lebron and the lakers adjusting to the heat's elongated hedges

it's a game of chess

through four games in the 2020 nba finals, we've watched four very different games.

in summary:

• game 1 - bam adebayo and goran dragic's injuries knocked them out of their game plan, and the los angeles lakers’ size and physicality dominated the miami heat all-around.

• game 2 - the shorthanded heat played a lot of zone. the lakers once again killed them on the glass. lebron and company hunted duncan robinson and tyler herro on defense, and robinson had such a poor game that he was benched for the entire fourth quarter.

• game 3 - jimmy butler took advantage of the lakers' switches and had a performance for the ages. on the other side of the floor, miami retired the zone and played la straight up. they fronted anthony davis, packed the paint, and began utilizing elongated hedges to avoid switching robinson/herro onto lebron.

• game 4 - la began defending jimmy the same way miami defended lebron in game 3: they went under, hedged, and didn't give him any favorable switches (the few times it did happen, la sent double teams to get the ball out of butler's hands). on the other side, the heat stuck with their plan from the previous game and lebron and the lakers started picking their spots to take advantage of it.

in this post, i'm going to specifically highlight the lebron vs. robinson matchup from games 2-4.

if i had to choose one play to exemplify what happened in game 2, this one would be it:

so in game 3, when the heat went to a man-to-man look, one of their top priorities was not getting robinson switched onto lebron. they found success by having duncan hard hedge way out and lebron's man go under the screen so he had time to recover. for example:

another example:

in game 4, miami stuck with the same scheme. so lebron and frank vogel pulled out a few counters to it. i’ll focus on two of them that stuck out to me.

the first, this double side pick-and-roll that had danny green slipping out to the corner for a wide open 3:

the second, lebron splitting the pick-and-roll to attack the basket (he probably saves these for late in close games as it's obviously not something he can repeatedly do):

i'm really enjoying this chess match between two great teams.

on a related note, this is why some players are better suited for playoff basketball than others. the later you get into the postseason, the more valuable teams and players that are versatile and well-coached, have high-iq, and can make adjustments on the fly are. because your opponent will have several games and days to study you, do everything they can to take away everything you're good at, and find and attack your weakness(es).

just in these last four finals games against the heat, and often many times over the course of a single game, lebron has seen:

• the 2-3 zone

• the 3-2 zone

• switches

• short shows

• long hedges

• post defenders play him straight up

• fronts

• double teams

it's pretty ludicrous how easy he makes adjusting in real-time to whatever the defense is giving and taking away from him look. he rarely forces things or makes costly mistakes. a bonafide savant.

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