Posey's "convulsing" D

[jgod213]

Although i'm in the group that leans toward explaining LBJ's tough night as more of an abboration than anything, I have to give a lot of credit to Pierce and POZ for the way they handled BronBron last night.  They were physical, they moved their feet, and they trusted their help.

As i mentioned, i would be SHOCKED if LeBron missed a lot of those same shots during the rest of the series, however, one factor that i think really contributed to LeBron's tentativeness and his some of his awkward possesions in general was Posey's "convulsing" D.

Did anyone else notice (am i'm sure you did) the way POZ was moving his body, particularly on a couple of late 4th quarter possessions, while D-ing up LeBron? It looked like some sort of full body spasm.  I'm not even sure how else to describe it other than "spastic" or "convulsive;" i'd never seen anything like that before.  Nevertheless, I think it might of gotten into LeBron's head just a bit - enough to make him think a little too much rather than just catching the ball and letting it happen organically.

The adjectives smooth, silky, or gracefull have never come to mind when I've watched Posey, but regardless of the way it looks on the outside, he seems to possess a ton of knowledge on even the subtlest of nuances - on both ends of the court.  I don't know what roation Doc will stick with in crunch time (and i'll admit i LOVED the way Perk played in the 4th last night), but he has got to continue to stick POZ in there when it counts....those 2 big free throws should go a ways in helping that arguement as well.

[MMacOH]

Celtics played great D last night.  They played physical, but in the right way.  I am curious to see how the Cavs can repond to this.

The Celtics and their fans are a welcome change for me (as a Cavs fan) from the Wizards and their fans.  Class players and class fans all around last night.  No cheap shots on Lebron, just tough physical D.  The crowd last night was great as well.....instead of focusing on trying to taunt Lebron your crowd actually cheered on your team.  That was a great playoff atmosphere last night.  Looking forward to a few more slugfests like last night

[jay_jay54]

I have followed Posey long before he became a Celtic,and always enjoyed his game.As we all know,he helped the Heat win a championship.Posey,A.Walker both played a vital role in those series.I wanted to include Posey in the Big3 back in the beginning of the season with changing it to the Big4,however,i got shot down on here,lol...i have always loved his style of play,and figured if we made the playoffs,he would play a key role in winning it all.  Posey is the man,and i hope J.Posey be with this team, yrs. to come. He is a defensive specialist,and a 3pt assassin all role into one.

[Redz]

Posey was awesome last night.  I actually thought Doc was going to leave him in and sit Pierce the entire stretch run, but Pierce came back in with just under 4 minutes left and more than held up his end of the bargain on defense too. 

Posey is invaluable at this point.

[MaineBleedsGreen]

I think, especially in this series, you start posey and sit ray ray. Pierce gaurds Wally and Posey gaurds Lebron. I know this thread is about Posey, but I was especially flumoxed at how/why we didn't go to the Ray Allen vs Wally matchup all night. The usual argument against putting Pierce at the 2 is he can't handle quicker gaurds, well in this case I don't think we'd have to worry.

Starters:
Rondo
Pierce
Posey
Garnett
Perk

Bench:
Ray Ray - Backs up rondo and pierce to get his 30+ mins.
Powe - first big off the bench
Brown - when your starting center only plays ~25 mpg you need two bigs off the bench.

Situational:
SamIam - for offense. he could see a lot of minutes if offense is struggling. this would extended the rotation from 8 players to 9 players.

[crownsy]

Although i'm in the group that leans toward explaining LBJ's tough night as more of an abboration than anything, I have to give a lot of credit to Pierce and POZ for the way they handled BronBron last night.  They were physical, they moved their feet, and they trusted their help.

As i mentioned, i would be SHOCKED if LeBron missed a lot of those same shots during the rest of the series, however, one factor that i think really contributed to LeBron's tentativeness and his some of his awkward possesions in general was Posey's "convulsing" D.

Did anyone else notice (am i'm sure you did) the way POZ was moving his body, particularly on a couple of late 4th quarter possessions, while D-ing up LeBron? It looked like some sort of full body spasm.  I'm not even sure how else to describe it other than "spastic" or "convulsive;" i'd never seen anything like that before.  Nevertheless, I think it might of gotten into LeBron's head just a bit - enough to make him think a little too much rather than just catching the ball and letting it happen organically.

The adjectives smooth, silky, or gracefull have never come to mind when I've watched Posey, but regardless of the way it looks on the outside, he seems to possess a ton of knowledge on even the subtlest of nuances - on both ends of the court.  I don't know what roation Doc will stick with in crunch time (and i'll admit i LOVED the way Perk played in the 4th last night), but he has got to continue to stick POZ in there when it counts....those 2 big free throws should go a ways in helping that arguement as well.

I agree with most of what you say here, and its a good anaylsis, but someone is going to have to explain to me the feeling that lebron "missed alot of shots he would normally make"

Looking at his shot chart, he got into the paint 3 times. 3 times all game. Lebron is not a good deep or midrange shooter. 15 of his looks came from midrange/3 point land. He is currently averaging 31% deep and 41% from the field. Even if you want to try to say he should ahve made more shots, the realstic number, given that he didn't get into the paint, is 3-4 shots out of 15.

He missed one shot he should have had, the lay up. Other than that, he shot from the field. he's an average jump shooter who can go on hot streaks.

If you can turn lebron into a jump shooter, which the celtics defense did last night, he's not nearly as effective.

That said, do i think he will stay a jump shooter? probley not, its tough to deny him the paint as well as they did night in and night out, but to say he missed alot of shots he normaly makes is untrue.

Note that i am in no way saying lebron is not an amazing player that we have to be very, very, good gaurding, but if we can take him out of the fantastic stuff he does in the paint, that a huge plus for us.

and mac, TP and thanks for the kind words, hopefully the series will play out with this kind of D from both sides all series, and hopefully the refs will continue to swallow thier whistles, within reason. 

[jgod213]

Although i'm in the group that leans toward explaining LBJ's tough night as more of an abboration than anything, I have to give a lot of credit to Pierce and POZ for the way they handled BronBron last night.  They were physical, they moved their feet, and they trusted their help.

As i mentioned, i would be SHOCKED if LeBron missed a lot of those same shots during the rest of the series, however, one factor that i think really contributed to LeBron's tentativeness and his some of his awkward possesions in general was Posey's "convulsing" D.

Did anyone else notice (am i'm sure you did) the way POZ was moving his body, particularly on a couple of late 4th quarter possessions, while D-ing up LeBron? It looked like some sort of full body spasm.  I'm not even sure how else to describe it other than "spastic" or "convulsive;" i'd never seen anything like that before.  Nevertheless, I think it might of gotten into LeBron's head just a bit - enough to make him think a little too much rather than just catching the ball and letting it happen organically.

The adjectives smooth, silky, or gracefull have never come to mind when I've watched Posey, but regardless of the way it looks on the outside, he seems to possess a ton of knowledge on even the subtlest of nuances - on both ends of the court.  I don't know what roation Doc will stick with in crunch time (and i'll admit i LOVED the way Perk played in the 4th last night), but he has got to continue to stick POZ in there when it counts....those 2 big free throws should go a ways in helping that arguement as well.

I agree with most of what you say here, and its a good anaylsis, but someone is going to have to explain to me the feeling that lebron "missed alot of shots he would normally make"

Looking at his shot chart, he got into the paint 3 times. 3 times all game. Lebron is not a good deep or midrange shooter. 15 of his looks came from midrange/3 point land. He is currently averaging 31% deep and 41% from the field. Even if you want to try to say he should ahve made more shots, the realstic number, given that he didn't get into the paint, is 3-4 shots out of 15.

He missed one shot he should have had, the lay up. Other than that, he shot from the field. he's an average jump shooter who can go on hot streaks.

If you can turn lebron into a jump shooter, which the celtics defense did last night, he's not nearly as effective.

That said, do i think he will stay a jump shooter? probley not, its tough to deny him the paint as well as they did night in and night out, but to say he missed alot of shots he normaly makes is untrue.

Note that i am in no way saying lebron is not an amazing player that we have to be very, very, good gaurding, but if we can take him out of the fantastic stuff he does in the paint, that a huge plus for us.

and mac, TP and thanks for the kind words, hopefully the series will play out with this kind of D from both sides all series, and hopefully the refs will continue to swallow thier whistles, within reason. 

I agree with you completely in that, when you force lebron to shoot rather than drive, he becomes A LOT less effective...That being said, i stick by my opinion in that he did "miss a lot of shots he would normally make."

I believe that lebron was defeated mentally as opposed to physically last night.  If my memory serves me correctly, i believe he had at least 3 or 4 jumpers/3's that rimmed out or just would not stay all the way down just in the first half alone.  Every shooter has this happen from time to time (i.e. ray allen), but lebron really let it get to him.  He had several looks in the 4th quarter where his defender was sagging and lebron just refused to take the open jumper.  I remember watching the Pistons series last year where Lebron would not hesitate to take that shot if tayshawn got out from under his jersey.

Again, I agree that he loses a lot of his affectiveness when he gets 3-happy, but when lebron isn't taking that shot - and his defender knows he's not going to take that shot/doesn't have the confidence in it - he becomes A LOT more guardable.