Rozier definitely needed to find his way off of Lebron. But it’s also weird that Lebron couldn’t simply find a way to drive around Baynes...even early on when he had his stamina. It’s like the slow but large wing span makes him incapable of driving for some reason.
SVP and Tim Legler pointed out that LBJ looked tired from early on. Made me wonder if he is sick.
agreed. That's a really good point about "physicality having a cumulative effect" and how it works in practice. Definitely passes the eye test.
Horford is great on D, better offensively than Draymond, and Kyrie isn't at the level of Steph and Durant. It's arguable, but Horford has a much better case for being the Cs best player than Draymond does for the Dubs.
Well, other than the time he drove past Baynes for a layup like Baynes had cement overshoes.
HRB, you were also on this a week ago. I'm scratching my head here.
Yes there was that one time he decided to....
I don't get it either, especially since Baynes was brought in after Gortat and Thompson ate us alive on the boards in the playoffs last year to counter guys like that.
On that one it looked to me like Baynes thought he had help since Bron started his drive from the three point line.
Ha, definitely not what I'm implying.
One thing from watching on TV.. to me it looks like the Celtics keep the crowd lit more..and Cleveland seems darker. That may just be my TV, but I can only imagine that the different shooting background (if the light actually is different) would be difficult to adjust to over a seven game series.
Sure but tonight the Celtics shot 36.5% from the floor. That's just not the story of game 5.
Truly one of the most absurd things I have ever heard an NBA coach say.
Because when you start Baynes, you put Horford on LBJ and a counter Lue has is not force the switch and try to get Al in foul trouble. Also, it takes a scorer off the floor and clogs up the lanes.
Korver matches up with Ojeleye to avoid having Cs go after him on defense every time down the floor (which the Cs should do more of).
To this and the point above about Lebron not taking it to the hoop on Baynes - I think the mileage is starting to add up. You can almost see that when Lebron has the ball in iso, he's working it out: "Me driving will more than likely result in points or free throws, but it will sap X number of my health units. If I kick it to JR/Kevin/George etc. I will lose less health units, but there is less chance of points."
You're right; Al was on Love and JB was on LBJ. JB did a pretty good job on LBJ too.
LBJ lead the league in minutes; has the 2nd highest usage % in the playoffs and highest the Conference Finals (37%). Someone said upthread or in the Game thread that going to every other day is going to help the Cs; looks like that's accurate.
I'm not sure James' first step is as quick/deadly as it used to be. He's obviously effective in other ways but he has only consistently beaten guys like Baynes off the dribble in this series. He's tired, too, but that's been covered elswhere.
Yeah, this was my immediate thought. I'd argue that Korver is decent enough on D (he certainly seems better than JR Smith for example, and Smith got 26 minutes) and they have good enough help D that Korver's offensive contributions would outweigh his deficiencies on D, and they should put him out there even if Semi is not playing. But I can see the reasoning.
Korver is much worse than JR on D. Korver got scorched in Gs1 & 2.
Wade, really have a few nits to pick here:
Per yahoo though, Korver played 90 minutes in first 4 games. Only 31 of those came with Semi on the floor. Lue is scrambling.
I think this is right, and probably the primary motivation of Brad to allow Baynes to get switched on to LeBron by daring him to drive again and again.
He seems to also take basically the first game of every series off and is quick to shut it down if he thinks the game is unwinnable. At one time he may have fought for every game but now he seems to only fight for the ones he thinks he can win..and the difference is very noticeable.
Done.
How did LeBron play himself? I’m a bit confused.
i have ptsd from all the years of playing LeBron too.. after they won the first two I felt relief..lost two-cmon not again.. win last night - please just one more.
That and I expect all the scrubs on the Cavs to shoot way better...I really hope I'm wrong, but I'm expecting mostly a shit show in game 6.
I think he's covering for a Korver injury without wanting to admit it in public. The Semi thing is too dumb to be true, even for Lue.
Thanks for doing that. Very sorry everyone about the typo; I apologize if anyone was offended.
Well I guess but that happened 2 months ago and doesn't explain his lack of usage, especially early, last night after he was so good in Game 4. I was surprised to see he was up as high as 18 minutes. He must have been playing a lot when the game was out of hand
