LeBron James leads 3rd team to his 4th title.

[underpants]

Lakers, LeBron James win NBA championship with dominant performance in Game 6

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/10/11/lakers-heats-nba-finals-game-xxx/


Los Angeles defeated Miami 106-93 in Game 6 on Sunday, outlasting the plucky underdogs to claim their 17th championship in franchise history. James secured the fourth title of his illustrious career, leading a third different team to the crown after previously winning with the Heat in 2012 and 2013 and the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016. The 35-year-old forward, who finished with 28 points, 14 rebounds and 10 assists.

Some stories are more complicated than others, and Game 6’s was simple: The Heat simply ran out of gas after a valiant performance in Game 5. Miami shot just 13-38 (34.2%) in the first half as Los Angeles’s defense flew around the court and prevented clean looks from beyond the arc. The Lakers held an insurmountable 64-36 lead entering the break, and their small fan section, composed of wives, girlfriends and children, spent most of the second half cheering expectantly.

The Lakers’ closeout win, which sealed a 16-5 run through the playoffs, was aided by a starting lineup change. Coach Frank Vogel electing to start guard Alex Caruso in place of center Dwight Howard, who scored just two points in 15 minutes in Game 5. Caruso started just two games all season, but his insertion provided cleaner matchups with the Heat’s starting lineup, which features four perimeter players and center Bam Adebayo. Although the Lakers used this lineup for just 12 total minutes in the playoffs entering Sunday, the versatile and hard-nosed group overwhelmed the Heat with its collective speed and discipline.

[Iliyah]

1. Kobe and Gigi ...

My neighborhood is lit.

[Awsi Dooger]

2. I'm glad the Heat took it to 6

That's basically the dividing line between a competitive series and lopsided series. Great clutch finish to game 5. Then nothing went right tonight. The 4th quarter made the score more competitive than the game ever was.

These were the two teams I hoped would meet in the Finals...although I rooted for the opposite outcome

Michael Jordan now knows what Jack Nicklaus feels like, with Tiger chasing 18 majors and Lebron chasing 6 titles

[questionseverything]

6. Mj is the goat

Lebron is king of the four step lay up


No contest at all

[JonLP24]

7. LeBron is probably a better all-around player if you count his passing

Jordan is a better jump shooter though.

[Turin_C3PO]

10. I'd say Jordan over LeBron.

Michael could do anything on the court. On the offensive side, he was a great shooter, dunker, etc. Defensively he was excellent as well, able to cover, block, and steal the ball. Also, I think Jordan was much better come clutch time.

[Awsi Dooger]

11. Exactly

Lebron is a better all-around player giving passing and boxing out and all the little things.

Jordan was more explosive and more consistent jump shooter, although streaky in his own right.

The Pistons took out the Bulls when Showtime was still in its heyday. That's why Jordan doesn't have the stain of losing Finals, like Lebron. Jordan was taken out early in the Eastern side by the Celtics and then the Pistons. If Jordan had led the Bulls to the Finals before they were ready in the '80s, then he would have lost the Finals multiple times. Instead it is Lebron who has taken teams to the Finals when they really had no business being there, especially the first time with the Cavaliers.

[radius777]

14. Maybe, but MJ was the more charismatic star

whose Air Jordan persona captured the imagination of a generation. He also won all of his championships with the same team, which was a team effort (of which MJ was the team leader) and not just a one man show like LeBron. Jordan's Bulls had to deal with actual defense (the Knicks, the Pistons, etc) where LeBron's teams dealt with no such thing, but with a league devoid of defense designed to maximize offense.

[JonLP24]

16. I do believe the hand checking rule has led to a softer game

Also the league is younger than when MJ played. Hand checking tires out players and leads to shorter careers.

[Submariner]

31. Palm ball seems to have made the game softer too

When I was on the high school team in the 60s we would get a foul call for palming the ball. Palming was great for a sort of cheating to carry the ball further without having to dribble and expose the ball for a potential steal.

Somewhere over the decades it seems that rule disappeared, and now I’m amazed at how far they can palm the ball without penalty.

[Awsi Dooger]

9. Completely disagree

Jordan needed Pippen. The opponent points per minute were surreal difference when Pippen was on the court compared to when he was not. It was well known in Las Vegas wagering circles but the mainstream media was always content to ignore it, while coddling Jordan. Lebron has never had anything close to a defensive stopper like that, let alone for every title season.

It is laughable to suggest Lebron travels. Old timers don't want to concede the game has changed, with bigger stronger athletes covering huge amount of territory per stride instead of standing in place with a shifting dragging pivot foot. That is the violation that should have been called but seldom was, decades ago.

But don't worry. There are nervous Jordan fans everywhere. You are hardly alone.

[questionseverything]

13. I am not nervous

It is apples to oranges

We both know if we google lebron travels tons of video will come up that he doesn’t get called for

Shrugs

[Chili]

15. Jordan never got called for traveling

Ever. Or for carrying. Or for offensive fouls. Most protected player ever.

Yeah, he had Pippen. Great player. Great elbows to the face, kicks to the groin, hooks to the ribs. Great. Didn't get called for that, either.

Great team.

[Celerity]

22. Jordan is better and it isn't close IMHO. Greatest athlete in world

from the the Victorian era onward IMHO (before that it is hard to judge). Pele 2nd, Muhammad Ali 3rd.

Female wise

No teal order other than the top 2

Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Babe Didrikson Zaharias
Serena Williams
Billie Jean King
Lottie Dod
Nadia Comăneci
Mia Hamm
Martina Navratilova
Sonja Henie
Simone Biles
Marit Bjørgen
Florence Griffith-Joyner

[John Fante]

17. Silly take.

LeBron is easily in Jordan's class. 4x championship, 4x MVP, 4x Finals MVP. Dude just led the NBA in assists in his 17th season. He's unreal.

[Nevilledog]

3. Ahem....some of us are currently still watching the DVR'd game.

Thanks for ruining the outcome....i was so sure Miami was going to score 32 pts while holding the Lakers to zero.

[Ohiogal]

4. Awesome 😄

[moondust]

5. Heckuva job, Bronie.

[R B Garr]

8. Thank you, King James!

Beautiful tribute to Kobe Bryant, Anthony Davis sharing a special personal remembrance of Kobe.

So beautiful to hear Kobe’s spirit was a unifying factor for this team win.

[Blecht]

12. That guy might just be pretty good

[John Fante]

18. How sweet it is!!!

Thank you, LeBron.

[R B Garr]

19. LeBron just said they had zero positive Covid tests

during the 3-month bubble they were in to play. Impressive, considering our White House should be leaders on this issue, but it’s disease-ridden now.

[Awsi Dooger]

20. Lebron just mentioned social injustice, voter suppression and police brutality

Live during his post-game presser

That alone places him well above Michael "Copout" Jordan and his "Republicans buy sneakers too"

[JonLP24]

23. I agree

Craig Hodges: ‘Jordan didn’t speak out because he didn’t know what to say’

“I’m sad to say that one of our players was shot on Monday,” Craig Hodges reveals after he has spoken for an hour about his brave but tumultuous career in the NBA. Hodges fell out with Michael Jordan, confronted George Bush Sr in the White House and won two championships with his hometown team, at a time when the Chicago Bulls were venerated around the world, before he was ostracised and shut out of basketball for being too politically outspoken.

(Snip)

Hodges always wanted to voice his opposition to injustice. In June 1991, before the first game of the NBA finals between the Bulls and the LA Lakers, Hodges tried to convince Jordan and Magic Johnson that both teams should stage a boycott. Rodney King, an African American, had been beaten brutally by four white policemen in Los Angeles three months earlier – while 32% of the black population in Illinois lived below the poverty line.

As he writes in his new book Longshot: The Triumphs and Struggles of an NBA Freedom Fighter, Hodges told the sport’s two leading players that the Bulls and Lakers should sit out the opening game, so “we would stand in solidarity with the black community while calling out racism and economic inequality in the NBA, where there were no black owners and almost no black coaches despite the fact that 75% of the players in the league were African American”.

Jordan told Hodges he was “crazy” while Johnson said: “That’s too extreme, man.”

“What’s happening to our people in this country is extreme,” Hodges replied.

The Guardian
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/sport/2017/apr/20/craig-hodges-michael-jordan-nba-chicago-bulls

[Nevilledog]

21. Bwahahaha!

Link to tweet

[Initech]

24. As a die hard Lakers fan I have to say...

In what has otherwise been the absolute worst fucking year of my life, seeing the Lakers win it all after being in the NBA bubble was sweet! Especially after Kobe's crash and watching them dedicate it to Kobe, that was the best. Lake Show for life!

[R B Garr]

25. Agreed! Kobe's last Instagram message on January 25th was to LeBron

congratulating him on surpassing his scoring record. He was gone the next day on the 26th. 😔

I remember hearing LeBron talking about that and what it meant to him.

#LakerNation celebrating tonight!

[Initech]

32. Hell yeah! For Kobe!

[BGBD]

26. The problem with the NBA

Is that in any given year, there are only 2 or 3 teams who have a legitimate chance to win. These "Big 3" teams have led to a situation where talent 8s able to accumulate on a couple of teams and the rest of the league becomes very mediocre in comparison.

I would much rather see parody in the Association with a team not being able to carry 3 or 4 superstar players on a roster.

[JonLP24]

27. I think that problem went away when Durant went with Brooklyn

Now we have big 2s instead of big 3s. You can also fill out a roster better with a big two team.

LeBron faced a weak overachieving Heat team who their biggest star is Jimmy Butler.

There is less statistical deviation in the NBA than in other sports. Also home court is huge in the NBA especially when you look at all the blown 3-1 leads this playoffs which are rarely done especially by road teams.

[BGBD]

29. This season

Isnt a great sample with how different it was than normal. I figure a couple of teams are going to do an arms race again soon.

Of course LeBron and Brow are 2 of the top 4 or 5 players in the league and playing together.

The games are entertaining, but I dont think you can be a serious fan and have expectations of your team competing for a championship unless they are one of those two or three loaded teams in a normal year.

I think the NFL salary cap model works well.

[JonLP24]

30. I do agree

As a Suns fan I always pick an East team to root for which is why I have a Raptors avatar. Though the Sun's should be a lot better next season with Devin Booker & Deandre Ayton.

Speaking of the Raptors.

DeMar DeRozan says LeBron James once reminded a Raptors player how to run one of Toronto's plays

(Snip)

At one point during a game, DeRozan said that one of his teammates forgot the play the Raptors were running, so LeBron just told him what to do.

"It's definitely different. I remember for years I always caught so much flack, us being the better team or whatever it was in the Eastern Conference finals, and people not realizing it's tough to get past this mother-----. I don't care who you are. To see him come to the West and do the same thing is a testament to his greatness, and his IQ to the game. In '16 when we went to the Eastern Conference finals, we won Games 3 and 4, and it was like a whole nother mindset clicked for him in those next two games, where it was like 'it's closeout.'"

"I remember -- I don't know if I even told nobody other than my close circle -- I remember, it was a play we was trying to run and one of our teammates forgot the play, and 'Bron told him the play. Like it was some crazy s---. We calling a play and he was like, 'what?' And Bron told him what our play was. It just shows you how locked in this dude be when it comes to winning time. You see it on both ends man, both ends. That's just a testament to who he is, why he's been to 10 Finals, why he's on the verge of getting his fourth ring, everything. It's crazy."

Just unbelievable. Of all the stories about LeBron's basketball IQ throughout the years, this one is right up there at the top. It's one thing to remember the game plan and scouting report, but LeBron was so locked in he had the Raptors' entire playbook down as well, and to the point that he could rattle it off in the middle of a game.

The Raptors ended up losing that ECF matchup 4-2, and then were also eliminated from the playoffs by LeBron and Co. in each of the next two seasons. And no wonder. It's hard to beat a better team when they know your plays better than you do.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbssports.com/nba/news/demar-derozan-says-lebron-james-once-reminded-a-raptors-player-how-to-run-one-of-torontos-plays/amp/

[BGBD]

33. Bulls fan

but back in the mid 2000's I followed the Suns heavily when Steve Nash was there for that period. I'd become a big fan of his watching him play in the playoffs for the Mavericks and followed him for the rest of his career while the Bulls were mostly terrible.

[greenjar_01]

28. Conservatives and LeBron haters are mad

Keep on. Win six.