Lebron: “Thanks Rashard”
By now, I hope you’ve all seen Lebron’s incredible game winning three from last night, but if not, see above. While this was clearly a great shot and an insta-classic NBA moment (Mo Williams = 2009 Thomas Hill), I’m still wondering one thing: what the hell was Rashard Lewis doing?
If you’re guarding the inbounder, you have a couple different options:
- Get up as close as possible to pressure the ball and make the pass difficult. Rashard is 6’10” with long arms…Mo’s like 6’1″…if you’re pressuring on the ball heavy, there’s no way Mo gets a clean pass off.
- Turn around and front Lebron off the ball. As Kenny Smith mentioned on the TNT post-game coverage, Williams wasn’t going to pass that ball to anyone else. The whole world knew it was going to Bron Bron, so if you don’t want to pressure the ball, put two on Bron and front him with your back to the ball.
Instead, Rashard got caught in two minds and did neither. He was worried about the lob to the rim (which only would have tied anyway) so he inexplicably backed up in the direction of the basket. That doesn’t prevent the lob at all, and in fact, makes it easier. If he really wanted to take away the lob, he should have been pressuring the ball. Then when Mo went to make an overhead pass to the top of the key, Rashard’s hands should have made that a difficult pass.
LOOOOL @ that halfhearted attempt to challenge Lebron’s shot too. He got caught in no man’s land and then gave a fake effort to challenge the shot. GTFOH.
But um, anyway. WE ARE ALL WITNESSES!
I agree im not sure what the notorious SVG (stan van gundy) was trying to accomplish not having at least two men on lebron, he’s the MVP for gods sake
who cares though, WE ARE ALL WITNESSES!!!!!! ALL HAIL KING JAMES!!!!!!
hindishgt is 20/20 but it is crazy that they wouldn’t have at least put rashard closer or had him double LeBron. Gaurd against the lob with hedo and the 3 with lewis. Regardless it was an amazing shot, but he’s gonna have to get on it every day like that if they wanna overcome the magic.
Nobody can gaurd Dwight Howard and Z is the poorest matchup possible because he reacts too slow and the magic love a fast pace game. Game 3 you saw at least a few passes go in and out of his hands because he didn’t react quick enough. They had a shot to win it, but the turnovers killed them when they started playing Orlandos game. Cleveland is a slow methodical offensive pace team. I can’t count how many times mo or west lost their handles tryna run around and spin and dribble like they are CP3.
Another thing I noticed the other day. They had a guy fake out to like the half court and the ORL defender stayed with him in man. Yo. With 1 second left. Leave the guy at half court open for a pass in and guard the inbounds or something, that way you’re still in range of the half court shot to contest it.
You can’t get on hedo about bad D though. Bron just faked him out inside and hedo slipped up.