30 year old who's been to 5 straight finals and played more minutes than any NBA player ever at his age. LeBron team is also favorite to make another deep postseason run. Yeah I think his practice schedule should be different than dudes in their early to mid 20 who've primarily played little NBA minutes.
Okay, Round 1: CJ 1; Reep 0. By first quarter TKO CJ and Dame both chucked (20+ attempts) and it worked enough to get the win. We will have to see how this trend continues. Pro: Pick your poison: it's hard to cover both Dame and CJ, who have very similar games Dame and CJ seemed to play passable enough defense to win the game, mostly in the first half, not so much in the second; I don't remember seeing CJ take a bad shot Con: If CJ hadn't had his hair on fire this could have been a loss, easily When CJ and/or Dame go cold, the whole team stalls and doesn't know what to do Dame took a few outrageously bad shots. I have seen him make some of those in the past, but not for the last nine months. If a good defensive team slows Dame and CJ, how is the team going to score and can they defend the Westbrooks and Pauls?
I didn't have an issue with the number of attempts until the 4th quarter. Dame was absolutely forcing bad shots in the 4th with almost no ball movement or passing. He was 0-for-his-first-6 in the 4th while the lead shrank. Most of those were ISO, step-back, poor percentage shots.
Dame played bad in the 4th but I have faith he's the type of player that will view game film, see how his teammates are playing and make corrections as the year goes on.
Yes if CJ and Dame both go cold we will lose. No doubt. But don't most teams lose when their top 2 scorers are shut down? I think we are better off this year with having our top 2 scorers both being guards who have good handles. But I also like that the other 3 players on the court are willing to attack the basket when our guards are being doubled. Last year when Dame got into trouble,....... Nic, Wes, LA and Rolo would try to help with screens, but none of them were aggressive to the basket. It wasn't really their strength. Hell this year I have already seen Plumblee drive the length of the floor trying to attack the rim. Aminu attacked last night as well. You know Henderson will. No they can not shut the Westbrooks, Paul's, Curry's, or Hardin's by themselves. Again very few players (if any) can. It takes a good team defensive strategy. But what I have seen so far (including preseason) is that they seem to be much more active than last year in terms of help defense. Also one possibility about Hero Ball, if your best shooter (in this case two best shooters) are jacking up a lot of shots, and the game is still close in the final 5 minutes........... there is a good chance they will be in a decent offensive rhythm by crunch time. Regardless of how they shot the rest of the game. How many times have we seen good scorers struggle all game against us.......and still get hot in crunch time? When you have the green light, you tend to shoot yourself out of slumps. If Dame and CJ are used to it all season long, I think their confidence will grow and we will be in good shape at the end of games.
