Late Night Reflections from Game 4 of the NBA Finals

Text exchange between me and my friend, Ron, on Tuesday:

Ron (12:53PM): “That’s My Boy at 6?”

David (12:55PM): “Free Movie Tuesday?”

Ron (12:56PM): “Obviously.”

David (12:57PM): “Down.”

            Perfect, I thought, I’ll watch Adam Sandler bone his teacher, laugh at some awkward Andy Samberg jokes, and make it back just in time to catch the pregame show for Game 4.  Good day.

            I get some lunch, go pick up my prom tux, try on a couple of ties, get the number of the hot cashier (who looks eerily similar to a young Carmen Electra), get in my car, see a huge gorilla charging at me, start honking my horn and screaming, notice that Andy Samberg is sitting next to me, start screaming louder, and just as the huge gorilla is about to smash into my car… I wake up.

            I’m in my bed, sweating.  I look at my phone to see what time it is: 6:47.  No. Fucking. Way.  I SLEPT THROUGH THE MOVIE!  I check my phone and notice that I got another text from Ron:

Ron (6:09PM): “Yo movie’s at 8… my bad.”

            Classic Ron.* 

**Sidenote: why would he text me 9 minutes after he said the movie was supposed to start?  Did he go to the theater, get a ticket, buy some popcorn, sit down, and then nine minutes later realize he was watching Snow White and the Huntsman?  That’s Ron for you.**

            I’m already mad because I’m still dealing with the fact that the hot cashier whose number I got is really just a figment of my imagination, and now I’m not going to be able to watch the most pivotal game of the Finals live!?!??! This is a disaster!

            I felt bad bailing on Ron so late so I told him I’d go to the movie if he swore on his hot sister’s life that he wouldn’t mention anything to me about the game during the movie.  He told me to go fuck myself and reluctantly accepted. 

            I somehow got home at 10:00 without hearing a word about the game, so all in all everything worked out… until I realized that I forgot to tape the show after the game. Anybody who watches sports on TV knows that all sporting events (especially one as important as Game 4) end after they are scheduled to, so when my Game 4 recording inexplicably stopped with five minutes left in the game, I had to spend a good half hour frantically searching YouTube for those last five minutes. 

            After I found a rickety video of the end of the game on a 4x4 TV taken by a Thunder fan that jumped and shook the camera after every big play, it was around 1:00AM, but for some reason I wasn’t tired.  Maybe it was that random 6-hour nap I took in the middle of the day… I don’t know.  Regardless, my insomnia prompted me to lay in my bed awake and meditate over what I had just seen.  Here are those reflections:

Late Night Reflections from Game 4 of the NBA Finals

1.     LeBron James is finally going to get his first ring

            Not meant to be a jinx.  If you read my sappy LeBron column before the Finals, you know that I’m no longer a hater.  He is doing things in these Finals that even Jordan didn’t do.  He’s the first player since Larry Bird in ’86 to record 26 points, 12 assists, and 9 rebounds in a single NBA Finals game. 

            He’s averaging 30 PPG, 9 RPG, 5 APG this post-season.  The only other player to put up numbers like that in a single post-season since the merger: LeBron James (’09).  The only other player to do that in league history was the great Oscar Robertson way back in ’63 when the stereotypical power forward was a tall awkward white guy with a mustache.

            But what’s more impressive about what LeBron is doing is that he’s not just going out onto the floor and saying “Tonight I am going to be scoring LeBron” or “I think I’ll be more of a passing/rebounding LeBron tonight.”  He’s reading the defense and adapting to what he needs to do to help his team win. 

            In the first three games, LeBron attacked the paint to take advantage of his mismatch on the skinnier Durant.  He was 6-38 from outside the paint (as Skip Bayless loves to mention), but, LeBron shot 75% from inside the paint and shot 45% overall.  Most importantly, those numbers helped the Heat split the first two games in OKC and win the first game on their home court.

            In Game 4 the Thunder showed him a different look defensively.  Scott Brooks put Thabo Sefalosha (the Thunder’s best defender) on LeBron right from the start and double-teamed James whenever he entered the paint.  LeBron realized this and took advantage of the scheme by drawing the double in the paint and then dishing it out to an open shooter for the three.  He had 10 assists by the end of the first half.

            The Heat looked like the ’09 Magic (before Dwight Howard quit on his team and turned into a total douche).  Teams didn't have the personnel to combat Howard inside, so they double-teamed him in the paint and Howard passed the ball out to Lewis or Pietrus or Reddick for the three.  But that set-up only works if the shooters can hit their open looks, which is what the Heat shooters couldn’t do until…

2.     NORRIS COLE!!! The Unsung Hero

            Actually “unsung” is an understatement.  “The Ugly Ginger Middle Child with Braces” Hero is a better description of what he was last night.

            The Heat were down 17 points to start the game.  Their offense looked stagnant, Chalmers, Battier, and Miller weren’t hitting shots, and the Thunder looked like they were going to run away with the game. 

            Then Cole hit a layup with 2:14 left in the first quarter to slow the Thunder’s momentum.  He then hit the Heat’s first three pointer of the game with 0:03 left in the first.  Then he hit another three at the 11:19 mark of the second quarter and just like that the Thunder’s lead was cut to single digits. 

            He may not get the publicity that Chalmers got, but without Cole’s spark the Thunder would have put the game out of reach early.

3.     The Chalmander

            Chalmers was straight ballin', as Stephen A. Smith would say, in Game 4.  His 25 points were big, but as Magic Johnson said, “when he scored his 25 points was bigger.”  If we stick with the popular Batman analogy that everybody seems to be using to describe the Heat in Game 4:

LeBron = Batman

Wade = Robin

Chalmers = Bruce Wayne’s butler (Alfred Pennyworth)

Pat Riley = Corpse of Batman’s dead father

Spoelstra = Corpse of Batman's dead mother

Bosh = The Lizard (I know, wrong comic, but it was too perfect)

4.     The Westbrook-Durant Paradox

            It’s an age-old dilemma that’s plagued us since Pterodactyls ruled the skies and Chris Bosh’s roamed the Earth. 

            Initially I thought that Westbrook should pass more to give Durant more touches.  Then I looked at Dean Oliver’s True Hoop Blog and saw these stats:

Thunder By Durant/Westbrook Usage Pct
2011-12 Season Including Playoffs

	Avg Team Off Efficiency<<	W-L
Durant Higher	106.3	22-12
Westbrook Higher	108.8	38-11

            So the Thunder are actually better when Westbrook shoots more?  I thought about this for a while and came to the conclusion that Westbrook driving to the basket opens up the floor for KD, and makes it impossible for the defense to focus solely on stopping Durant.  Durant gets open looks and then when he starts hitting it's all over. 

           Westbrook was absolutely off the charts in Game 4 (43 PTS, 7 REB, 5 AST).  When Harden and Durant went cold towards the end of the game, Westbrook drove to the basket and used his freakish athleticism to score 13 straight points, single-handedly keeping his team in the game.  I remember thinking during the game that of all of the players in the league, only Rose and Wall have the same explosiveness and first step to match Westbrook’s. 

            I’ll give him a pass for that last foul he committed on Chalmers after the jump ball because without him, the Thunder wouldn’t have been in it at all. 

            Ultimately, Westbrook can take more shots than Durant when his field goal percentage is good.  When he’s having one of those “here we go again” games like in the first half of Game 2, he needs to distribute more.  He’s not a true point guard, but realistically there are only a handful of “true point guards” in the league.  Westbrook doesn’t have to change his game completely, just pick his spots and know his limits.

            I’m not going to get on Durant too badly for the loss because he still had 28 points.  The reason the Thunder lost is because the rest of the Thunder’s starters (besides Westbrook) scored 13 points combined, and the rest of the Thunder’s team scored 27 points combined. 

5.     Fun Fact

            Thabo Sefalosha’s +/- while he was on the floor was -19… so much for shutting down LeBron.

6.     What does James Harden hide under his beard?

      Seriously though.  A man with a beard that big and that bushy has to be hiding something.  Some theories:

a.)   He has no chin

b.)   He has terrible acne

c.)   He got a really bad tattoo in college

d.)   He keeps snacks hidden there for later

e.)   His can’t shave his beard because it has a mind of its own like the foot in that Courage the Cowardly Dog episode

7.     No more LeBron jokes…?

            Look, I know I’ve been defending LeBron lately, but who doesn’t like a good LeBron joke every now and then?  It’s like a breath of fresh air, reminding you, “Oh yeah, I have just as many rings as LeBron!” feeding your ego if only for a moment.  Now that LeBron is so close to winning his first, I’m not sure what we’re going to do to make ourselves feel better at someone else's expense…  I guess we’ll just have to double up on the Bosh jokes….

            Then again… the series isn’t over...

#DJLR