Ya'all never give Dallas enough credit. This team had just swept the defending champ Kobe-Gasol-Bynum-Artest Lakers with a 32-point blowout in the deciding game, then steamrolled the Durant-Westbrook-Harden-Ibaka Thunder in 5 (exact same team that would be in the Finals the next year), but had no chance against a Heat team in their first year together with no PG or center?
The Mavs' players talked about this extensively after the Finals. They had a detailed plan for stopping LeBron.
#1. You don't guard Bron one-on-one, you guard him with a zone. Cut off his driving lanes, cut off his passing lanes, give him space on the jumpers because that's the weakest part of his game and where he has the least confidence. But you DON'T let him get going and let him get the other guys going, because that's what the Heat thrive on.
#2. You have to keep giving Bron different looks. If you stick one defender on him, he figures that guy out. So you guard him with Marion and Stevenson, but also with Kidd and Terry and even a couple possessions from Barea. You keep changing the looks over and over and over and never let him get comfortable.
#3. Leave Kidd or Terry on an island with Wade. Let Wade get his, but don't let him get others going. Keep the zone slanted towards Bron because it's his creation that determines whether the Heat prosper or not.
The strategy worked to a T, just like their strategies against Kobe and the Lakers and Durant and the Thunder had worked. What they probably didn't count on was that their strategy was also the perfect way to force LeBron to overthink things, to make him freeze up, to completely psych himself out of the game.
Consider what you know of the 2011 NBA Finals. And now consider it, instead, like this: In what will likely be remembered as the low point of his career, James is miserable for several games against the
Dallas Mavericks -- including a vitally important Game 4 collapse when he somehow scores just eight points in 46 minutes. At times during that game it appears as if James is in a trance.
"What is he thinking?" the basketball world wonders.
James -- with two titles and counting, and four straight trips to the Finals -- can admit today what he's thinking in 2011: He's thinking of everything. Everything good, and everything bad. In 2011, he isn't just playing against the Mavs; he's also battling the demons of a year earlier, when he failed in a series against the
Boston Celtics as the pressure of the moment beat him down. It's Game 5 of the 2010 Eastern Conference semifinals, and it is, to this point, perhaps the most incomprehensible game of James' career. His performance is so lockjawed, so devoid of rhythm, the world crafts its own narrative, buying into unfounded and ridiculous rumors because they seem more plausible than his performance.
James, though, never fully deals with any of that. Instead, he changes teams. Changes cities. Changes coaches. Changes owners. Changes teammates. Changes uniforms. Changes climate. Wipe the slate clean, and maybe, for once, he can leave the past behind.
Instead, when it all happens again a year later, James' recall turns against him, yet again, like an awful sequel to an awful original movie -- everything happening out of James' control, the awful computer in his head winning the inner monologue.
"There are a lot of things that go through my mind during a game," James says. "Sometimes I cloud my mind too much. I get to thinking about the game too much instead of just playing."
Windhorst: LeBron's mighty memory
Boston tried basically the same strategy in 2012, just let Wade go off while shading the defense around shutting down LeBron's lanes and force LeBron to beat you outside, and it nearly worked until LeBron put together a next-level performance in Game 6 and DID beat them from outside. Spurs tried the same thing in 2013, and again LeBron had to dig deep and put together an epic performance in Game 7. You'll notice in those two games he averaged 40+ points and hit nearly 10 jumpers in each game but had only 6 assists. The teams they were facing were really trying to force LeBron to beat them on his own, make him uncomfortable that way because he wants to pass as much as he shoots, and it wasn't until 2012 that LeBron was really ready to do it on that stage. Since about 2014 the strategy doesn't work at all anymore, he just beats you in too many ways. You have to beat him with firepower instead, just amass as better offense than his team has and outscore him.
We clown him to this day for not posting up JJ Barea, truly the saddest Finals performance ever.
He did post up Barea on the first possession, Barea flopped and LeBron got called for the offensive foul.
So the second possession he was treating him with kids' gloves trying to figure out how to not get called for the foul.
And that was it. Two possessions.
Ya'all act like that's the "saddest Finals performance ever" as if
Tragic Johnson isn't a thing, as if Wilt didn't choke in three straight Game 7s in a row, as if Larry Bird didn't average 15ppg on 40% shooting for an entire Finals, as if Kobe didn't go 22-3-4 on just 38% shooting (22% from three) in basically throwing away the 2004 Finals, as if Kobe didn't average 15-3-3 on 37% shooting in another Finals, as if Wade didn't average 15-4-3 on 44% shooting while getting destroyed on defense in a Finals, as if Curry didn't average 22ppg on 40% shooting for a whole finals while getting targeted by every single player on the opposite side of the court and losing a 3-1 lead....
The only difference is that you pretend to be haters but actually expect more from Bron than you expect from anyone else. Bron is the only one who has to measure up to MJ or he's a failure. Even Kobe, even Wade, were never held to that standard.
No lies told by O.P. That clown was scared Wade was gone get Final MVP and figured they would be back to the Finals next year and threw the series
He was "scared" that his best friend was going to get Finals MVP. Ya'all constantly say that rings are what is important, that losing in the Finals is the worst thing ever, and yet you claim that LeBron's best friend getting MVP was worse in his mind than losing.
Hatred is a mental disorder.
the long summer continues...
