I agree with Bill Simmon's article post yesterday. After Heats wins the title, everyone will try to copy the model, all of them think they have a "Wade" in their team while the truth is there is only one Wade. I hate to see that ISO one on one basketball come back again.
Simmons is a drama-queen... and I really don't see that happening (teams going strictly to iso to try to copy wade). All this series showed was that if you're going to have teams with a lot of depth, they better have at least one guy who is willing to step up at crunch time (instead of just waiting/deferring to the other good players on the team). It also showed that Dallas cannot stop a one-man team. Teams are still going to play to their strengths... and the ones that utilize their strengths the best will have success.
I'm still in shock, but it's never felt better to taste crow. I don't think there's any question that Dallas was the far superior team when you consider that they choked away double digit leads in three of the losses. I severely underestimated Wade, Posey, Haslem, Zo, and Riley, and overestimated O'Neal and Walker. O'Neal has regressed even more than I thought to the point where it's not even a question that Yao is the superior player. Walker and Payton were just pitiful, both had their moments, the former seemed to fill up the stat sheet but I think overall hurt his team more than he helped them, and Payton might have been one of the worst regulars to participate in an NBA Finals. Three things won this series for the Heat: Wade, the grit of Zo, Haslem, Posey, and the coaching of Riley. I severely underestimated Wade and felt that the Dallas guards would wear him out. On the contrary, he made them seem like they weren't even there. An amazing display of shot selection and endurance. He's incredible. The play of Posey, Zo, and Haslem is pretty self explanatory. What's being underlooked here is the job Riles did in outcoaching Avery. There were some things that just left me baffled. Why didn't they try the Hack-a-Shaq more to atleast disrupt Miami's rhythm? What makes least sense is that they rarely ran two guys at Wade. This was simply inexcusable. The one time they rushed him at halfcourt, Miami was completely out of sync. Why not more of that? They need him to initiate the offense, why let him keep the ball in his hands? Why did Dallas go away from the Terry/Dirk pick 'n roll which was almost automatic? Listening to Phil Jackson right now on ESPN Radio take a subtle jab at his arch nemesis Riley, he said, "the Riley effect is changing the way the officiating is done throughout the series." He talked about how Miami established physicality early on so that guys like Haslem and Posey could get away with holding Dirk later on in the series because that standard had already been established. While Phil obviously meant this in a negative sense, I completely agree with the premise and think it's an underlooked aspect of muscleball.
Being able to get calls helps also. NBA is probably the only league which favors big stars that much. It is a superstar league. Your so called "one man beat the whole team" scenario only happens in NBA that often. However, When those all-stars, superstars play in the international games, when the refs no longer give them so called superstar treatments, start to call traveling, etc. and even give calls against them, oops, those superstars become humans again and we see MONTENEGRO win the World Tournaments and Argentina win the Olympics, as a team.
Phil is always such as smartas*. And that is why I hate that aspect of the NBA games, especially during the playoffs. Have you ever heard a baseball team has to establish themselves to let the ump change the strike zone? It is ridiculous.
uhh, no. i realize he wasn't good in the finals, but he hit that 3 against memphis, he hit the series-saver against san antonio in game 7, hit 2 free throws at the end of 2 other SA games that saved/won those games, went for 50 against phoenix when they needed it, and in game 5 against miami, hit a big shot w/ 1 minute left and had the dish to dampier to possibly win it in regulation, then hit the potential game winner (before the controversial foul on wade) right over shaq in OT. he's certainly not at a wade level when it comes to taking over games and he wasn't good in the 4th quarter yesterday, but i'd say the guy has shown he'll step up and has had plenty of good moments in the clutch in these playoffs. it's not like terry has any long list of great plays he's made to save the mavs in these playoffs. his shot at the end of regulation of game 5 was terrible (shouldn't have pump-faked).
that is not why the US didn't win the olympics/world championships. not sending our best players, playing a completely different game, horribly picked team with absolutely no players who complemented each other, shooting far worse than could possibly be imagined all played bigger factors. plus, with the way they treated duncan, i wouldn't say the refs just called it even and that's why we struggled.
I knew when this series started that I would be saddened by the result. I was pulling somewhat for Dallas, but then the referees who gave them the series that should have been ours also gave Miami this series. Payback is a, uh, mamalover. The big silver lining is just imagining the look on Kobe Bryant's face as he walked around his palatial shack kicking chairs and gnashing teeth.
TheCabbage, I give you credit, Dallas posed more problems for Miami than I thought and took Mia out of their game a number of times. Mia really only controlled one game, game 4, and had the Mavs not missed late FTs in game 3 Miami probably does not recover from their slow start from Dallas combined with a putrid game 3 3rd quarter when they kept going to a tired Shaq instead of Wade. One should not totally discount Miami had they been down 0-3, after all they did prove they could beat the Mavs 4 in a row, but the odds would have been long. Also, I think you also correctly penned that Josh Howard and Terry's offense would be more important than their defense on Wade, and Terry would get a ton a milage from JW/GP, I think you were spot on there. Still, in the end, one team was better defensively in the half court and had the best individual offensive weapon on the court. Few teams lose under that scenario in the playoffs and Miami didn't. Winning the last 4 games in a row, even if some were tight and there were some iffy last second refs calls, showed who the better team was. Personally I think a break no one mentions that Dallas got was that Wade didn't have his full health and stamina for the 1st two games. Once Wade got his form, and Mia consciously played through him (unlike the game 3 3rd quarter), Dallas really never had an answer. For those paying attention no one has stopped Wade for 2 years in the playoffs when his body had been right. With the exception of FT% and turnovers, Mia had the edge in every statistical category over the series ranging from FG%, 3% points per shot to rebounds, blocks and steals--the better and more consistent executing team won the series. AND ON THE REFS. Over the 6 games the better team won, calls even out. The refs in the NBA don't have near the impact of Football or un-American Football, otherwise known as Soccer. A referring tragedy was the Superbowl with the Hawks getting totally jobbed on 2-3 calls that translated intp 7 or 10 point swings in games where only 40 some points are usually scored, or the Itally getting a deciding penalty kick in injury time on a dive in a 1 loss turney game tied 0-0 that happens only once every 4 years and where whole countries have their heart in it. But one call in a 100 point game among a best of 7 series, relatively unimportant.
Congratulations Dallas Mavericks. I found myself doing something strange for myself and pulling for Dirk Nowitzki and the Mavericks. In the end I almost felt as good for them winning as when the Rockets won their Championship and grew to have a great appreciation for Dirk and how he handled himself as a true Champion.
