With a cocky Jimmy Butler telling LeBron James and the Lakers “You’re in trouble” and a taunting Tyler Herro sneering after a late three to clinch the win, the Miami Heat have suddenly brought the 2020 Finals back to life.
While you couldn’t blame the Heat for a little strutting and swaggering after losing the first two games in the Finals to the favored Lakers and then being written off by everybody, it might have been smarter not to poke the bear. You could see the storyline already developing as an angry LeBron James and Lakers team walked off the court with 10 seconds still left on the clock, setting the stage to approach Tuesday night’s Game 5 as a revenge game.
Forget LeBron allegedly telling Jimmy the Heat were in trouble earlier in the game or the Lakers completely disrespecting Miami by coming out flat, James has a long history of grasping anything possible for extra motivation. LeBron, AD, and the Lakers’ starters have no one to blame for losing Game 3 than themselves. They were passive, complacent, and ineffective. The only thing that kept them in the game was the outstanding play of their bench.
In addition to being outplayed, the Lakers were also outcoached. After a failed attempt to contain James and Davis by playing zone in Game 2, Erik Spoelstra went back to man defense in Game 3 but with key adjustments. Defensively, the goal was the same as playing zone in Game 2: prevent LeBron James from hunting and forcing switches on Duncan Robinson and Tyler Herro by doubling, hedging, stunting, and fighting through screens.
Offensively, the Heat wanted to turn the tables on the Lakers and unleash Butler to relentlessly hunt and force switches to take advantage of Green, Kuzma, and Caldwell-Pope just as James had done to Robinson and Herro. While Frank Vogel has always been a strong opponent of switching, it was LeBron James’ unwillingness to fight through screens and willingness to allow switches that ended up making Spoelstra’s adjustments successful.
Overall, Jimmy Butler enjoyed a career best playoff game, posting a triple double with 40 points, 11 rebounds, and 13 assists in 45 minutes without taking a single 3-point shot, which reveals how teams need to defend him. The Lakers need to go under those screens and force Jimmy, who is average at best from deep on less than two attempts per game, to make his threes rather than letting him to go 14–20 from the field and 10–12 from the line.
On offense, the Lakers simply need LeBron James and Anthony Davis to play like superstars. James cannot turn the ball over 8 times and Davis cannot get into foul trouble and put up just 15 points and 5 rebounds with zero blocks. The Lakers’ other starters also need to show up. 5, 4, and 2 points and -26, -15, and -15 +/- from Caldwell-Pope, Green, and Howard in a Finals close out game won’t cut it. Frank Vogel clearly needs to make some adjustments.
While it may sound to some like a broken record, the time may be here for Vogel to sit Dwight Howard, move Anthony Davis to the five, and start Markieff Morris at the four to turbo charge the Lakers’ offense and defense. Whether Adebayo plays or not, that’s an offensive lineup with the 3-point shooting to offset the Heat doubling LeBron and AD and a defensive lineup to match up and defend the five-out sets that have been killing the Lakers.
In the end, the Lakers just need to come ready to play. Down 1–2, this is essentially another elimination game for the Miami Heat. Lose and they’re in a 1–3 hole from which only one team in NBA history has ever come back. While great coaching trumped talent in Game 3, LeBron, AD, and the Lakers will be looking to avenge their loss and will come out gunning for revenge. Game 4 should be a wire-to-wire blowout with the Lakers dominating.
Despite Jimmy’s heroics and Strolestra’s genius, it’s still Lakers in Five!
I rewatched much of the game again this morning. Not much fun but when you consider all of the things that went wrong for the Lakers — LeBron have the same number of turnovers as assists, AD scoring just 15 point and 5 boards and zero blocks, the other three starters combining for a -56 plus/minus, the Lakers having only 6 second chance points and a season low 34 points in the paint, Butler having the best game of his career — and the Lakers still having several shots at winning the game at the end, I’m not worried at all.
This is exactly how a 200 to 1 shot wins a game. Lakers came out flat, overconfident, and uninspired and it bit them is the ass. Replay the game 199 more times and the Finals are 3-zip. Could it happen again? Anythings possible. Like hitting double zero twice on 2 out of 3 spins of the ball. The truth is the Laers are so much better and more talented than the Heat that this is one of the greatest Finals mismatches ever.
Can Bam and Goran playing change things? Unlikely. You can even argue that the Heat lineup and schemes right now are a better matchup against the Lakers than the Game 1 lineup. Playing a stretch five center and putting the ball in Jimmy Butler’s hands is part of what allowed the Heat to win Game 3. Getting back Bam and Goran is no guarantee they would do better. The key is the Heat have nobody to match LeBron and AD, provided they show up.
That wasn’t a very good Laker team, best shape up tomorrow! If we go 2-2 then anything can happen!
They walked off upset if the Heat wanna tie it up we ain’t going out like that
We’ll see, no excuse for playing that poorly. If we lose tonite, anything goes. NO chicken counting yet. : )
Like Herro and the cut of his jib