Lots of factors, including Eastern Conference, better coaching, no HCA these playoffs (no way Heat would have won 3 series without HCA in a row in a normal playoff year), etc. They really benefited from the bubble format, IMO.
There are players built for the regular season and players built for the playoffs. The Rockets have consistently had regular season type players. Russ and Harden are regular season players. Russ has a 1st round ceiling, Harden has a WCF ceiling. In reality Harden is more of a 2nd round flame out type of guy. The closest we got was when Harden had the perfect compliment to him in a healthy CP3 but Chris' attitude usually wears on you after about a year. At least it seems that way.
Because people around the league look at Moreys ideas and are like "well nice idea if it wasn't for xyz. let me change this and we should ball"
Rockets is not a balanced team needed for playoff success. the play style, the rosters....are too flawed to win it all.
Celtics had injuries. And again. Bubble. Don’t think they’d pull that off after an 82 game regular season straight into playoffs. This was like a mini season all of its own, and Heat peaked what would be mid or early season for a normal year.
I've been thinking about this for days and I think I've arrived at the answer. They won 12 games in a playoff run before we did.
Elimination of the 7 footers or true Centers. You get the point. Dwight Howard is like 6’9” but mechanical like a 7 foot center. JaVale MeGee same thing. They took them out vs us (Rockets) because we would run them off the court. But 6’3” guards are not outrunning SF’s of 6’6” to 6’9”. And the 6’10”, 6’9”, 6’8” AD, LeBron, Kuzma, Markieff were no match against 6’3” Westbrook/McLemore/Gordon/Rivers near the paint. Edited: Miami has: Adebayo 6’9” Jimmy Butler 6’7” Duncan Robinson 6’7” Haslem 6’8” Solomon Hill 6’6” Iggy 6’6” Crowder 6’6” Herro 6’5” In round 1 I told @D-rock that Miami had enough to come out of the East; but Dragic would probably take a toll from each round and be injured or ineffective come the finals.
Yep. All for it, but the Center position will still be intact even with 6'0 or 6'5s manning it. Nothing against Tucker but if Adebayo were 6'6 he'd still be more talented and younger.
Miami plays closer to position-less basketball where 6’7”-ish players can guard small guards while switching to bigger Centers. Hard for 6’3” players filling up the court at the same time to succeed. D’Antoni would probably put Dragic, Nunn and Tyler Herro (@SF) on the court at the same time.
The rockets haven’t been to finals since 1995 @Reeko The people who are shocked weren’t sperm and egg in 1995
Heat won a tight one with a short roster. Only 6 guys played real minutes, 7th only had 20 mins (Iggy). Short rosters is when coaches need to win games. Even great coaches like Spoelstra.
Just an interesting tidbit from basketball-reference.com on the Lakers: Lakers points per playoff series (2020) Team...............................Pts per game average vs Portland ...................................117.2 (Centers: Whiteside/Nurkic) vs Houston....................................111.0 (Tucker/Jeff Green) vs Denver.......................................113.6 (Jokic) vs Miami.........................................110.9 (Adebayo.......kinda part-time Olynyk) as one can see, the Lakers scored more points per playoff game (series) vs teams with big centers. But, notice Heat breakdown per game: Game 1 Adebayo played 21 minutes only due to shoulder injury and missed games 2 & 3 First 3 games: Lakers 114.7 points per game average Last 2 games (w/Adebayo feeling better): Lakers 105.0 points per game average. So Adebayo has helped probably because he can match AD in physicality and mobility.....allowing help defense to stay closer to their assignments. AD: First 3 games of series: 27.0 points per game Last 2 games of series: 25.0 points per game (AD suffering with heel problem) but LeBron has more than made up for the fewer points by AD LeBron: First 3 games of series: 27.7 points per game Last 2 games of series: 34.0 points per game So combination of LeBron-AD points per game up in last two games vs first 3 games on the average yet Lakers team points have gone down in last 2 games (105.0 pts/gm) over first 3 games of series (114.7 pts/gm).
