The Killer Crossover 05.15.08: Alternate Worlds

Posted by Todd Spehr on 05.15.2008

The game's two most exciting phenoms - LeBron James and Chris Paul - are locked in tough series' with two of the leagues best teams - with mixed results. But as 411's Todd Spehr explains, and as both James and Paul have found out, they are being defended very differently.

Anyone who has watched even a millisecond of the Cavs-Celtics series knows that LeBron James is struggling. It's one of the few series' not-named-the-2007-Finals that we have seen James, he of 30-8-7 fame, be in a position where we worry if he's going to hit 20 points, if his next jumper is going to kill an innocent cheerleader, or if his reckless abandon will be permanently replaced with a fadeaway twenty-footer with a hand in his grill.

Then there's Chris Paul. His young Hornets, that overachieving, under-aged bunch, are dead-locked in a series with The Defensive Juggernaut, The Defending Champs, The Dynasty (post-MJ), or quite simply, The Spurs, in the West's semi-finals. But here's the thing: Paul is amping up his already Nash-on-steroids game – even higher than his best-season-by-a-PG-at-that-age campaign (as some have dared utter) - and currently has his fingerprints all over a 3-2 Hornets series lead.

Two young studs. One is struggling; one is starring. But the polar opposites don't end there when you consider the Celtics are doing everything short of grabbing James around the neck (wait a minute, they did that) to bring him down; while as crazy as this sounds, the Spurs are happy to let Paul fire away, as long as it means David West can only stagger into double-figures, like he did in Game 4, or Tyson Chandler can be utterly ineffective on offense, as his three sub-par games against San Antonio have shown.

Does this make any sense?

In a nut-shell: James isn't allowed to even think of going off (if Boston were to have their way); Paul is in a position where his opposition would rather he score than get his teammates involved. It's the most fascinating (and underrated) subplot of the second round.

Let's consider the alternate philosophies of both Boston and San Antonio as they do battle with the league's best two young players:


James vs. Boston: Thou Shalt Deny Him At All Costs

OK, the idea is simple: Shutdown LBJ and you win, right? Yeah? Well it's like holding water in your hand, and the further this series progresses, the further you get the feeling, despite his tough series, that they surely can't hold him down completely. Sure, 7-20 nights (Game 4) are hardly the stuff to write home to the folks about, but when you consider his first three games consisted of 11%, 25% and 31% shooting nights, hitting 35% doesn't feel as nauseating.

Boston came into this series basically with a philosophy that they focus their entire defensive scheme around James. That's why Paul Pierce and James Posey have taken turns chasing LBJ like blood-thirsty hounds as if he were an intruder. It's why every time he enters the paint he's met by one, two, sometimes three, Celtic defenders. It's why Pierce and Posey consistently duck under the high screen-n-roll. Hey, I'll give him the jumper any day if it keeps him out of the paint. It's why, in Game 3, James took just two shots in the paint for the entire game. LeBron James. Two shots. In the paint. In 40 minutes.

(Note: It's also why James reacted the way he did when he dunked on KG at the end of Game 4. It was as if he suddenly realized "Hey, I can still do it! If I don't focus on the fact that there are 27 guys waiting for me in the paint and actually just take it to the cup, I can score? You mean, I can still score? … exhale… It was as if that dunk was a defining moment, a moment that he overcame everything he's endured for four games.)

And so far, you could say Boston's plan has worked. While the C's didn't count on Zydrunas Ilgauskas or Wally Szczerbiak (don't say those two names quick) providing major increases over their regular season production – like they have - then they sure didn't count on James hitting for just 25% from the field and 18 points per over the first four games no matter how out-of-this-world they thought their defense would be.

And no, this isn't the first time the best forward on the planet has struggled mightily in a series. In the '88 East Finals, Larry Bird shot just 35% over a six-game series with the Pistons - including a 4-17 stinker in the deciding game – and later called it "the worst series of my life." Heck, if it could happen to Bird, who averaged 30 on 52/41/91 shooting that year, it can happen to anyone.

Speaking of Bird (only the best passing forward ever), it's been fascinating to see James, heir to The Best Passing Forward Alive title, in this series with A) handling consecutive games where he has shot this bad and B) deciding instead to dissect Boston's defense with passes (21 assists in the two games in Cleveland) as a way of contemptuously rebutting the way the Celtics are guarding him. He's almost unwittingly added another brick to his already-impressive wall (no pun intended); upping his level in other areas - 9.1 assists, 2.5 steals, 1.8 blocks this series - to at least combat his awful shooting.

You see, every team is unequivocally scared of playing a close game with Cleveland. Keep it close, as the Cavs did in Game 5 of last year's East Finals with Detroit, and anything – like a guy randomly scoring 29 of his team's last 30, hitting for like 48 or something; yeah, that type of anything – can happen and you can lose a series. So Boston isn't tempting fate. They're trying to flat-out close James down; sending him to tight areas; forcing him to try to beat them from 20-feet instead of three-feet; hoping to frustrate him, hoping to stop him.

Which brings us to…


Paul vs. San Antonio: Thou Shall Give Him Free Reign; Thou Shall Take Away From Others

This philosophy absolutely blows me away. It does. How can letting an All-Star go nuts, under any circumstances, be a good thing? Well, when it means taking away from the other guys, then it's almost pure genius. And take note, the Spurs aren't "letting" Paul score, but rather, aren't doubling him by leaving shooters (like Peja, like Mo Pete) open. So Paul gets his, and the other guys are non-factors.

The genesis of this philosophy can be traced back to one game: Game 4 of the 2005 West Semi-Finals – Suns/Mavs. Avery Johnson, Popovich disciple #1, #2, and possibly #3, decided to let Steve Nash score. And score. And score. 48 points later, Nash had a game for the ages. But the Suns lost. Amare Stoudemire, who had scored 107 points in the previous three games of the series, took just eight shots. No other Sun scored more than 20 points, this on a team that put up 110-plus on an average night. Oh yeah, and the Mavs won by 10 in a game they never looked like losing.

San Antonio did the exact same in the next series; Nash put up 23 a night (up eight points from his regular output) while Marion, an All-Star that year, scored 38 points for the entire five-game series; a series that also saw other Suns' starters, without the last name "Stoudemire," struggle.

History repeats.

After losing the first two games to New Orleans – in rather ordinary third quarter meltdown-related fashion – the Spurs came back home and decided Paul was going to get his. Plain and simple. So, as if to play along, Paul had his own virtuoso performance: 35 points, 15-25 FG, and nine assists. The rest of the Hornet starters combined for 46. So what? Well, when that same combination usually puts up 57 points a game, then that's eleven points they don't normally have. (Just out of curiosity, what did the Hornets lose Game 3 by again?)

Game 4 was even better. While Paul had "only" 23, his entourage combined for just 25 points. So Paul almost had the exact same amount of points as the rest of his starters, a sickening stat if your name happens to be Byron Scott. Paul was still spectacular – hey, he played only 31 minutes – but the roll call went a little something like this: West 10, Stojakovic 6, Peterson 7, and Chandler 2.

And just look at Paul's numbers. Through Game 4, he was at 26.3 points per game in the series, up five points on his normal output, while also taking more shots. But his assists were down almost two a game. While that may add up to a wash as far as points-towards-your-team, the guys he's playing with aren't nearly as involved. And sure, West played Game 5 (38 points, 14 boards, five blocks) like Charles Barkley circa '93, but just remember, the Spurs also gave Amare Stoudemire permission to play on another planet (37 per in the '05 WCF) in the same series Nash was playing on his.

So they're really getting what they want. Now, whether or not they come out on top is questionable, after all, the Suns never took three games from San Antonio in any one series, as New Orleans have.

This much we know: James is having one heck of a time lifting him self (and his team) past Boston, Paul not so much against San Antonio, but at a vastly different cost. In the end, they might end their respective series' in the same place.

You can read Todd Spehr's NBA column every Wednesday at 411mania.com. To read more of his stuff, check out his recently launched blog "Runnin' The Point," which has daily updates for the NBA playoffs, analyzing every PG who takes the floor.