skill sets in a given field; there is a big difference between being unorthodox yet innovative and simply being undisciplined/incompetent--and Slam has provided several examples of the latter characteristics.
Along those same lines, the postgame press conference also "featured" a question from the disembodied voice of NBA TV's Andre Aldridge, who asked Van Gundy what it felt like as the opposing coach when James took over the game in the fourth quarter--which is kind of like saying to Mrs. Lincoln, "Other than that, how did you like the play?" Van Gundy replied, "I guess you can pretty much guess how that is."
Labels: Cleveland Cavaliers, Dwight Howard, Hedo Turkoglu, LeBron James, Mo Williams, Orlando Magic, Rafer Alston, Rashard Lewis
posted by David Friedman @ 8:13 AM
Howard Dominates Overtime as Magic Win Pivotal Game Four Versus Cavalliers
Dwight Howard scored 10 of his team-high 27 points in overtime as the Orlando Magic posted a 116-114 victory to take a 3-1 lead over the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference Finals. Howard led both teams in rebounds (14) and blocked shots (three) while also passing for four assists. Howard had two dunks and a layup in the first 2:13 of overtime and if the Cavs lose this series they will long rue not sending Howard--a .594 free throw shooter in the regular season who is shooting .638 in the playoffs--to the free throw line; it is highly unlikely that six points would have resulted from those free throws and therefore the Cavs would have been in a much better position to win this game, even the series at 2-2 and retake homecourt advantage. As Kobe Bryant likes to say, quoting Tex Winter,
"Everything turns on a trifle."The Cavs squandered another 40-plus point effort by LeBron James, the third time this series they have lost despite James exceeding that mark. James broke the record for most points in the first four games of a Conference Finals series (169), set the night before by Kobe Bryant (147). However, James must share part of the blame for this loss despite his gaudy stats (44 points, 12 rebounds, seven assists) because he committed eight turnovers--seven of them in the fourth quarter and overtime, including three in the final 4:17 of the extra session when every possession was obviously extremely important--and airballed a three pointer late in the overtime when he unsuccessfully tried to draw a foul. Of course, the Cavs would not have even made it to overtime without James' overall performance, including two clutch free throws that he calmly drained with just :00.5 remaining in regulation (though he did miss a free throw a minute earlier that could have put the Cavs up by two points at that juncture).
Delonte West (17 points, seven assists, five rebounds) played well but James simply has not been getting enough help in this series. Zydrunas Ilgauskas had a solid game (12 points, nine rebounds) and Anderson Varejao (nine points, five steals, two rebounds) played excellent defense before fouling out but a lot of the players who helped Cleveland post the best record in the NBA this season have not been heard from in this series. There is so much talk about Orlando's matchup advantages--generally referring to forwards Hedo Turkoglu and Rashard Lewis--but the matchup that is killing Cleveland should be heavily in their favor, at least on paper: All-Star Mo Williams versus midseason acquisition Rafer Alston, who has taken the place of injured All-Star Jameer Nelson. Although they are often crossmatched as opposed to going one on one, there is no way around the fact that the Cavs need for Williams to outperform Alston and that simply is not happening. Alston scored a playoff career-high 26 points--including 15 in the third quarter as the Magic erased Cleveland's eight point halftime lead--and he shot 10-17 from the field and 6-12 from three point range. Alston is averaging 14.8 ppg in this series while shooting .447 from the field and .435 from three point range. Williams scored 18 points but shot just 5-15 from the field and he is averaging 17.3 ppg on .324 field goal shooting (including a paltry .222 from three point range) versus Orlando.
Mo Williams' "guarantee" after the Cavs' game three loss that Cleveland would win the series is just a bunch of hot air. It is much more meaningful to "be about it" than to "talk about it" and, more to the point, there are only about five players in the NBA who actually have enough consistent impact that they could meaningfully guarantee that their team would win a given game--and Williams is obviously not one of those guys; he is a one-time All-Star who is experiencing his first extended playoff run and he has performed below expectations thus far, so his focus should be squarely on improving his own level of play, not making bold proclamations that he is not in any position to fulfill.
Lewis finished with 17 points, five rebounds and no assists, shooting 5-9 from the field, while Turkoglu had 15 points, eight assists and seven rebounds but he shot just 5-13 from the field. During this series, Lewis is averaging 19.3 ppg while shooting .556 from the field and .579 from three point range; Turkoglu is averaging 16.0 ppg while shooting .365 from the field and .417 from three point range, though he is hurting Cleveland with his floor game (8.3 apg, 6.3 rpg). Turkoglu is averaging fewer points than he did during the regular season (16.8 ppg) and shooting worse from the field (but better from three point range), while Lewis has bettered his regular season scoring average (17.7 ppg) while significantly increasing his shooting percentages.
The Cavs have been nominally assigning James to guard Alston but primarily have used James as a rover, much like the Lakers assigned Bryant to Rajon Rondo in the 2008 Finals so that Bryant could take advantage of his skills as a help defender. The problem for Cleveland is that Alston is making the Cavs pay for leaving him open and no Cleveland defender really has taken the measure of Lewis. The Cavs should go to a normal rotation with James guarding Lewis and Williams guarding Alston (West has done a solid job versus Turkoglu, who is accumulating assists not through any fault of West's but because the Cavs are leaving shooters open and Turkoglu is finding them). Also, the Cavs should double-team Howard as little as possible, forcing him to score one on one (or go to the free throw line, depending on the time/score situation and who is guarding him). I still don't believe that Howard can consistently go out and get 35-40 points versus single coverage and there is also some question about how much the Magic would feed him the ball in that situation, because their perimeter players (other than Turkoglu) do not really have a playmaking mentality. When Phil Jackson's Chicago Bulls faced Shaquille O'Neal during a similar stage of O'Neal's career--when he was a young center with the Magic--Jackson would often single cover O'Neal with Luc Longley, Bill Wennington or even Dennis Rodman, none of whom had any better chance of stopping O'Neal than Zydrunas Ilgauskas or Anderson Varejao have of stopping Howard. Jackson's idea was to force O'Neal to shoulder the scoring burden early in the game, so perhaps he would tire out down the stretch and then his teammates would not be able to step up because they would not have shot the ball that often. Howard's low post game is not as good as O'Neal's was back then and I think that this approach would work for Cleveland. The Cavs defended the three point line very well during the regular season; the problem in this series is not that they cannot keep up with Orlando's three point shooters but rather that they have chosen to go with crossmatches and switches that are resulting in wide open looks that would not be so plentiful if they played more straight up defense.
You will surely hear many people proclaiming that the Cavs are just
one exceptional shot by LeBron James away from being swept--but it is equally true that the Cavs led by two points with fewer than 25 seconds remaining in game one and they led by one point with four seconds remaining in regulation in game four only to see Rashard Lewis hit two clutch three point shots, the first one winning game one and the second one ultimately forcing overtime in game four. Despite the matchup advantages that everyone says favor the Magic, the Cavs have enjoyed the lead for a substantial portion of this series; unfortunately for them, they have not led at the right times, much like the old quip that if the race were the Indianapolis 400 then Mario Andretti would have been a multiple winner at the Brickyard. The Cavs have simply executed very poorly in late game situations, most notably when Anderson Varejao did not crowd Lewis with the Cavs up by two points in the waning moments of game one and also when Varejao failed to foul Howard in the overtime of game four (Varejeo may have been concerned about fouling out--which he ultimately did anyway--but the Cavs simply cannot continue to allow Howard to dunk the ball so frequently).
Don't get me wrong: Orlando is a good team that certainly poses matchup challenges for any opponent but the Cavs also present some matchup difficulties, namely James and also the team's collective ability to score in the paint (West is a deceptively good post scorer and Varejao does an excellent job of diving to the hoop from the weakside). As TNT's Doug Collins noted during the telecast, game four boiled down to a contest between Cleveland's paint scoring advantage (50-36) and Orlando's three point shooting advantage; the Magic set a franchise playoff record by making 17 treys and they shot a blistering .447 from behind the arc, while the Cavs were just 6-22 (.273). That works out to a 33 point advantage for Orlando and yet the Magic only won by two points in overtime. The Cavs outrebounded Orlando 40-38--continuing a series-long trend despite Howard's impressive individual rebounding totals--and they forced 15 turnovers.
Of course, all of this analysis does not change the stark, brutal reality facing the Cavaliers: in order to advance to the NBA Finals they must win three straight games against a very good Orlando team that has enjoyed recent success against them and thus plays with great confidence against Cleveland. Only eight teams have ever come back from a 3-1 deficit in the NBA playoffs but that is partially because the team with the 3-1 lead usually enjoys homecourt advantage and is clearly the superior team; in this series all of the games have been competitive--three of them exceptionally so--and the Cavs have the opportunity to potentially play two of the final three games at home if they keep winning. The Cavs bounced back from a 2-0 deficit against the playoff-tested Detroit Pistons to force a seventh game in the 2006 playoffs and the next year they turned around a 2-0 deficit against those same Pistons by winning four straight games. Regardless of what eventually happens in this series, I don't buy the prepackaged storyline that Cleveland simply does not match up with Orlando; as noted above, if you take away two Lewis three pointers then the Cavs have a 3-1 lead and are heading home to presumably wrap up the series in five games. A team that has a decided matchup advantage does not have to rely on such a razor thin margin of victory (a better example of what happens when a team really has decisive mismatch advantages is the way that the Cavs swept through the first two rounds of the playoffs). These teams have turned out to be more closely matched than I expected but the real story is not so much Orlando's offensive production but rather Cleveland's poor shooting/Orlando's excellent defense (depending on who you want to credit/blame).
Labels: Cleveland Cavaliers, Dwight Howard, Hedo Turkoglu, LeBron James, Mo Williams, Orlando Magic, Rafer Alston, Rashard Lewis
posted by David Friedman @ 8:45 AM
Cavs Wear Down Rockets for 14th Straight Home Victory
In a matchup of two defensive minded teams with legitimate championship aspirations, Cleveland defeated Houston, 99-90. LeBron James bounced back from a sluggish first half (eight points, two rebounds, two assists, five turnovers) to finish with game-high totals in points (27) and rebounds (nine). He also had five assists, three steals and one very impressive block. Mo Williams once again ably filled the role of James' trusty sidekick, contributing 23 points, four assists and four rebounds. Rafer Alston led Houston with 20 points on 8-11 field goal shooting in his first game back after missing four games due to a strained left groin. Yao Ming had 19 points and five rebounds but he shot just 3-10 from the field. Tracy McGrady, hobbled by various injuries throughout this season, was completely worn down as the Rockets played their fourth game in five nights; Houston Coach Rick Adelman rested him for nearly half of the fourth quarter and then put him in the game for less than two minutes before shutting him down the rest of the way. McGrady ended up with just four points on 2-7 shooting, later admitting that he did not have the legs to shoot over the shorter defenders that the Cavs used against him. McGrady still managed to drive, draw double teams and dish off a game-high six assists.
The score was tied at 47 at halftime, with both teams shooting well over .500 from the field; the Cavs clamped down defensively in the second half, holding Houston to .333 shooting while shooting a respectable .463. The flow of the game was marred by several questionable calls by the officials; partisans for both teams probably felt that their squad was singled out but the total number of fouls and free throws ended up being pretty close: I thought that it was a poorly officiated game, as opposed to a game with biased officiating favoring one side or the other.
LeBron James and Ron Artest guarded each other for significant portions of the game. Both players are used to pushing around whoever is matched up with them but the strength factor seemed to be canceled out in this encounter; each player did his share of bumping, pushing, slapping down the other guy's arm and other tactics to gain a physical or psychological advantage. Neither player seemed to crack until the last minute, when it was clear that Cleveland would win. Artest grabbed an offensive rebound and tried to score but Anderson Varejao fouled him. James was involved in the play defensively as well and Artest gave him a shove after the play was over, prompting an immediate technical foul call against Artest. Officials stepped in between Artest and James but James is far too smart to do anything that would get him suspended. After Mo Williams made the technical free throw and Artest split his pair of free throws, James grabbed the rebound with the Cavs up nine points and just :17.9 remaining. Artest hounded James defensively all the way up the court and James eventually stepped out of bounds. Artest missed a long jumper as time expired. He walked over to greet James after the game and James responded much the way Bill Belichick does when he encounters Eric Mangini at midfield; James is not going to go off half cocked because of Artest's antics but he is not going to share hugs and kisses after the game with him, either.
Ben Wallace finished with six points and six rebounds in 29 minutes, while Anderson Varejao had six points and seven rebounds in 26 minutes. It is easy to look at those numbers and conclude that neither player contributed much--but that would be a serious mistake. Along with Zydrunas Ilgauskas (11 points, three rebounds in 27 minutes before fouling out), they comprise a three headed power forward/center monster that anchors Cleveland's formidable defense; the Lakers may have a frontcourt stocked with players who are better known and/or more highly regarded at this stage of their careers, but Cleveland's bigs play an integral role in the team's success. When the Cavs began to build a working margin late in the third quarter, Varejao was in the middle of one of the key plays. Artest was hounding James all over the court, so Varejao set a solid back pick near the top of the key, freeing James to score a layup. That play is not recorded in any fashion in the boxscore but it is much more valuable than just two points:
1) Varejao turned the tables on Artest by delivering some punishment to him instead of letting Artest deal out punishment without response; this is something that the Laker bigs never did in last year's Finals. Pau Gasol set strong screens and rolled aggressively to the hoop in playoff series versus San Antonio and Utah but versus Boston he treated the paint like he was one of those dogs being chained by an invisible electric fence. Ilgauskas, Varejao and Wallace are not afraid to set screens and get "dirty" (in the best sense of the word, meaning to play with mental and physical toughness, an edge that shows they will not be pushed around).
2) Doug Collins often mentions that when a scorer is struggling one layup or a couple free throws can get him off; just seeing the ball go through the hoop works wonders. In this particular instance, James had already gotten himself going after his quiet first half, but Varejao's willingness and ability to set these kinds of screens means that on occasions when James is struggling there will always be a simple way to get him an easy hoop or a trip to the free throw line.
Cleveland led 73-66 after the third quarter and pushed that margin to 82-68 early in the fourth quarter but the resilient Rockets made a run to cut the deficit to 86-85 by the 5:34 mark. They did this by making Yao the centerpiece--literally and figuratively--of their offense. Yao shot 1-7 from the field in the fourth quarter but he made all 12 of his free throws, scoring 14 of Houston's 24 points in the final stanza. Cleveland answered with a couple of three pointers by Daniel Gibson, both of which were assisted by James. The Rockets never got closer than five points the rest of the way. Cleveland led 96-89 at the 1:05 mark of the fourth quarter when James made the most spectacular play of the game. James timed Yao's move perfectly (a la Michael Jordan versus Patrick Ewing back in the day) and came over from the weak side to pin his shot to the backboard. Houston retained possession but Alston missed a three pointer after the inbounds pass and then Cleveland sealed the victory by making free throws.
Cleveland Coach Mike Brown's postgame comments are always well prepared and well thought out (see Notes From Courtside): "I thought that was a tough-played ball game. Both teams showed toughness. I like that down the stretch we defended. I think that in the fourth quarter one of my coaches told me that they ended up shooting 21% from the field and obviously they missed some looks, they had a couple of looks but I thought that our guys hung in there and kept trying to rotate and protect one another throughout the course of the ballgame and even in the fourth quarter when both teams were fighting through the physicalness of the game. I thought that the energy that Ben (Wallace) gave in the beginning of the game was huge; he played terrific for us, in the beginning especially. I thought that Daniel Gibson played big for us; he hit a couple of big shots for us late (in the game) but at his size to come up with six rebounds in this ballgame is phenomenal. He boxed out guys that are twice his size, basically, to stop them from getting rebounds, so he played a terrific floor game for us. Mo (Williams) was big for us down the stretch to increase the lead. We went to him in pick and roll situations and he created good shot opportunities for himself and his teammates. The last guy I'd like to mention, obviously, is LeBron. LeBron showed a lot of toughness tonight. He had to guard a lot of different types of players from Tracy McGrady to Shane Battier to Ron Artest to sometimes Luis Scola. His ability to be versatile at the defensive end of the floor was huge. I've said it time and time again: people need to start looking at him for the All-Defensive Team because he's having a heck of a year at that end of the floor and he's not getting enough credit for it."
Coach Brown also talked about two in game strategic adjustments but he did not take credit for either one; he said that when Cleveland's offense went stagnant against Houston's zone defense, assistant coach Mel Hunt suggested that the Cavs run one of their man to man plays versus the zone; this resulted in a wide open three pointer that Gibson made and that success discouraged the Rockets from continuing to play the zone. Late in the game, LeBron James suggested that the Cavs not double team Yao, thereby forcing him to score or draw fouls instead of simply kicking the ball back out to wide open three point shooters. Brown followed James' advice and the Cavs extended their lead. Not every coach is so open to receiving input from his coaching staff and players, much less to publicly give them credit when their advice works. Like all successful people, Coach Brown surely has a healthy ego but he does not allow that ego to get in the way of doing what is right for the team, both in terms of listening to other people and in terms of making those people feel appreciated by publicly acknowledging the input that they had in tweaking the game plan.
James explained his thinking about how Cleveland should defend Yao late in the game: "It didn't really seem that Yao was in the flow of the game offensively. He was baiting us to come down on the double team and he would throw it back out for them to make threes. We were up 14 and they hit a couple threes, which hurt us. We wanted to try and dig in and if Yao gets going we could double team him but we wanted him to make tough shots."
In the Rockets locker room after the game, Artest held court in front of a small group of reporters, at times barely speaking above a whisper while trying to put this defeat into context. I asked him, "From your perspective, what happened on the play at the end with LeBron where they gave you a technical?" Artest replied, "They just gave me a technical and that was it." I thought that Artest might try to plead his case or say that James had been pushing him also but Artest apparently decided that the best route to take is to simply defuse the whole situation.
Someone asked Artest why he guarded James so closely right up to the very end, when the outcome of the game had long since been decided. Artest said, "Play hard. If you're going to lose, lose with dignity. If you're going to lose, just go hard. I'm happy when I'm winning and I'm emotional and I still play hard, so when I'm losing I try to be the same way."
Artest relishes the opportunity to battle James one on one, though he laments that with Houston he does not have the same chances to go back at James on offense that he enjoyed when he played for Indiana and Sacramento (at every stop in his career, Artest has always craved a larger offensive role then the one that the coaching staff designates for him). Artest added that the challenge of guarding the young guys like James, Kevin Martin and Joe Johnson "keeps me going."
The Rockets have lost their games versus the league's three top teams: Boston, the L.A. Lakers and Cleveland. Asked what this says about the gap between those teams and the Rockets, Artest said, "That is not good. That is not good--but we have a lot of room to look for improvement and we have a lot of games left, so time will tell what those losses to the three top teams meant."
I followed up by asking Artest what specific areas the Rockets needed to improve in order to compete with those teams and he said, "To me, I think tonight we were challenged. With Mac (McGrady) going out, with my new role coming off of the bench, four (games) in five nights, Yao's fouls. We were challenged by many different means--Rafer's first game back. Playing against a really good team with our whole team for the first time this year, we stepped up to the challenge and we came up short."
Based on Artest's prior conduct, I know that some people might expect him to be some kind of raving lunatic. This is the first time that I've interviewed him. He is pleasant, soft spoken to the point of almost being inaudible and not the least bit overbearing, intimidating or menacing. Some players make it very clear that they are not interested in being interviewed and cannot wait for the process to be over and, intentionally or not, they position themselves in ways to accentuate their height and size; Artest was very approachable and did not do any of those things. That said, I think that there are hints of trouble in two of his answers. When he wistfully talks of formerly being able to go at James offensively, I sense the seeds being planted for complaining about not having a bigger role in the offense; Artest attempted 14 shots--more than anyone on his team and more than anyone in the game other than James--and he only made five of them, shooting 0-7 in the second half after going 5-7 in the first half. When/if McGrady is fully healthy, there will be fewer shots for Artest and he is not likely to willingly accept that. The second hint of trouble is his answer to my question about what specific improvements the Rockets need to make. If I were to ask that question of Coach Brown or LeBron James after a Cleveland loss, the response would likely focus on getting more defensive stops and playing with greater energy; they both have repeatedly said that the Cavs are a "no excuse team" and they would never mention injuries, scheduling or anything else as factors in a defeat. Everything that Artest said is true, to a degree, but great players do not look for excuses for losses--even excuses that have some validity to them. It is easy to picture Artest giving a similar kind of answer after the Rockets have been eliminated from the playoffs. Houston has most if not all of the pieces in place--from a talent standpoint--to make a run at a title but the onus is on the players to prove that they are mentally and physically tough enough to withstand the long grind of the regular season and the pressure packed moments of a playoff series; in contrast, there is no reason to have similar doubts about Coach Brown, LeBron James or the rest of the Cavaliers.
*****************************
Notes From Courtside:
By league rule, NBA coaches have a 10 minute grace period after the game's final buzzer before they have to face the media for their postgame standup. This gives a coach an opportunity to briefly speak to his players in the privacy of a closed locker room, look at the boxscore and give some thought to what message he wants to deliver to the media (and thus, by extension, the team's fans, opposing teams and, basically, anyone who follows his team for any reason). Some coaches almost always preface their postgame question and answer sessions with an opening statement about what they thought were the key factors in the game; other coaches show up in front of the media and basically say, "Fire away."
Cleveland Coach Mike Brown has a very well organized and well thought out routine. When he emerges from the locker room after the game to answer questions from the media, he is always carrying a boxscore that has various notations scribbled on it, including key phrases. Coach Brown singles out which Cavs played well, often mentioning players whose contributions would not be immediately noticeable simply by looking at the boxscore. He will give the players credit for things that went well and only occasionally mention criticism of things that the players need to do better; generally, if something went wrong he will say that it was his fault (whether or not this is really the case).
Brown's method is very intelligent for a number of reasons:
1) He writes down his thoughts beforehand to make sure that in the heat of the moment he does not forget to mention an important point.
2) Before anyone has asked a question, Brown frames the story of the game the way that he believes that it should be portrayed; that often leads to follow up questions about themes he has mentioned, enabling him to further elaborate about those subjects.
3) He establishes a climate of accountability for the team by immediately taking the blame for most things that went wrong; that increases his credibility with the players and makes them more likely to listen to and accept criticism when he delivers it to them privately.
I think that there are a lot of aspects of Coach Brown's coaching style--from his successful implementation of a stifling defensive game plan to the positive relationship that he has developed with young superstar LeBron James to how well organized and professional he is--that are not sufficiently understood and appreciated by Cavs fans, let alone national NBA fans.
Labels: Anderson Varejao, Cleveland Cavaliers, Houston Rockets, LeBron James, Mo Williams, Rafer Alston, Shane Battier, Tracy McGrady, Yao Ming
posted by David Friedman @ 8:55 AM
Alston's Three Pointers Launch Rockets Into First Place in the West
Rafer Alston stole the show from headliners Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady, making a career-high eight three pointers and scoring a career-high 31 points as the Houston Rockets extended their amazing winning streak to 22 with a 104-92 win over the L.A. Lakers. The victory moved the Rockets ahead of the Lakers in the standings, giving them sole possession of first place in the Western Conference. Alston set the tone early, scoring 13 of Houston's first 18 points, picking up the slack for McGrady, who did not score a point until the last three minutes of the third quarter and who finished with 11 points, six assists and three rebounds while shooting just 4-16 from the field. McGrady looked tired and admitted as much during and after the game--and that is quite understandable considering that he logged the full 48 minutes in two of the previous four games, a clear indication of just how important he is to the team's success. McGrady played 39 minutes on Sunday while Bryant had to step into the role of "marathon man," playing the first 47 minutes and not sitting out until the outcome was no longer in doubt. With both Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum sidelined by injuries, the Lakers have no inside presence and are heavily reliant on Bryant to create offense. Bryant led the Lakers with 24 points but he shot just 11-33 from the field.
Bobby Jackson added 19 points on 7-9 shooting for the Rockets. The big performances by Alston and Jackson highlight something that has become a problem area for the Lakers: defending against opposing point guards. Derek Fisher played a big role early in the season for the Lakers and he has historically been a tough, physical defender but it is fair to wonder if the veteran is breaking down a bit after a long season. T.J. Ford, Chris Paul, Jarrett Jack and Beno Udrih are among the point guards who have hurt the Lakers recently; they are good players--and Paul is obviously an MVP candidate--but against the Lakers they all exceeded their normal production. To make matters worse, Fisher's shot seems to have abandoned him as well. He shot just .359 from the field in February and he is shooting .418 from the field so far in March. Fisher scored six points on 2-6 shooting versus Houston.
In one sense, this game was an atypical effort for Houston during the streak: McGrady has been carrying a lot of the offensive load since Yao Ming suffered a season-ending injury and even after this performance McGrady is still averaging 25.9 ppg in March. In another sense, though, this was a quintessential performance by the Rockets: they held the Lakers to a .413 field goal percentage, which is right in line with the stifling team defense that they have been playing. Shane Battier did an awesome job versus Bryant, though he of course had help from double-teams and often had shotblocker Dikembe Mutombo lurking in the paint. Speaking of the ageless former four-time Defensive Player of the Year, he has played a very important role since Yao got hurt, providing defense and rebounding while averaging about 19 mpg. Mutombo's contributions to Houston's success will likely go unnoticed by the average fan but this really refutes a couple false ideas that are frequently stated, namely that Allen Iverson and LeBron James single-handedly carried their teams to the Finals in 2001 and 2007 respectively. No one does anything single-handedly in a team sport. If anyone has really come close to doing it in the NBA it was Michael Jordan before Scottie Pippen arrived or Kobe Bryant the past couple years and you'll note that in both cases those teams struggled to win playoff games, let alone get out of the first round. Iverson and James carried a heavy offensive load for their teams but they received significant support in two ways: they had role players who made key shots at crucial times and their teams collectively bought into the defensive philosophies preached by their head coaches. Mutombo was an All-Star and the Defensive Player of the Year for the Sixers in 2001 and six years later he is still setting the tone in the paint, albeit for shorter stretches of time. Aaron McKie was the Sixth Man of the Year for those Sixers, while Tyrone Hill, Eric Snow and George Lynch also made important contributions during that season. Last year, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Drew Gooden, Anderson Varejao, Daniel Gibson and even the much maligned Larry Hughes all played key roles at various times during the team's Finals run.
What does this trip down memory lane to 2001 and 2007 have to do with Houston? The Rockets, like the 2001 Sixers and 2007 Cavaliers, have a transcendent player--Tracy McGrady--who is surrounded by "no-name" players who buy into their coach's defensive system, who play unselfishly on offense and who are able to make the open shots that become available when their star player is double-teamed. I never bought into the idea that the Rockets would miss the playoffs without Yao; Houston has always played very well when McGrady is healthy. However, I did not consider the Rockets to be much of a threat in the postseason without Yao but I am starting to reconsider that notion. This team plays
hard all the time and they "look" a little like the 2001 Sixers and the 2007 Cavaliers. Of course, one objection to this idea is that those teams won conferences that were considered to be weak while the West is very strong this year--but Houston has the best record in the West right now! Why shouldn't Houston be considered a contender? Other than San Antonio, none of the West's top teams have ever won anything and most of them are battling injuries while also trying to integrate newly acquired players into their systems. I'm not predicting that Houston is going to win the West; I consider the Spurs to be the favorites until they are eliminated (or unless Tim Duncan gets hurt) but at this point the Rockets are as "legit" as anyone else in the West.
Just as it is important to give credit to the role players on the 2001 Sixers, 2007 Cavs and 2008 Rockets, it is also important to clearly state that McGrady--when healthy--is every bit as talented as Iverson or James. ABC's Mark Jackson said that Houston Coach Rick Adelman told him, "Tracy McGrady is the best passer I've ever seen." Think about that for a moment: Adelman played against Pistol Pete Maravich, coached against Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas and coached Clyde Drexler (5.6 apg in his career, 8.0 apg one season in case you forgot) and Terry Porter. ABC's Jeff Van Gundy, who coached McGrady for three seasons, elaborated about McGrady's passing skills, saying that he is "the second best pick and roll player in the league behind Steve Nash and it's not even close...People see the thing in front of them but he can see to the opposite corner, the opposite wing. His size makes him special. He can pass over the defense."
As for the Lakers, there is no question that this was hardly a vintage performance by Bryant. Still, there were several plays that illustrate how valuable he can be even when he is not shooting well. In the third quarter, Bryant got an assist by feeding DJ Mbenga a lob pass. To call Mbenga "offensively challenged" is an understatement; any assist to him should actually count for two assists in the boxscore. Although Bryant attempted a lot of shots, it was also clear throughout the game that he was trying to involve Mbenga and others in the offense. The problem, as Michael Jordan once put it when he was criticized for not making his teammates better the way that Magic Johnson did, is that it is hard to make chicken salad out of chicken-bleep. Bryant made several great passes to Mbenga, Vladimir Radmanovic and others that sometimes did not even result in shot attempts after the recipient bobbled the ball. After Mbenga mishandled passes from Bryant on consecutive first half possessions, Mark Jackson said, "I understand the unselfishness of Kobe Bryant but those last two plays have to be shot attempts. The Rockets would prefer Mbenga taking shots as opposed to Bryant."
Early in the second quarter, Ronny Turiaf caught a lob from Jordan Farmar and dunked the ball. Van Gundy immediately said, "You know who made that play? Kobe Bryant. He was on the other post and Shane Battier did not want to leave him to come and help. That's where greatness stands out even when you don't have the ball." On the opening possession of the fourth quarter, the Lakers ran a similar play: Farmar dribbled the ball up the court and Bryant flashed into the left block. Farmar passed to Luke Walton, who acted like he was going to feed the ball to Bryant. Instead, Farmar cut off of a back pick set by Turiaf and caught a lob from Walton for an easy hoop. The back side was completely empty because the defense was focused on Bryant.
Plays like those are why I laugh when I hear about how great Bryant's supporting cast is, as if that disqualifies him from winning this year's MVP. Let's not get things twisted here: Steve Nash won two MVPs while playing with All-Stars Amare Stoudemire and Shawn Marion, All-Defensive Team member Raja Bell and perennial Sixth Man of the Year candidate Leandro Barbosa. Bryant has spent the past three seasons bereft of any teammates who are All-Stars, All-Defensive Team members or Sixth Man Award candidates. This season, Andrew Bynum emerged as a solid big man and the Lakers vaulted to near the top of the West even before the Gasol trade. Bynum was not even an All-Star, mind you, and there were no other All-Stars in sight on the roster, but just by having a big man who can actually catch the ball, rebound and block some shots Bryant's Lakers became contenders. Then, Bynum got hurt and everyone said that the Lakers' season was over--but the Lakers went 6-5 without Bynum, including road losses at Dallas, San Antonio and Detroit, and they were still in the thick of the playoff hunt even before they acquired Gasol. The Gasol deal was a coup, no doubt about it, not only because of who the Lakers got but also because they did not give up anyone who was a part of their rotation. Gasol is a smart and skilled basketball player who can catch (no small thing considering some of the big men Bryant has played with recently), shoot, pass, rebound and block shots (more so as a weakside defender than a one on one post defender). Still, Gasol has never won a playoff game, he has never made the All-NBA Team and his one and only All-Star appearance took place in 2006--yet as soon as he joined the team the Lakers rapidly moved up in the standings until they claimed the top spot in the West. The Spurs have three All-Stars. The Suns have four players who have made the All-NBA First Team at least once during their careers. The Mavs have the reigning MVP, an All-Star small forward, a sixth man who used to contend for the scoring title and a Hall of Fame point guard. The Nuggets have two of the top five scorers in the league and the Defensive Player of the Year. Yet as soon as Bryant got one player who has made exactly one All-Star team his squad moved past everyone else in the standings. If Bryant can make the Lakers the best team in the West with one one-time All-Star then what would he do if he were paired with at least one perennial All-Star? Oh, wait, we already know the answer to that: win three championships.
When people rave about how well Bryant's supporting cast is playing this year they don't seem to comprehend that Bryant has a lot to do with that success. When those players are on the court with him the defense is tilted toward Bryant. You don't think that teams can stop a Walton to Farmar lob play if the defense is not loaded up toward Bryant? How tough would it be to stop that Farmar to Turiaf lob without Bryant attracting extra defensive attention? If you read the names Odom, Walton, Farmar, Turiaf and Vujacic and you are thinking those guys make the playoffs in the West without Bryant then you are tripping more than Phil Jackson and Bill Walton did in the 1970s.
Before Gasol got hurt, we got a nice reminder of what kind of playmaker Bryant can be when he has a big man who can catch and finish. Bryant was the leading playmaker on those three Lakers championship teams early in this decade and when Gasol came aboard Bryant showed that he is more than willing to take up that role again when he has at least one player who can catch and finish; Bryant seemed positively giddy to be playing with one legit top level player, albeit a player who is at the lower end of the top level (i.e., not even an All-NBA Team caliber performer). The Lakers have a tough stretch of games coming up but Bryant will make sure that they hang tough until Gasol returns--and then we will once again hear about how Bryant should not win the MVP because his supporting cast is so strong, as if anyone in his right mind would trade the non-Bryant portion of the Lakers for the supporting casts of any of the top teams in the West.
Labels: Bobby Jackson, Derek Fisher, Houston Rockets, Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers, Rafer Alston, Tracy McGrady
posted by David Friedman @ 5:42 AM
