Seriously I just want to say that all the "Lebron can't play defense" talk has got to cease. He practically shutdown Prince this series and came up with some huge defensive plays the other night in game 5 that went unnoticed because of what he did on the offensive end. Lebron can play D and so can the rest of his mates.
He can D up on just about anyone in the league with his size and athleticism, the problem is he doesn't put much focus into defense most of the time. Obviously he'll step up when it means a chance to go to the finals but normally hes average at best. And its not like Prince is a great one on one scorer either, hes a guy who gets most of his shots created for him and is only a go-to scorer when hes got a big mismatch.
<div class="quote_poster">THE DREAM Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">average smaverage, there's a reason why there D is so good and he's one of the reasons......</div> I would say LeBron is reason number 6 or 7 behind Hughes, Snow, Gibson, Varejao, Gooden and even Big Z does well at getting good defensive position and altering some shots. Of course when hes actually focused on defense he can be the #1 easily but you don't see it very often. Their whole rotation is pretty good defensively except Pavlovic and LeBron rarely (if ever) guards the opposing team's best player.
Why should he gaurd the best player when we have Hghes and Snow? This is just another example of the doubters being proved wrong, time and time again. Thank you for pointing it out Dream. I know that people want to hang on to their beloved Jordan and all that he brought to the game, but seriously, it's time to accept that this is a new era, and James is ready for take off. Quit doubting and start accepting. Quit going into this with closed fists, when you need to be going into it with open arms, palms up!
^^^lol I love this guy....you might not agree with him, but you have to repsect a die hard fan who drops quotables everynow and then... EDIT and I actually agree with the first part of his post, it has never made sense to put your best offensive player on the other teams best defensive player if you don't have to.....
<div class="quote_poster">THE DREAM Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">^^^lol I love this guy....you might not agree with him, but you have to repsect a die hard fan who drops quotables everynow and then... EDIT and I actually agree with the first part of his post, it has never made sense to put your best offensive player on the other teams best defensive player if you don't have to.....</div> Exactly, unless it's in crunch time and you need that one defensive stop. I think Mitch Kupchak should right those words 100 times on a chalkboard. LeBron's doing a nice job playing free safety and shooting the passing lanes. His anticipation is something you can't teach, and LeBron is finally using his natural gifts to slow his opponent down. I still think LeBron can improve his man on man defense, and also his post defense. He gets caught on his heels when he defends in his post, and hasn't figured out how to use leverage to keep an offensive player out of their comfort zone. What I've noticed in the playoffs, is LeBron isn't reaching like he was a year ago and in the regular season. He's playing defense with his feet, instead of gambling for steals and giving up an easy layup. He'll probably draw Bowen in the Spurs series, so he should be able to help out downlow against Timmy.
