nba

Showing 3 posts tagged nba

The Heat in Hindsight

Bill Simmons looks back at the Miami Heat’s 27-game winning streak, how it slipped away, and LeBron, in particular:

Once it became clear that Chicago wasn’t fading and a sense of desperation started setting in for Miami, that led to my second-favorite moment of the night: LeBron saying Screw this, I’m guarding Hinrich and hounding the aging Chicago point guard everywhere, unwilling to allow that streak to slip away without doing everything possible to save it. In turn, that led to my favorite moment — LeBron allowing Hinrich to keep driving past him so he could block the ensuing layup. And he did it twice!!! I’ve been watching basketball forever … I have NEVER seen that before, not even from Jordan. To be fair, I never saw Russell (maybe he tried that trick, too), but please, tell me the next time I’m going to watch a basketball player so supernaturally confident in his own inhuman athletic ability that he intentionally allows an opponent to attempt layups that he can block.

Lights, Cameras, Revolution

Zach Lowe of Grantland looks at how SportVU — an advanced camera-tracking system that records every move on the floor in an NBA game — is changing basketball. This is some next-level “moneyball” type stuff, but one particularly interesting note:

It’s not a coincidence that the only team that consistently mirrors the help defense of its ghosts is Miami, Rucker says. The Heat have three of the best wing defenders in the league in Shane Battier, LeBron James, and Dwyane Wade, and the latter two are among the NBA’s most gifted pure athletes. James can mimic DeRozan’s hyperactive ghost in a way no other player can, Rucker says. “LeBron basically messes up the system and the ghosts,” Rucker says. “He does things that are just unsustainable for most players.”

Such as lead a team back from down 27 in the third quarter to win their 24th game in a row.