The NBA thread

[Beezy]

My heart... ridiculous game.

[Stoney Mason]

That was just awful defense.  Ugh.  Will not even go to gaf to see how happy they are

Yeah it was weird. That's the time you want to actually double Dirk. But instead everybody stayed home. Didn't help that bosh played him like shit.

[Phoenix Dark]

Holy shit. My dad left my place once Miami went up 15 but drove back just in time to see Dirk's shot

Lmao @ LeBron passing the ball

[TakingBackSunday]

LeBron's lesson tonight: you are the best shooter and player on the court.  Take the last shot.

[Stoney Mason]

LeBron's lesson tonight: you are the best shooter and player on the court.  Take the last shot.

That's not the lesson. That pass was actually the right move. The lesson is don't take all those shit shots before that. Wade should have taken more shots in the 4th anyway. He was clearly the hotter player. Lebron suddenly fell in love with taking off balance late in the shot clock three's on that run to try to get a dagger or something. fucking drive. Or Drive and dish. Very poor decisions. I blame Lebron and spolestra for that game. 

[Mandark]

LeBron's lesson tonight: you are the best shooter and player on the court.  Take the last shot.

Wait, Chalmers missed that 3?

[Great Rumbler]

Mavs

[Joe Molotov]

Bububu Lebron and D-Wade are the best finishers in the league. Thousands of rich retirees are stunned.

[Phoenix Dark]

LeBron made the right decision to pass, but that didn't make it less funny, given his obsession all game with fade away 3s

[Stoney Mason]

Even Dirk when it counted who's a world class shooter didn't just settle for a long jumper. He went inside for a higher percentage shot. Not sure why Lebron thought jacking up low percentage threes was the way to generate offense there at the end. 

But I'm glad this happened. Turned what was looking like a possible sweep into a competitive series. Next game will be huge. Dallas crowd will be jacked. The pressure is now on Miami to respond in kind. If they are a championship team they will. If they aren't they won't.

[Phoenix Dark]

best thing about the game (Steve Nash's gf) revealed
http://blacksportsonline.com/home/2011/06/video-brittany-richardson-the-lady-reading-steve-nashs-text-messages/

good lord

[Smooth Groove]

Nash got divorced?

Huge chokejob by the Heat.  The sloppy D and casual shots finally caught up with them at the end. 

[Mandark]

Even Dirk when it counted who's a world class shooter didn't just settle for a long jumper.

Yes he did!  Unless shots in tie games in the Finals with less than a minute to go don't "count".

[Great Rumbler]

This game had the feel of Game 3 in the '06 playoffs.

[Joe Molotov]

best thing about the game (Steve Nash's gf) revealed
http://blacksportsonline.com/home/2011/06/video-brittany-richardson-the-lady-reading-steve-nashs-text-messages/

good lord

Dirk's got a new gf too:



For comparison, pics of his last gf, who he was about to marry except she kinda went to prison:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[TakingBackSunday]

We'll see what happens.  Miami has been a pretty dynamite team away considering (3 losses of 6 games played away in the postseason), so Miami will surely take two in Dallas, I believe.  It's still Miami's series to lose, honestly: they had this game won all game until they relaxed against a better shooting team.  I think they'll realize they need to play a full game to win against this veteran Mavs team.

[Stoney Mason]

We'll see what happens.  Miami has been a pretty dynamite team away considering (3 losses of 6 games played away in the postseason), so Miami will surely take two in Dallas, I believe.  It's still Miami's series to lose, honestly: they had this game won all game until they relaxed against a better shooting team.  I think they'll realize they need to play a full game to win against this veteran Mavs team.

If I was a betting man I still would be going all in on the Heat although if the Mavs win the next game that may change. The Heat had come off a string of great performances so while I would never say they were due for this (because they clearly got rattled there which isn't a good sign) its also a bit too early to blow it out of proportion. The Heat need to treat every possession like gold late in the game which they had been doing a much better job of in the playoffs. That collapse looked like a lot of heat games I saw during the season where the offense can suddenly become stagnant as Lebron and Wade go one on 5. Bosh has to improve his play also. That's two shitty games in a row for him. He's way to tentative when he's getting the ball. He needs to go immediately and go hard instead of all this pump faking and head faking he's trying to do.

[TakingBackSunday]

Well, to be fair, that technique worked incredibly against the Bulls.  I'd guess he's been testing to see if that worked against the Mavs.  Obviously not.  He needs to fill a bigger role as a defender and distributor and let LeBron drive in. 

[Stoney Mason]

Well, to be fair, that technique worked incredibly against the Bulls.  I'd guess he's been testing to see if that worked against the Mavs.  Obviously not.  He needs to fill a bigger role as a defender and distributor and let LeBron drive in. 

He mainly had shitty boozer on him in that series as the Bulls were more worried about Lebron and Wade. It seems like everytime now he's either getting blocked, stripped, or putting up a shot way too hard because he's scared of getting stripped or blocked.

[TakingBackSunday]

If Spoelstra was smart (lol), he'd have Bosh play further out while keeping Anthony as their main big, clearing up some space for LeBron/Wade to get in close to the basket.

[naff]

God damn. Can't believe I missed this game  :'( Going to download and watch it anyway

[Mandark]

Just rewatched the last six minutes.

Mavs defense (read: Shawn Marion) did a nice job down the stretch.  LeBron missed a couple 3's off the dribble and Wade missed one, but those were the result of 1) Marion poking the ball away on an iso when LeBron was looking to drive, 2) LeBron getting the ball with a couple seconds on the shot clock when his teammates were stymied, and 3) Chandler and Marion trapping LeBron on the pick-n-roll so that Wade had to come back almost to halfcourt to get the ball with eight seconds on the shot clock.

Probably could have used some better play calling on Miami's part, but credit where it's due.

Also, DAT PASS.  LeBron inbounds the ball with a chest pass across the width of the court so accurately that Chalmers can leave his feet set in place and still receive the ball right where he starts his shooting motion.  If people remember the play, it'll mostly be for Jason Terry's screw-up, but damn.

[Stoney Mason]

Anatomy Of A Gilded Collapse
By John Hollinger
ESPN.com

MIAMI -- Fool's gold.

That's my two-word analysis of the Miami Heat's offense that got them a 1-0 series lead and 15-point edge midway through the fourth quarter of Game 2. With LeBron James and Dwyane Wade converting an unusually large number of bailout 3-point attempts and the Heat getting multiple easy baskets from their defense, it was easy to overlook the fact that Miami's half-court offense was struggling to consistently generate good shots.

That is, until the tap stopped flowing on bailout 3s and transition dunks, at which point it became abundantly clear that Miami's half-court offense was struggling to consistently generate good shots. Those facts go a long way toward explaining why the Heat won the highlight film but lost the basketball game.

"Offensively," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said, "if we could have executed and moved the ball, we might have been able to stem the tide a little bit, even as poor as we were defensively down the stretch."

Forget about all the things Miami might have done wrong defensively, or the many ways you might second-guess the Heat's choices on the Dallas Mavericks' final possession. (Including but not limited to: Not giving the foul they still had in their back pocket, not double-teaming Dirk Nowitzki, not having Joel Anthony in the game, and not having Udonis Haslem on Nowitzki instead of Chris Bosh).

That's all important, obviously, but the fly in the punch bowl in this box score is the 14 combined 3-point attempts by Wade and James, part of the 30 that Miami launched as a team.

"To shoot 30 3s in a game is not our style of basketball," Spoelstra said, "and at the end of the game to not be able to execute and move the ball and find an open shot. We were running the clock down to the end. That's not been a successful formula for us the last three months."

And don't just focus on the fourth-quarter collapse, people -- look at the whole second half. Even before the death spiral at the end, Miami had only 23 points on 22 trips in their second-half half-court possessions; the Heat closed with five on their final 10 trips (not including Wade's heave at the buzzer), for a total of 28 points on 32 second-half possessions in the half court. That's not good enough.

Obviously, things went from bad to worse late in the fourth quarter, when Miami inexplicably became 3-point giddy. Again, I think the fool's gold was a big reason. Up til that point, James and Wade were a combined 10-of-17 on 3-pointers and had to be feeling good about their strokes.

And then the Sample Size Gods smacked them down.

The Heat took nine 3-point tries in the final eight minutes, making only two of them; Wade's 3-pointer from the corner (begetting the posing and mugging that will fill the talk radio airwaves for 72 interminable hours til the start of Game 3) was the only one of the six attempts by either Wade or James that found the net.

Moreover, it took James and Wade away from the things they actually do well. With the fast-break game closed off by Dallas' sudden flurry of scoring, the Heat rarely got the ball near the basket. Miami took 10 jump shots from 15 feet or farther, had two turnovers where the ball never threatened to enter the paint, and had only two attempts with a genuine foray to the basket. One of them produced two free throws for James, Miami's only points in a stretch of nearly seven minutes, and the other was a short-range shot that he missed.

All this is a shame because, up til that point, Miami went up 15 by putting together 20 minutes of some of the best defense you'll ever see. Starting with the Heat down nine in the second quarter and James on the bench with three fouls, Miami forced 12 turnovers in a 20-minute span while surrendering a meager 21 points, allowing the Heat to build a seemingly insurmountable 15-point advantage.

Included in that stretch was perhaps the single best defensive trip of the playoffs -- when a series of Dallas passes pinged the ball all over the court, and a Miami player rotated to cut off a potential shot on every one of them. Despite exquisite ball movement, the Mavs ended up with a shot-clock violation.

Effort like that should be enough to bring home victory for Miami, because their offense should be good enough to generate decent looks consistently against Dallas. There's no reason for them to settle for hero shots by James and Wade on trip after trip. But they did, and one has to suspect the fool's gold results of their first 17 3-point attempts in the series were a big reason why. As a result, a Finals that should have been in Miami's back pockets now stands in genuine doubt.

[Stoney Mason]

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[Great Rumbler]

I want the Mavs to win just so Colin Cowherd will SHUT UP.

[Cormacaroni]

watched the game at ch1nchilla's place. Most triumphant. Dirk

[Stoney Mason]

I had been calling my brother pretty much after every game since the Celtics series started (he's a Celtics fan) to rub it in and gloat about how well the Heat were playing.

There was no call today...

[Stoney Mason]

LIKE A BOSH.

DALLAS -- It’s probably not a good sign when you’re in the middle of your first NBA Finals and you’re thinking about the time you shot 1-for-18 in a game. But that’s where Chris Bosh is right now.

Before the Heat’s first practice in Dallas on Saturday, Bosh stood before the media and assured everyone that he will bounce back in Game 3 after shooting 26 percent in his first two games of the series.

How does he know that? In his mind, he has been here before. No, not in the Finals, but mentally, this is familiar territory. Back in late February against the Chicago Bulls, the Heat power forward endured one of the worst shooting nights in NBA history, missing 17 of his 18 shots from the floor. Those memories came rushing back after another off shooting night in Game 2.

“This is the Finals, and I have to really use what I’ve learned in crucial situations,” Bosh said Saturday. “I just have to trust in myself. I know I can play the game."

Bosh’s shooting woes have erased all the positive momentum that he built during an impressive Eastern Conference finals in which he shot a blistering 60 percent from the floor while averaging 23.2 points per game. On Saturday, Bosh said he sets his bar at 50 percent. If he shoots above that threshold, he’s satisfied. If he doesn’t, he beats himself up over it. Considering he’s barely shooting half that here in the Finals, he has a lot to think about heading into Game 3.

What has been the main cause of his off-target shooting?

This isn’t just a product of missing midrange jumpers. While he’s shot just 3-for-11 this series on long 2-pointers, the real issue is the chip shots around the basket. Inside 10 feet, he has shot a putrid 5-for-21 (24 percent), which is an area in which he converted 57 percent of his attempts during the regular season.

In Game 2, nearly every big man on the Mavericks roster got a chance to guard Bosh. While Tyson Chandler was responsible for the majority of assignments, Bosh also went against Dirk Nowitzki, Brendan Haywood, Shawn Marion, Peja Stojakovic and even Brian Cardinal in Thursday’s loss. And the only player Bosh looked comfortable against was the 33-year-old Stojakovic, who looked stiffer than a telephone pole when Bosh juked him on the right baseline in the first quarter.

Other than that play, Bosh looked rushed and off-balance. When Bosh is at his best, he’s calm and collected, attacking with poise and calculated movement. On a wide-open jumper with five minutes left in the fourth quarter, Bosh hurried his launch and nearly missed everything as the shot clock expired. From that point on, the Heat offense completely ignored him.

It’s no coincidence that the Heat offense degenerated in the final minutes of the game, a span of time during which Bosh never got a shot off. The Heat’s offense used to be anchored around Bosh in the high post, but in Thursday’s game he touched the ball as part of a half-court set just five times in entire quarter. Bosh didn’t make the most of his few touches, either.

On one play in the final frame, Bosh tried to get Chandler off his feet with an assortment of pump fakes, but Bosh ended up losing the ball off his knee, turning the ball over to the Mavericks. Another time, he tried to take Chandler baseline but lost control of his dribble and the ball sputtered out of bounds with 2:53 remaining in the game.

Bosh insists that these miscues and misfires are behind him. But there’s still reason to be concerned since Chandler isn’t going anywhere. Chandler, who stands a solid 7-foot-1, has largely neutralized Bosh, not falling for his up-fakes and contesting without fouling. In Kevin Garnett and Joakim Noah, Bosh has faced premier defenders before, but Chandler, who finished third in the defensive player of the year voting, ranks as the tallest and strongest defender that Bosh has drawn in the playoffs.

For Bosh to be successful, he must do a better job of drawing contact on Chandler without worrying about getting blocked. Bosh only drew one whistle on Chandler the entire night off an offensive move. With a gimpy Haywood as Chandler’s only legitimate backup, Bosh’s aggressiveness against Chandler becomes even more imperative.

If Bosh turns it around on Sunday, many will attribute it to coming home and playing in front of his family and friends. As we all know by now, Bosh was born and raised in Dallas, but the homegrown Texan has maintained that he hasn’t let the homecoming become a distraction. Bosh needs to forget about the environment and stay focused around the rim and stay assertive, regardless of how many errant shots he made in the first two games of the series.

He has bounced back before, and the Heat need him to be a focal point of the offense again, not an afterthought as he was in the final minutes of Game 2.

“I know I am capable of big games,” Bosh said. “I just have to let it happen.”

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoopmiamiheat/post/_/id/8405/how-chris-bosh-bounces-back-in-game-3

[Stoney Mason]

Damn it. I missed the first half. I thought the game started at 9 instead of 8.

edit: quickly looking at the box score, I see Bosh is already 2 of 9. 

[etiolate]

Mavs were sloppy in the first half, forcing passes and reaching instead of moving their bodies. The Heat were pretty tight and getting to the hole. When the lead got big, Mavs got some calls. I am not sure what to expect in the second, because I know the Mavs can play better but I am not sure they will. They look a little lax.

Hysterical flopping at the end of the half though.

[Stoney Mason]

Marion and Chandler are playing some hellacious defense.

[Phoenix Dark]

On a side note, has there been a single Asian person in a commercial that wasn't advertising some type of technology/gadget?

[Stoney Mason]

Bosh is beyond useless.

[Stoney Mason]

Dirk is crazy hot.

Dirk versus Wade.

[Stoney Mason]

Also Miami has gotten screwed with some calls late in this game.

Conspiracy theory fail again.

[Joe Molotov]

Also Miami has gotten screwed with some calls late in this game.

Conspiracy theory fail again.

But that was definitely traveling there.

[Stoney Mason]

Miami FT:12-15   
Personal Fouls:27



Dallas FT:22-27   
Personal Fouls:14

Conspiracy theory blown #2.

Looks like it will come down to this final Dallas possession.

[Stoney Mason]

That was crazy close.

I admit when Dirk got that shot off I thought it was going in.

Lebron really disappeared in that 4th quarter. Thank god for Wade.

Bosh played like shit in that second half but he did hit that very late shot.

[etiolate]

this was one of those invisible Lebron games that killed Cleveland

[Mandark]

Glad Bosh hit that baseline jumper.  Redeemed himself from passing up that one before (and damn but he looked like a guy with no confidence at that point).

[Stoney Mason]

Glad Bosh hit that baseline jumper.  Redeemed himself from passing up that one before (and damn but he looked like a guy with no confidence at that point).

He's the most nervous guy I've seen play basketball in years. You can see the wheels spinning in his head every time he touches the ball and almost read the thought bubble which is  "Please god, don't let me screw this up".

I actually do feel sorry for him if its possible to feel sorry for a millionaire sports athlete.

[Flannel Boy]

Players like Peja, Terry, and JJ can't be counted on to do shit in the Finals.

.

[Mandark]

Funny how fans of different franchises start to take on certain characteristics.  A Lakers fan is convinced that his team is going to get the best player on the market and head right back to the finals.  A Mavs fan only shows up after a heartbreaking loss.

[etiolate]

I thought they(that crew) would show up at home for the Mavs but they were just ordinary tonight. Terry kinda blew that late possession with Dirk scoring every time.

It's been Dirk, Kidd, Marion and Chandler for the Mavs doing most everything.

[Stoney Mason]

Chandler has been amazing imo. His boxscore might not be amazing but he anchors that team on defense and sets the tone for everything. Dallas really got a steal there.
He changes the identity of that team on defense. 

This was Barea's best game imo and he still struggled.

He's 5 of 23 for the series.

[Phoenix Dark]

I guess the refs/Stern want to ensure 5-6 games to get as much revenue as possible from the arenas/TV!

[pilonv1]

I hate this series

[Stoney Mason]

To cut Bosh a small bit of slack he did have the eye thing happen.

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=6630071

[Stoney Mason]

LIKE A BOSH!

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]
[youtube=560,345][/youtube]
[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[TakingBackSunday]

Last night was just ugly, for both teams.  No one REALLY showed up except the star players for each: Dirk and Wade.  LeBron was awful last night - he looked scared to drive.

Also the refs were putrid.  Those awful loose ball fouls were bullshit.  I hope the Heat just blow the Mavs out next game, but it won't happen.

[Phoenix Dark]

I expected LeBron to come out very aggressive after his post-game 2 comments. To be fair his first FGs were mainly drives, but after that he kind of disappeared offensively; he's doing a damn good job on defense, although Himu could probably guard Terry given how shitty he's playing.

[Stoney Mason]

Mark Jackson named warriors head coach.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=6632935

[Mandark]

Good for him!  Though I'll selfishly miss his commentating.

Also, for all this talk of LeBron not showing up or whatever, he had a bunch of assists in the second half and he got killed for taking all the big shots in the game before.  I think there's a bit of storytelling going on.

[Cormacaroni]

J.A. Adande's piece was good. All you need to know is that Jason Terry was an utter non-factor and that LeBron still produced. That's plenty. Also: Wade was clearly having some alpha male issues in that game.

[Stoney Mason]

Wade is going off in this series. And finally Bosh having a good game.

[Phoenix Dark]

Holy shit that lob should count for 5 points

[Stoney Mason]

Miami offense falling apart in the 4th quarter. Another sub-par offensive game from Lebron.

[CajoleJuice]

Dallas is missing tons of open shots, too.

Intense shit though

[Stoney Mason]

Wade has just been awful from the free throw line in the playoffs. I feel like I've seen him miss a ton of them.

[Phoenix Dark]

Time for Bron Bron to shine