Damn straight it matters more that he stepped up in the fourth quarter. Remember in '07 when McGrady was putting up 30 points in 3 quarters and not showing up in the fourth against Utah? He ran out of gas and couldn't close out games. He was crucified for it. Dirk was the exact opposite. He stepped up when his team needed him to - and his team won *because of him*. He was there with a 101 degree fever - he was there with a ripped tendon in his left hand. Based on your logic, Wade was better than Dirk this series. From a purely statistical perspective he did great, but he couldn't close out games. Dirk put up 26/10/2 on 55% TS and you're saying he had a bad finals. It's mind boggling. Does he need to approach prime Shaq's 30/15 60% TS to be dominant? You're pointing to a decrease in efficiency as adequate proof - how many players this side of MJ has stats that go up across the board (while playing injured to boot)?
Here's another thing I don't get. The Mavs shot the lights out in the 2nd round against the Lakers (5th in FG% allowed), and against OKC you had Dirk being guarded by just as talented (if not more talented/athletic) guys as Miami (3rd in FG% allowed) had (Haslem and Anthony), and yet Dirk struggled against Miami... while his teammates continued to be red hot. It just doesn't make a lot of sense. Why did Dirk all the sudden struggle after dominating a defensively stout team (Lakers), and a difficult 1-on-1 matchup (Thunder)? What was Miami's poison pill for Dirk? What did they do that the Lakers and the Thunder didn't? I honestly think Dirk just had an off couple of games, that's my explanation. Sinus infections are no joke. (I'm dead serious, that s*** sucks and I can't imagine playing effective basketball with it)
If we are talking who are the best PF's overall in terms of skill, Dirk is probably 3 or 4, but he is two now because of what he has achieved over his career. The guy will probably pass Shaq in all time scoring, has a ring, and a MVP. 1. Duncan 2. Dirk 3. Malone 4. Garnett 5. Barkley
You do remember that he played with an injured finger and the flu? Even with a high fever in one game? And missing shots in the first half ain`t that important (remember Lebron made his first four shots yesterday?) - making shots in the 4th is important. What are his stats in the 4th quarter? At the beginning of the game Dirk made his team better - at the end of the game he took his team on his back.
Wade did play better than Dirk, IMO. 61% TS with 26.5 PPG, 7 Rbs, 5 assists... pretty good series for him. He's certainly not the reason they lost. Dirk Finals TS: 54% Dirk Season TS: 61% Every other category for Dirk, he did pretty much par for the course. Sorry, but he underachieved. That's not a "good" Finals for him. Not measuring him against a freaking center, I'm measuring him against himself. LOL, so I just had a dude argue with me that MJ's finals stats dropped, and I showed him that they didn't always, now I have to argue with someone else about how MJ is the lone exception to the dropping stats thing? Did you not see how I showed Hakeem's stats stayed pretty much the same? Did you not see how people on Dirk's own team played better in the Finals than they did during the reg-season/rest of the playoffs? How many more examples do you need? Based on how his teammates played, and how his peers have played in the finals in the past, and how HE himself had played up to this point, I think Dirk underachieved here. Sorry that bothers you so much
Wow some of y'all need to go watch some game tape. Duncan closed games very well. And the 08 Celtics were based around KG and his defense. Their dropoff coincided with his knee injury.
Dirk didn't seem to think the finger was a big problem, but being sick is a real deal breaker. I totally get that. And I understand how it would affect him over several games. But even if he is sick, a bad game is still a bad game. Sucks that he was ill, but I can't grade him on a curve since I don't really know how to apply the "fever" metric. I'm more apt to give his illness credit for slowing him down than I am Miami's defense, though.
i live in austin yes, as you should. i think he underperformed as well. but still think he had a good series, because he overperformed, CONSIDERABLY, when it mattered most. I understand you don't think the 4th quarter matters more than any of the others, but would argue that the majority of sports fans disagree with that. as has been pointed out to you, those teammates performance is highly dependant on Dirk. Even a bad shooting Dirk is drawing most of the defense's attention. Jason Terry played great, on the whole, and in the last few games especially... but he was getting open off Dirk pick and rolls. Aside from the occasional pick and roll with Chandler, it was Dirk setting screens to force the defense to make a decision. Once Terry realized that he needed to be aggressive off those picks, he started hitting his patented pull up jumpers... but he needed the space Dirk's pick provided. This is not to excuse Dirk's poor shooting. He was still below his averages, below standard for him, yada yada. but it is to note that focusing on stats alone doesn't tell you the whole picture. Sure, Terry was able to "outperform" his averages, but as a secondary role player - though an important one for sure - he has the advantage that he isn't depended on to shoot in such volume. So by th etime he got around to finally shooting well - Games 5 and 6, he was able to up his averages considerably. In reality, Terry shot 38.8% for 4 games, but upped it to 50% for the series because of the last two. Dirk not being the whole team is exactly what some people are trying to point out. It isn't as simple as saying Dirk shot x and Terry shot y. It's interrelated. Which is why it's virtually impossible to say had Dirk show better in quarters 1-3 of games 2 and 4 then it wouldn't have been close down the stretch. Maybe... maybe not. It seems likely that if Dirk shot better overall the Mavs would have had a better shot to win... but that's not a given. It might have made more sense for Spoelstra to focus less on Dirk and allow him to get off a little more, and keep shutting down Terry, Barrea, etc. Once Terry and Barrea got going, and even Deshawn Stevenson to a certain extent, it was over for the Heat. But that's not a knock on Dirk - throughout the playoffs, even when he was on fire, the Mavs fortune rested on how well his supporting cast played. So I can alternatively make the argument that had Dirk shot better earlier in the games, the Mavs would have lost the series already. Who knows...? Well, I take solace in the fact that it's not just me. EVERYBODY is talking about the disparity in 4th quarter scoring between the teams' superstars. More prevelant to Rockets fans, we've had this discussion about Kevin Martin last season - great scorer through first 3 quarters, but doesn't seem capable of taking over a game down the stretch to close it. It's important. It matters. all other things being equal. but as noted above, that's an impossible qualification. just my two cents. i don't disagree with your premise that he shot below standard. I do disagree with your premise that he had a below average series. below average for him? yes. overall. No. It should also be noted his team won.
Sorry to add to my long reply to you with a double post, and not to doubt your basketball knowledge... but I think this post is a clear indicator of how you are applying way to much emphasis on "stats". Why? Because it DOES make a lot of sense. Dirk didn't have off games, as we've noted, he had off 3 quarters, then dominating 4th quarters. So it's not like he just wasn't feeling it for a game. Something changed, during the game. As your post notes Miami was 3rd in the league (tied for 2nd, really, per NBA.com) in opponent FG%. OKC was 15th. Individual match-ups count. But team defense is what wins the day in the NBA. That's why Dirk didn't dominate from a shooting perspective against Miami like he did against OKC. Miami's rotation and team defense was as solid as you'll find. It's why they should have won the series. Better team defense, better individual offensive talent. It actually took Dirk's teammates, who you noted in another post "remained red-hot" longer to adjust to Miami's team defense (i.e. they did NOT remain red hot... heck, Peja wilted away to nothing despite giving the team some meaningful moments earlier in the playoffs). What Miami did better was double team, pretend to double team, and fluster Dirk from a team defensive standpoint. He got the ball less frequently in his favorite spots, and when he did get it their, he was pushed out a little further. Miami rotated beautifully on pick and rolls for the most part, etc. So why did it change in the 4th? I think the reason Dirk dominated the 4th quarter is partly because the Miami players stopped trusting their team defense philosophy. Granted, team defense is tough on a game winner type scenario... because you typically aren't going to double in that situation and leave a Mav player wide open for a shot (though in retrospect they probably wished they did), but generally I think in the 4th quarters Miami players got into more of a "scramble" mode, defensively, leaving Dirk with more 1 on 1's, catch and shoots, catch and dribble type sitautions he typically didn't have earlier in the game. Of course, this means that Dirk theoretically could have struggled through the 4th quarter as well? But a lot of it clearly falls on his shoulders, too. He thrived in the fourth when it was close, and didn't earlier in the games. Better than the other way around.
My response was a joke, but point is still that sports radio chatter isn't exactly the best stuff to support an argument. I'm well aware of that, I feel the same way about the NFL, MLB, etc. All phases of the game are important, if you try your best and succeed, whether it be early or late, it still counts the same either way on the board. I realize Dirk is the focal point of the offense, but what explains the sudden dropoff when he had been white hot prior to that? LOL, I love how you just gloss over the statistics. Yada yada! I'd like to see people give him more credit (and I say that begrudging little cause I hate the smarmy little butthole), you see "role player", I see "2nd option". It's impossible to prove it, but that doesn't change the fact it is very likely to think that if you shoot 60% from the field in the 1st 3 quarters, that it won't matter if you go 40% from the field in the 4th. Kind of how it's "impossible" to prove that Jason Terry's hot streak was caused entirely by Dirk... but that doesn't mean I'm not going to say it wasn't likely he was helped by it. You can make that argument, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. To you it does. And that's fine. But the way I see it, one point is one point. How do you figure that, overall, he didn't have a below average series? What are you judging that against? We've already seen examples of other all pros in the finals and how they did, and against their numbers, Dirk didn't hold up so well. Are you judging him against the Kerry Kittles' and Keith Van Horn's of the world instead?
I realize how OKC's individual matchups wouldn't present as much of a challenge as Miami's team D... but how do you explain the Lakers' team D (which is good, although not as good as Miami) and individual defenders (which are good, although not as good as OKC) getting owned by Dirk so much? It seemed the Mavs showed they could handle both team D and individual talent D... so why the sudden failboat for Dirk? Was Miami's team D that much better than LA? Must have been.
You would have saved yourself a LOT of trouble arguing this point if you just would have admitted you hadn't watched any games in the first place.
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Who cares Dirk doesn't play great D? They need his offense and that's what he gives them. Do you sit around and complain about Jordan not averaging more rebounds than Rodman, or Malone not averaging more assists than Stockton?
I didn't watch much of the LA series (mostly because the games weren't all that close, and the freaking west coast start times), but from the looks of it, Jesus and the harlem globetrotters couldn't have stopped the Mavs the way they were shooting in that series, especially from 3. No need to be a dick. I still see very little explanation for Dirk's steep drop in performance, and the philosophical difference about quarter importance isn't something that can be reconciled, so agree to disagree. If you guys think Dirk played "good", then more power to you, I think he did poorly.
Dirk played well enough to lead his team to an NBA championship and he didn't need 2 other all-stars to do it. The end.
No, because he was very good defender in his younger and was also tasked to guarding the other team's best wing player.
I still agree with the people who generally are keeping Dirk out of top 5. He's a great player, but he's not as good Tim Duncan or Karl Malone. How in the world did he past Bob Pettit, Jerry Lucas, and Elvin Hayes? ALot of people are clinging to the argument that McHale had Bird, and was not capable of carrying a team. How sure about that can you be? I've always thought of him being one of the more well-rounded power forwards in history. He would have Dirk numbers, if he played on a poorer team. To me, he was like super version of Pau Gasol, who could play good defense, and quite possibly had one of the best sets of post moves in history. His post moves were fantastic. If you watch him in those old NBA films, you'll how his game could translate well to modern NBA and he would be an elite power forward now.
