James needs to drive more and take more shots. I saw him get turned away by the likes of Leonard and random double teams, and the AARP card of Boris Diaw (?!). Lebron should be eating these guys for breakfast! Instead he seems intimidated. He could have driven a few times, but he decided to take the easy route and pass it out.
Bill Simmons make a comment during the halftime show that the crowd seems to have turned against Chris Bosh. I can’t really tell but even Magic said so too. Bosh is 3-8, nothing too terrible, but missed a little too many of those wide open jumpers. Playing small is great when its working, hell, if its working, play any way you want. But we’ve discussed before how Bosh tends to do this and its not good percentage-wise. I still think the Heat needs a big man that plays big. They already have perimeter guys, they don’t need another one. If Lebron needs people to open up the floor, let Battier or Allen do it, or tell him to hit an outside shot
I’m constantly amazed how the Spurs can just plug in these random guys into their system and make it work.
Most telling stat of the half: Heat have no fast break points.
One of the most frustrating games I’ve ever seen. So many chances for the Spurs to win…not just the missed free throws, or taking Duncan out at the end of regulation so the Heat could rebound their misses and hit those two threes, or Ginobili’s turnovers (though that last one was a clear foul), but also Parker’s inability to get the ball to Duncan on the pick and roll. When Miami blitzes, he has to get it to Duncan or quickly swing the ball to the wing, he cannot just hold it.
It’s hard to imagine the Spurs having a better chance Thursday than the one they just had. I’ve been wrong about 90% of the time in my playoff predictions, but I have a feeling Miami will roll in game 7, and win by 15+. You cannot give away a game like the Spurs just did, wasting a phenomenal performance by Duncan (30 and 17 on 13-for-21 shooting). If they could ever get even average performances from the whole Big Three at once, they’d win the Finals in a walk.
ETA: One from Leonard, too: 22 and 11 on 9-for-14 shooting.
Any idea why Pop took out Duncan at the end of regulation? I can’t figure it out; Bosh was out there, so it wasn’t a matchup problem. Maybe he was falling-down tired, I don’t know, but he’d have grabbed the rebound that James turned into a 3, Diaw and Leonard were right there but Diaw was just short and bumped Leonard at exactly the wrong moment.
Boy, I wish I could adopt Gregg Popovich to be my curmudgeonly, sarcastic uncle. From the post-game press conference:
Q: What do you do for game 7? How do you get your guys into game 7?
A: I get them on a bus, and it arrives at the ramp over here, we get off the bus, we go on the court, and we play. That’s how we get ready.
The option of fouling when Miami brought the ball up down 3 before the Allen shot was raised. I have to wonder if that will become more common in the season ahead, I’ve seen it a bit in college, but not the pros.
It’s funny how the rooting interest can affect one’s perspective on a game: I thought the Heat got jobbed by the refs throughout the second half, with many non calls on O and ticky tack on D. I think that Ginobli should’ve gotten a flagrant call on his elbow to LeBron’s trachea (post up/entry pass), and Parker deserves to be fined for 2 separate flops - one when Ray Allen put his hand to Parker’s chest and he fell back with his hands on his face, while the second was when he got caught mismatched w LeBron in the left post.
I missed most of the first half, but have to say Damn! at Timmy’s start.
Perhaps inevitable for DG to return to earth on O, but that fast break stop on LeBron at the end of the game was brilliant and beautiful, and one that less than a handful in the league are even capable of doing.
LeBron needs to stop taking 18 footers, but the Spurs have been very effective at taking away the drive. His D is incomparable: his rim protection in the series has been stunning, and he’s been their best defender on Parker (by far).
Yeah, it is. Duncan was amazing in the first half and had a fantastic game even though he didn’t score much in the second half. Wade didn’t do as much as he had in the last two games and Bosh was pretty quiet aside from that huge rebound and the two blocks at the end - and man, going for that block on Green was very risky. I’m not sure he should’ve tried it. Even when the Heat turned it on the Spurs came very close to stealing that game. And it’s also true that in the history of the current finals format, no team has lost game six on the road and then won game seven. Then again if any team were going to break that trend you would think it’d be an extremely focused and steady veteran team with great coaching, and that’s the Spurs. And they also have a steadier lineup: last night Battier played more and Haslem didn’t play at all. It’s very cool that this is coming down to a game seven and there are some important ways in which this favors the Heat, but I can’t count the Spurs out.
I thought it was in response to all the shooters the Heat had out there at that time. And aside from that rebound, I think if Duncan were out there Bosh probably wouldn’t have been able to get those blocks at the end.
Agreed, but the no-calls on Ginobili’s last drive and Green’s last 3 more than make up for it. What can you say, it was a Joey Crawford game.
Duncan is my favorite NBA player of all time, and I was thrilled when it became clear that the game plan was tons and tons of post-ups for him. He’s an artist on the low block, and it should have been enough to carry them to a title. I feel like he was cosmically cheated.
That’s the sneaky thing about Green, he’s not just a shooter, he’s a defensive standout and absurdly great at breaking up fast breaks.
LeBron is an amazing player. He did everything for the Heat. If he were human, he’d be exhausted, which could help the Spurs, but he’s not, and the Spurs are old men.
I really hope I’m wrong, but the Spurs winning on Thursday would essentially mean winning 5 of 7, since they had this game won until giving it away in the last 30 seconds. Truly shocking to see the Spurs of all teams collapse like that. Think of all the things that had to happen to force OT: two missed free throws, two offensive rebounds, two made 3’s. Not to indulge in the fallacy of the predetermined outcome, but I figure a 20% chance of missing either free throw, a 30% chance for either rebound, and a 40% chance of either 3. So, the Heat had a .00058% chance of all that occuring, according to my angry gorilla math.
In the post-game, Ginobili said it was because the Spurs decided to switch all pick and rolls, so they wanted to go with tweener-types to avoid mismatches. Didn’t we learn from Frank Vogel not to get too cute with this stuff? Just roll out your best defensive 5. Since when is switching pick and rolls a good thing, anyway? Just go over the screen or blitz. Runs more clock, avoids mismatches, and it’s what the Spurs have done much more of. Ugh. So angry. I know Pop knows 580 times more than me about basketball, but I have an unshakable belief that they’d have won if they’d kept Timmy in.
And you’re right, with Timmy out there Bosh wouldn’t have dared close out on the shooters like that.
A timeout at the end of regulation would have been nice too, too bad Leonard used in on the inbounds. Ugh!
I sincerely wonder why people are up-in-arms about the no-foul call on Ginobili, but don’t seem bothered that he clearly traveled on that drive. Why is one no-call an outrage but the other isn’t? Like, I’m not trying to make a point, I’m just really trying to understand the thinking behind that point of view.
I do think he’s exhausted, but an exhausted LeBron is, y’know, not exactly Austin Rivers. I’ve seen people argue that the Heat are tired and that that explains some of their defensive screwups - they played a long season last year, they’ve played small ball all year, they’ve played two bruising series in a row and LeBron also played the Olympics between seasons - but here they are anyway. And LeBron is doing all of that while spending more time guarding Parker.
In my case, it’s because I didn’t notice a travel. I guess I was focused on the contact. I’ll re-watch it and look for a travel.
If the fourth quarter was an exhausted LeBron, then the term has no meaning for him. The normal signs of a tired player - not blocking out, reaching on defense, pulling up and shooting jumpers when a driving lane exists - were all absent, he was posting up and scoring, driving and scoring, soaring for tip-ins, defending Parker, blocking Duncan…what a phenom.
The defensive issues have been with the non-LeBron Heat, mainly Wade, Bosh, and Andersen.
How good has Ray Allen been in this series? Every time they’ve needed a jolt, he decides to be 27 years old for a couple minutes and gives them some crucial scoring.
Hmmmm…Game 4 in '08 was pretty great, the Lakers jumped out to a 35-14 lead, and were up 24 in the third, but the Celtics sloooooowly reeled them back in behind some incredible defense and Paul Pierce’s ability to make horrible shots. Not quite as thrilling, but improbable as it was happening, and the good guys won. Not an elimination game though. So, I guess the real answer would be Game 6, 1998, Jordan running on fumes, no help from the rest of the Bulls, and MJ winning the game with his strip of Malone and shot over Russell.
Yeah, the more I hate him, the more clutch he becomes. I had no doubt whatsoever that that 3 was going in, damn his eyes!
I’m probably underrating some games here. Not being elimination games isn’t a huge strike in my opinion. But the last game of the '98 finals was the one I thought of, too. I hope the teams bring it like this tomorrow night.
I’m probably underrating last night’s game because Duncan’s team lost. It’s the same reason the '92 UK-Duke regional final isn’t a great game for me. To be a great game, the right team needs to win.
If the Spurs somehow win tomorrow, last night’s game 6 will fade. If the Heat win, though? Media-gasm. It win be transformed into whatever narrative a hack writer wants: moral validation for the super-team, or LeBron, a referendum on new-school thinking defeating orthodoxy, the power of the will…we can look forward to umpteen columns telling us What It Means.