Have Mavericks found a recipe to defend LeBron?

Heat lost in the NBA Finals which inevitably started a run of articles criticizing LeBron James for his play,
for example visit Yahoo or their blog and you will find rather typical reasons:

He will be remembered by averaging just 17.8 points, nine fewer than his regular-season scoring average, passing the ball like a hot potato and not scoring much in the fourth quarter in these Finals. It was a stunning letdown considering that James has widely been viewed as the best basketball player pound for pound in the world

Even though it’s obvious that LeBron played poorly [for his standards] IMHO in most of those comments there’s one glaring term missing: Mavs’ defense so I’ve decided to investigate this topic.

I started with a big-picture, here are LeBron’s worst numbers against the same team in the regular season:

Opponent	Number of Games	Average Game Score		Opponent	Number of Games	Turnovers per game
LAC	2	11,35		NJN	3	5,33
DAL	2	11,45		BOS	4	5
NOH	2	15,85		IND	3	5
SAS	2	18,35		PHI	3	5
SAC	2	18,45		DAL	2	5
PHI	3	18,6		POR	2	5
NYK	4	18,65		DEN	1	5
OKC	2	19,15		ATL	4	4,75
DET	4	19,45		LAC	2	4,5
MIL	4	19,65

There are three teams on both lists: Clippers, Sixers and Mavericks.
Thanks to LeBron’s gamelog we can find out that one bad performance against Clippers was in a blowout win and by a nice coincidence we have a bigger sample size [playoffs] for two other teams.

In five games in the first round against Sixers LeBron averaged only 1,4 turnovers per game and his Game Score was 22,82 so either regular season numbers were a fluke or he simply had figured out Sixers’ defense.

But in the Finals against Dallas LeBron played poorly AGAIN with Game Score = 13,68 and 4 TOs per game.
EDIT: if you prefer point of view by Wins Produced the story is the same.
So here’s my question: why LeBron’s struggles are not attributed entirely to Mavs’ defense?

What’s more, basic statistics tell us one more thing:
LeBron used unusually low number of possessions for shots – his average for FGA+0,44*FTA in the Finals was 16,47 while in the regular season he averaged 22,5 IN FEWER MINUTES PER GAME.

With all that in mind I watched 3 full games in a row [3, 4 and 5] and one thing stood out for me:
Mavs’ game plan to slow down LeBron was surprisingly simple – they did everything they could to turn him into a point guard and Wade into alpha dog by following only 3 steps…

• Defend Wade 1-on-1 with weaker defender as often as possible

That way he had more favorable matchup than LeBron so it was logical to run a lot of action through him.
In a related note Wade scored more points per game in the Finals than in the regular season even though he missed parts of Game 5 because of injuries.

• Double-team LeBron as often as possible, especially by packing the paint on drives to the basket

That way it was a logical move for him to pass to open teammates. In a related note in those six games he attempted maximum of 4 free throws in a single game… while his regular season average was over 8!

• Pressure nominal point guard so ball would go straight to LeBron

That way LeBron started possessions as a point guard… and he acted like one because it was logical for his team!

What do you think about those observations? Have I missed something?
And could this strategy work for every team or Mavs simply had right personel to execute it?

 

What was unique in Game 4 and 5 of NBA Finals?

Since I started analysing box scores regularly for FB in 2004 I was surprised how often unique stat-lines occurred and it’s a series designed to celebrate that fact. The rules are simple: it has to be something that never happened in the last 20 playoffs [over 1500 games] and less than 25 times during last 25 regular season games [there were over 55000]. Incidentally it’s a tribute to Basketball-Reference.com for great tools.

In Game 5 of NBA Finals http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201106090DAL.html
Miami lost even though they shot very well [FG%>51%, 3P%=40%, FT%>80%] and had 25 assists.
It happened 71 times in the playoffs since 1991 but only 4 of them to a team which lost a game!

The reason for such result was very simple, Mavs shot ever better!
Dallas was smoking hot with FG%>56,5%, 13 threes and 3P%>68%.
It happened 14 times in the last 25 regular seasons… but that was probably the best timing of all of them ;-)

Also ‘Jet’ finally showed up and he did it with a bang:
Jason Terry had 21 points, 3 threes, 4 rebounds, 6 assists AS A RESERVE in 30 minutes.
It happened 15 times during last 25 RS and now his tattoo with a championship trophy is slightly less disturbing and questionable ;-)

Surprisingly LeBron James’ triple-double with 17 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists was not as unique as you may think: it happened 46 other times in the playoffs since 1991 although only of 7 them happened in June…

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Meanwhile in Game 4 of NBA Finals http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201106070DAL.html
Mavs found themselves on a very unusual side of coin AGAIN:
Dallas won even though they had FG%<40%, 3P%<22% and only 13 assists.
It happened 56 times in the playoffs since 1991 but only 6 of them to a team which won a game!

In other unique news from this game…
LeBron James was like Scottie Pippen with 9 rebounds, 7 assists, 2 steals, 0 threes and 8 points although in this game he probably would like to be more similar to Jordan…

Jason Kidd with 3 assists, 3 steals and 0 points in over 38 minutes played… was pretty much himself ;-)

Surprisingly Tyson Chandler’s explosion with 16 rebounds [9 offensive] and 0 turnovers was not as unique as you may think: it happened 5 other times in the playoffs since 1991…
Obviously Ben Wallace and Dennis Rodman ruined that kind of trivia ;-)

 

What was unique in Game 2 and 3 of NBA Finals?

Other than two spectacular buzzer-beaters ;-)

Since I started analysing box scores regularly for FB in 2004 I was surprised how often unique stat-lines occurred and it’s a series designed to celebrate that fact. The rules are simple: it has to be something that never happened in the last 20 playoffs [over 1500 games] and less than 25 times during last 25 regular season games [there were over 55000]. Incidentally it’s a tribute to Basketball-Reference.com for great tools.

In Game 3 of NBA Finals http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201106050DAL.html
Mavs found themselves in a very unusual position:
Dallas lost even though they had advantage in FTA [+12], Fouls [-13] and Rebounds [+6].
Amazingly there were 232 such instances during last 25 RS but
only 14 of them happened to a team which lost a game for a losing percentage of 6%!

This isn’t a surprise but there was another great performance by Nowitzki.
Dirk had 34 points, 3 threes, 11 rebounds and 3 blocks.
It happened 13 times during last 25 RS including Dirk himself twice!
I think we should admire him while there’s still time in this series and for Mavs as a team…

Surprisingly Ian Mahinmi’s 5 fouls in 8 minutes were not as unique as you may think: it happened 32 other times in the playoffs since 1991 and only 13 times a team with such performance won a game.

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Meanwhile in Game 2 of NBA Finals http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201106020MIA.html
Mike Bibby showed signs of life with 4 steals and 4 threes in 22 minutes.
That kind of performance happened only 8 times during last 25 RS and that’s probably exactly what Heat hoped for from him. Only if he could do that more often than once a month ;-)

Also there was another classic non-box score game by our usual suspect.
Joel Anthony had 3 blocks, 3 fouls, 1 rebound and zero points. It happened 17 times during last 25 RS but only once someone played more than 21 minutes… while Joel did it in 27 minutes!

Surprisingly Dwyane Wade’s versatile performance with 36 points, 2 threes, 3 steals and 2 blocks were not as unique as you may think: it happened 3 other times in the playoffs since 1991…
Hell, it wasn’t even unique for Wade himself, he did it in a previous series versus Celtics! http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201105010MIA.html

 

What was unique in Game 1 of NBA Finals?

Since I started analysing box scores regularly for FB in 2004 I was surprised how often unique stat-lines occurred and it’s a series designed to celebrate that fact. The rules are simple: it has to be something that never happened in the last 20 playoffs [over 1500 games] and less than 25 times during last 25 regular season games [there were over 55000]. Incidentally it’s a tribute to Basketball-Reference.com for great tools.

On May 31th there was only one game http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201105310MIA.html
And the most important thing for the rest of 2011 NBA Finals could be Nowitzki’s injured finger.

But it also contained some unique shooting:
BOTH teams shot better outside three-point line [41%, 46%] than overall [37%, 39%]!
It happened only TWO times during last 25 RS. I would like to think it was a good defense and conclusions from my post about long twos but that’s probably wishful thinking on my part ;-)

This time Mavs’ bench failed badly, for example:
Peja Stojakovic collected 3 FGA, 2 steals, 3 fouls… and nothing else in 15 minutes.
It happened only 2 times during last 25 RS. And yet they really shouldn’t complain.
Without his contributions to date they probably wouldn’t play at this stage.

Mavs’ bench didn’t deliver but they got one bright spot:
Brendan Haywood had 7 rebounds, 3 blocks and attempted 6 free-throws in less than 15 minutes.
It happened only 4 times during last 25 RS
Yes, that was that once-in-a-month event when Brendan was very active ;-)

Surprisingly LeBron James’ performance with 4 threes, 9 rebounds, 5 assists and only 1 turnover were not as unique as you may think: it happened 7 times in the playoffs since 1991…
Hell, it wasn’t even unique for LeBron himself, he did it two years ago versus Hawks – http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/200905090ATL.html

Congratulations for Heat! But now I fear this series will be short and boring…