Official Detroit Pistons thread

[froot loops]

The defensive intensity is ebbing for the Cavs.

[CGVT]

[froot loops]

You might be right. The emotion lasted 6.5 quarters, the Cavs now look like a team playing in February.

[Tom]

I loved Shaq too.

[Kstat]

I loved him until post 2001 when he let his conditioning go and relied soley on brute force. For about 10 years though he was an amazing combination of power+speed.

[The Oracle]

Even after '01 he was dominant with his size and athleticism. All the way until 05 or so it became a problem.

[froot loops]

There were vast stretches of yesterday's game where Lebron was missing. As great as he is, his handles around the basket are throughly average. He complained about not getting calls, it was a physical game but there is something more. I can't quite put my finger on it, but to me is seems like too many times he gets into the key and doesn't have the next move figured out.

When Jordan got to a defender's hip, he was getting ready to rise.

[CGVT]

There were vast stretches of yesterday's game where Lebron was missing. As great as he is, his handles around the basket are throughly average. He complained about not getting calls, it was a physical game but there is something more. I can't quite put my finger on it, but to me is seems like too many times he gets into the key and doesn't have the next move figured out.

When Jordan got to a defender's hip, he was getting ready to rise.

Golden State played really good team defense last night. When Labron beat his man there was always help as well as good rotation to the obvious outlet guys and he had nowhere to go with the ball.

My son and I were talking about how the Cavs don't move well without the ball at all.They stand around and are easy to defend away from the ball and I think that makes it tough for a player to dump the ball off if he gets into trouble when he goes to the hoop

[CGVT]

You could see the writing on the wall about half way through the third quarter when GS started getting all of the loose balls and were obviously playing quicker than the Cavs. The started play loose and confident and the Cavs started to tighten up.

[Kstat]

Lebron can't play 45 minutes. He had so little lift at the end Draymond green blocked him with his elbow.

The lack of ball movement at the end had a lot to do with the cavs having dead legs. Kerr used his bench way more than Lue and it paid off in crunch time.

[froot loops]

That is definitely a big issue that maybe gets underplayed. In the Toronto series Lue was somewhat criticized for over playing Lebron. He doesn't have something to fall back on to score with that isn't high energy.

[fontes91]

I thought Lebron definitely looked fatigued in the 4th.

[Futureshock]

You could see the writing on the wall about half way through the third quarter when GS started getting all of the loose balls and were obviously playing quicker than the Cavs. The started play loose and confident and the Cavs started to tighten up.

I noticed that too.

[Futureshock]

I mean it was great suspense, the 2004 finals had maybe the best defensive team of all time and they had to use every possible player to guard him and use their fouls. They had to scheme to keep him from getting the ball he was a monster I that series.

Lebron is a superlative player, one of the best ever, but it seems like he has to exert maximum effort to dominate. Shaq made it look so easy. Good post players are a joy to warch.

Yup.

BTW, did they not have ball movement before? Yeah, I kind of remember that. They did all those things then as they do now. The rules now just allow bad shooters to get in the lane more. And they allow bad defenders to stay on the court if they can just shoot.

My favorite was always Kareem. Everyone tried to learn how to Sky Hook. But most came away with Jump hooks.

pANDs the back down isolation has been replaced with the pick-and-roll.

[froot loops]

I don't think they had the same type of ball movement you see with the Warriors and with what we saw with the Spurs over the last few years. I don't recall it at any rate. Some of the passing the Warriors do look like something off of Double Dribble on the NES console.