I came on here to create a post before the 2nd round started, unfortunately I couldn’t figure it out so I just abandoned it. After last nights game I came to the site to try again to no avail. So I decided to comment on DJ’s post about the Laker’s Great D!

The great Defense is a product of what I was going to post about. The product is Rondo and the effect he has on his team beyond the analytics. I apologize if I’m just repeating what has been said in here, but I’m going to assume it hasn’t based on the Rondo haters and Caruso lovers.

First I’ll quote the text conversation I had with my brother after we closed out the 1st round. “I hate this team, I’ve watched almost every minute of every playoff game and almost every team has role players and a future with them that I’m envious of. Green’s playoff magic has finally ran out, he’s the most overpaid on the team. KCP and Caruso can’t hit open shots ever and their defense isn’t as impressive as some think. Kuzma is what he is and that’s a guy that should only get 15 minutes a night and that’s because of his defense. McGee is antiquated, Howard makes at least 3 dumb mistakes and 3 dumb fouls every game. Beyond those guys it’s a joke of a squad.”

I continued the conversation saying that the only thing that gives me hope is that LeBron has taken horrible team after horrible team to the finals. I was hoping him and AD would give me more as well, they both kill me how un-aggressive they are going to the basket settling for outside shots. We don’t have a 3rd star, we don’t even have a 3rd scorer.

“The only way we are going to beat the Clippers if we get Playoff Rondo”

Fast forward to today; I’m not only going to tell you why that was our only hope, I’m going to say I’ve been right all season when others were obsessed putting a fork in him because of their silly perspective using analytics. Rondo gives this team so much more that stats, +/- even in a loss.

KCP, Green, and Caruso give us absolutley nothing on the offensive of end. They may be better defenders than Rondo but they are not better for the team defensively. What Rondo does on the defensive end is he free’s up energy for everyone else because of the way he runs the offense. The win last night is a perfect example as LeBron is playing with vigor on both ends because of Rondo setting him and the offense up to be more efficient.

On the offensive end LeBron only makes his teammates better because so much attention is on him and he’s a brilliant passer. Rondo litterally makes them better by putting them in the correct position with the best pass to increase the probabilities. Instead of waiting around revolving around LeBron, Kuzma and the others are moving and cutting because they are playing off a creator. Rondo gives them confidence, he gives AD the confidense to post up or roll hard for the alley oop. Most importantly he allows LeBron to dive to the basket, post up, and be aggressive focused on scoring rather than being a “playmaker” that drives without a singular purpose.

Anyways, I think I can go on and on but have work to do and would like to continue the discussion based on some responses.

Man, my hair is gray, but it’s gonna start falling out. LBJ and AD all nite long!

It’s an act of kindness for your fellow man.

Because Frank doesn’t trust Dion on defense.

JR’s situation is really baffling. Am not sure if it’s about defense compared to Dion. It looks more like Vogel is giving him an on the job training opportunity. Phil Jackson has used that kind of strategy with certain players in the past and it helped most of those players succeed in the end.

I think Frank Vogel is approaching this with caution if you look at the way he is bringing him gradually with a certain lineup. JR has played more than a hundred career playoff games, but he’s been out of the league for a while. So it is easy to see why he looks lost out there. It will take a few good games to bring back his old self, but his passiveness and lack of aggresion is not doing him any favors. Sometimes he looks scared and confused as if he is worried about not making a mistake or causing a turnover. But with a Lakers roaster full of turnover-prone players who cares as long as he is being aggressive and go into his guner-mode and deliver?

After all, he is the same player who scored 20 plus points several times at the start of the Bubble even though those games don’t count. That tells me he is still capable of doing it again, although he is not going to get that many touches with our two superstars. In game 4 when he fianally nailed that 3 in waning minutes, he looked up towards heaven as if thanking God. That’s how frustrated he was. Seems like he needs to spend more time in the gym shooting threes 24/7.

Good thing is LeBron has been encouraging to keep shooting and hopefully we will get to see a more productive JR sooner rather than later.

Dion has been dealing with migraines which was quite the revelation to me. Explains so much about his behavior this season: the gummies, the isloation, etc. Said he could have played but that why push the issue? Couple days off, hope h gets right.

LOL.
We all have to sacrifice, DJ.

P.S. usually the titles are shorter than the post itself.