robj55;801907 wrote:It made the whole damn team passive and confused, anyone who watched the games saw that.

You are literally the only person in the world who thinks what you think about this series.

SportsAndLady;801912 wrote:You are literally the only person in the world who thinks what you think about this series.

Give it time, SQ will be back eventually.

robj55;801907 wrote:It made LEBRON passive and confused, anyone who watched the games saw that.

Fixed for accuracy.

hoops23;801849 wrote:The best way to beat a zone is by attacking it. The Heat didn't do that.

The best way to beat a zone is not attacking off the dribble.

The Heat got "confused" by a zone defense? lol??? What are they, 8th graders? Calling pretty much everyone armchair qbs, im interested in knowing what makes YOU think you know sooo much more about bball than the people here.

Rotinaj;801997 wrote:The Heat got "confused" by a zone defense? lol??? What are they, 8th graders? Calling pretty much everyone armchair qbs, im interested in knowing what makes YOU think you know sooo much more about bball than the people here.

Yeah, 2 of the 5 best players in the League and a President who has 5 Rings couldn't figure out what the heck to do against a zone defense.

hoops23;801849 wrote:You are 100% naive if you think a "zone" defense kept LeBron from attacking the rim. LBJ can get to the rim ANYTIME he wants to. No zone defense can keep him from that.

The best way to beat a zone is by attacking it. The Heat didn't do that.

This. Bron wasnt aggressive the entire series, I dont understand how somebody could argue otherwise

Even when the Mavs werent in a zone Bron wasnt getting it done. He couldnt get by Kidd, Marion, Terry and he couldnt stay in front of anybody on the defensive end. How many times did Bron try to back down Kidd or Terry? He should be a mismatch for anybody on that Mavs roster. He played passive the entire series except game 1. People need to stop making excuses for the guy

robj55;801908 wrote:It was a stupid ass question from the reporter, I wouldn't be so kindly to them taken shots at me if I were him or an NBA player, those idiots probably never played a day in their life, arm chair qb's like 90% of the OC. But you have a point in the fact that he's a role model and is held to a higher standard.

If you get a dumb question from the reporter, you either say no comment or you respond like a multi million dollar athlete should. Not using degrading words that offend people. Seriously, how does lebron's duck butter taste?

Rotinaj;801997 wrote:The Heat got "confused" by a zone defense? lol??? What are they, 8th graders? Calling pretty much everyone armchair qbs, im interested in knowing what makes YOU think you know sooo much more about bball than the people here.

Truth!!

also, one of the first things you are taught when playing zone defense in jr high is not to allow dribble penetration. I am guessing that everyone is taught that for a reason.

wes_mantooth;802092 wrote: not to allow dribble penetration..

Apparently Gloria never played jr high hoops.

BR1986FB;802094 wrote:Apparently Gloria never played jr high hoops.

No, no, no.....i didn't say DOUBLE penetration.....smh

Skyhook79;801971 wrote:Fixed for accuracy.

That's fair, but it still proves my point about what effect the zone had, brilliant by Rick Carlisle, not good to not have an answer if you are miami and Spoelstra, especially when you have all those shooters to surround them with.

karen lotz;801993 wrote:The best way to beat a zone is not attacking off the dribble.

ding ding, you don't put your head down and dribble drive against a zone

Rotinaj;801997 wrote:The Heat got "confused" by a zone defense? lol??? What are they, 8th graders? Calling pretty much everyone armchair qbs, im interested in knowing what makes YOU think you know sooo much more about bball than the people here.

Please list all the teams in the NBa that play ANY zone defense, and i'm not saying I know more than anyone, but I know the game and am trying to analyze basketball sense what happened in the series.

DeyDurkie5;802058 wrote:If you get a dumb question from the reporter, you either say no comment or you respond like a multi million dollar athlete should. Not using degrading words that offend people. Seriously, how does lebron's duck butter taste?

Anytime anyone gives an opinion that goes against the grain for the sake of conversation you guys throw insults. Instead of giving an analysis you say stupid middle school shit.

KR1245;802024 wrote:This. Bron wasnt aggressive the entire series, I dont understand how somebody could argue otherwise

Even when the Mavs werent in a zone Bron wasnt getting it done. He couldnt get by Kidd, Marion, Terry and he couldnt stay in front of anybody on the defensive end. How many times did Bron try to back down Kidd or Terry? He should be a mismatch for anybody on that Mavs roster. He played passive the entire series except game 1. People need to stop making excuses for the guy

Good points, but when he did try and back down a few times Dallas would flop and draw an offensive foul. I fell like if he would have gotten to the rim more somehow and got to the line more than 3 times a game he might have found a rythm on his jump shot. Normally getting freebies will do that.

There it is again, the refs fault.

And you cannot seriously defend that answer he gave in the post game.

karen lotz;801993 wrote:The best way to beat a zone is not attacking off the dribble.

Penetrating a zone is definitely the best way to beat it.

Outside of fast breaking and not letting it set up, but that isn't really beating the zone, it's avoiding it.

shooting the gaps and kicking out is def a good effective way to beat a 2-3

obviously you're not gonna get to the hoop if you dribble drive against a zone, but you can make more than 1 defender have to react to you and kick it. Plenty of ways to beat a zone, and 2 HOF caliber players should probably know that lol

I'll disagree with both of you. Passing the ball and making the zone move is the best way to beat the zone. The zone the Mavs were playing was to prevent Wade and James from driving and forcing them to either hit outside jumpers or give up the ball. In the 4th quarter of game 6, James started catching the ball on the move trying to get in the paint only to have 2 or 3 players surround him. Now, he didn't attack near enough throughout the series, but when he did against the zone, he was met with a "wall" as it was described by Mark Jackson and JVG. If anything he should have just flashed to the FT line, turn and face and he either had a shot or a pass to the opposite side of where the ball originally came from.

I didnt say it was the only way, just that its plenty effective.

And when he caught the ball and move towards the paint and have 2 or 3 players surrounding him....wouldnt that make 1 or 2 of his teamates sittin at the 3pt line wide open? If you're met with a wall while penetrating, they obviously are left vulnerable to the 3pt shot

Hell they could of even reverted to like 8th grade when you just put someone in the high post when someone runs a 2-3 on you. Lebron is perfect for that

Read the last line of my post.

And I do believe he did make the correct passes when he was doubled most of the time. I remember one play in particular where he dumped it off to a wide open Juwan Howard, who already had a foot inside the low block, and someone on here ripped him for passing the ball.

I agree that passing the ball and making the zone move is definitely what you should do. But the reason for that is that the ball movement will rotate the zone, which hopefully opens up a gap that you can penetrate and either pull up, go to the rim, or kick it out for an open J. Just swinging the ball around the perimeter usually isn't very effective.

Basically, I think everyone can agree that having 4 people stand around while one guy drove as far in as they could, went airborne, and threw a wild pass back out over and over again was definitely not the way to go about it, and an NBA team should probably be aware of that.

Yeah I agree and its definitely better to pass the ball inside and then out or to the opposite side quickly. The original post I responded to said LeBron's greatest assest was attacking the rim, which is not possible against the zone that Dallas was playing. Dallas was playing the zone to prevent James and Wade getting all the way to the rim.

Hb31187;802330 wrote:shooting the gaps and kicking out is def a good effective way to beat a 2-3

obviously you're not gonna get to the hoop if you dribble drive against a zone, but you can make more than 1 defender have to react to you and kick it. Plenty of ways to beat a zone, and 2 HOF caliber players should probably know that lol

The only probably w/ this is the way this Heat team is constructed. Neither Wade or LBJ are good catch and shoot guys. Also, Chalmers and Bibby aren't the best at breaking down a defense off the dribble, although Chalmers did an OK job this series. When LBJ didn't have the ball against the zone, he pretty much just stood in the corner. When he made himself available, he was hesitant to shoot the jumper, and instead just drove right back into the teeth of the defense where he just received the pass from. Joel Anthony was completely ineffective on the offensive end, although he should have been disruptive on the offensive glass, as well as James w/ one of the weaknesses of a zone is rebounding since you don't have a designated man to block out. Chris Bosh, whose skill set should kill the zone, did just that. Except for whatever reason, didn't get the touches he probably should have this series.

During the 1st quarter of game 1, I texted a buddy and said this series is over because Dallas had to go zone so early in the series and the Heat would surely break it down within a game or 2. But, I didn't take into account the following things:
#1 - LBJ is a dolt and doesn't listen to coaches. Why is it that after every playoff defeat of LBJ's that the coach comes under fire for not utilizing bron correctly? These NBA coaches know what they are doing, LBJ just doesn't always like what they are telling him and during crunch time reverts back to what is natural/easy. I'm sure he has been encouraged/coached to play in the post so the team can run offense from the inside out, but that doesn't suite his style. He'd much rather try to go 1 on 5 and either drive the lane and dunk or shoot the 3 and pose. He really has no midrange game. So against the zone, the shots that were available to him were pull up J's that he doesn't want to take, and 3's that he shouldn't be taking. For him to get dunks and layups he needed to move without the ball and/or post up. I feel we will be waiting awhile until we see that from his game.

#2 - While you would surely expect the Eastern Conference champs to light up a zone, their best player has little experience playing against one. In high school teams zoned, but it didn't matter because they were 6'3 white guys. He didn't play in college when he surely would have faced zones on a regular basis and learned how/when to attack them. In the NBA, no one runs a zone often so he never really had to prepare to face one.

LBJ's inexperience against a zone defense coupled with his dumbass not listening to coaches and his "shrinking" in the moment doomed the Heat on offense, especially late in games.