So now that the Cavs are again out of the playoffs, what do they need to do in order to get to the promised land?
Do they need new players? Maybe, but let's start with other types of changes.
First they need to run the offense through the point guard and not through LeBron James. When LeBron brings the ball up the court then the rest of the team just stands around and doesn't know what to do. When the point guard brings it up, suddenly the team springs to life and there's movement.
Second, they need to practice their free throws. If they could hit 80% instead of 70% they'd average 4 more points per game. That's huge, and is easy enough to do.
Third, LeBron needs to realize the type of player that he is. He's the guy that needs to attack, attack, attack. He needs to go hard to the rim. Too often he settles for fall away jumpers and out of control three pointers. Someone with his kind of physical abilities needs to be going to the hoop about 15 times per game.
Finally, they need to address the roster. They have adequate depth, but they don't have a guy that can take a double team and take some pressure off of LeBron.
Look at yesterday's game. LeBron scored 44 points, but what do you remember? You remember the misses. The bad three pointer at the end of the game. The missed layup. The missed free throws. The failure to stop the Celtics at critical times.
It's unfortunate too because LeBron hit 50% of his shots, but you don't remember that. You remember the misses early in the series and not the makes at the end of the series.
5 comments:
Maybe they need different players?? Come on! LeBron was the whole team! He scored half of their points and they still lost!!
He needs a scottie pippen type player.
I don't know if you want your superstar constantly driving. That is a great way to get injured.
A lot of good point, but look at what happened last year against detroit. Lebron did drive instead of shoot at the end of games, and what happened? He would get hammered going to the basket and there would be no foul call. Refs don't want to make this call at the end of a game like that, with a J it's easier to determine if there is contact, but when you have LBJ driving against four guys all going up to the basket with him, after an entire game of "hack a lebron", he's probably going to get fouled and it's probably not going to get called. It happend last year and it cost the cavs games.
As for the "what you remember", I don't think that's really important. Does it matter how Lebron looked? or how he played? Because he played an amazing game. 50% shooting, good rebounds and the ball movement we've come to expect from him. Maybe we remember the missed 3 at the end of the game, but that is totally meaningless if he doesn't drain the two different 3s with 5 minutes left to keep his team in it, no one is talking about those shots and they were just as important.
i totally agree about the system, by the way, the team (those not named lebron, anyway) was litterally braindead during the last 10 minutes of game 7...
tim? tim! who is htis tim person. he writes so well and yet shows himself so intermittantly
Not to mention that when he went to the rim last year and actually (gasp!) PASSED the ball to a wide open shooter, he was ripped by every sports talking head who wasn't from Cleveland.
Sigh. Can't please them all, Lebron. I'd be talking in the 3rd person too.
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