Lebron is long enough, athletic enough, and physical enough to shut down the big German. If he has to, he will feed Dirk some German Knuckle Cake.

Take it to the bank. Dirk will not be a factor.

because he shoots lightning bolts out his bum!

Crack. Are you smoking it?

As great as Lebron is defensively, good luck stopping Dirk one-on-one. Nick Collison did as good a job on Dirk as I can remember, and he still scored 40+ twice.

Dirk will get his either popping crazy, unblockable, one-legged fallaway rainbow jumpers, or at the free throw line. Lebron will hound him, but he will still get his.

There's no defense to a popping crazy, unblockable, one-legged fallaway rainbow jumper.

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Crack. Are you smoking it?

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Inside joke. Are you getting it?

Zero defense against it...unless you got laser beam eyeballs, bionic legs, and go-go-gadget arms. Even then, he'll still get 20 ppg.

Honestly, the best defense against Dirk and the Mavs is Bennett Salvatore.

dirk can even create his shot against Lebron

Next time, Dirk is gonna use the backhand:

Please believe me when I tell you that I did NOT know what a German Knuckle Cake was until I googled "slang for German" in order to try and find an obscure and offensive means of referring to Dirk. Honest to God.

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As great as Lebron is defensively, good luck stopping Dirk one-on-one. Nick Collison did as good a job on Dirk as I can remember, and he still scored 40+ twice.

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No matter your opinion on the greatest of Dirk, I think we can all agree that Lebron is significantly better than Collison. Lebron jsut shut down the league MVP...something that nobody did all season. Does that not count for something?

Guarding Dirk and guarding Rose, while both very difficult, require VASTLY different skill sets. I'm not saying Lebron can't guard Dirk, but I don't think you should assume he can simply because he could guard Derrick Rose. Rose isn't going to try to back Lebron down in the post.

Rose isn't a 7 foot monstrosity with a fadeaway jumpshot wetter than 3 college girls at the million man march

Dirk shoots 50%+, 12+ feet from the basket ( second highest % in the NBA) along with his recently developed low post moves. Lebron will keep him in check most of the time, but for 40 minutes? Dirk will see his PPG go down but doubfully below 20 and probably not below 25.

I know it kind of derails the initial thread topic, but isn't Bosh the most likely candidate to guard Dirk?

oh I agree re: guarding rose is far from guarding dirk...i was using that to show that Lebron at 6'8 and 260 pounds was atheletic enough to guard a true point guard and MVP of the league. Magic and Wilbon (since I've discovered recently they're opinion counts) state that Lebron can guard anyone on teh floor from the 1 to the 5 and made no caveats about any one player so you have to assume he can guard dirk...shut him down no, guard him and make him work more than he has all playoffs absolutely

and I also agree the Bosh will get the nod on Dirk first and they'll see what happens.

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and I also agree the Bosh will get the nod on Dirk first and they'll see what happens.

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I would guess that after about 5 minutes, a switch is what will happen. He will abuse Bosh.

Agree Lebron will do as much to slow him as anyone has. The good thing is that it will mean James is exerting a ton of energy on defense. He'll still get his though - no denying that.

I think that this series will come down to Wade's performances vs. those of Terry, Kidd & Barrea (as a whole). The mavericks need those guys and guys like Peja and Marion to contribute big cause they (Lebron and Wade) are going to put up points.

[This message has been edited by JDCAG (edited 5/27/2011 10:00p).]

Dirk's fadeaway is unblockable. That's just a fact that comes with his size.

The trick with him is going to be to play hard, physical defense against the rest of his game. Get him to miss those shots and his psyche will be damaged, which will hopefully (if you're a heat fan) force him into a funk.

I don't really see it happening. The dude's been playing like he's on a mission the past 4 weeks and I expect it to continue.

But, basketball is a team sport. One person cannot win a series by himself (look at LeBron v. Orlando a few years ago. He scored 49, 35, 41, 44, 37, & 25 at 49% and they still lost). So assume Dirk is gonna get 25-40 every night (closer to 40 imo). The series is going to be defined by how Terry, Barea, and co. do. I think they're going to have a much tougher match up.

However, Dallas has been playing great D and Miami's O hasn't exactly been lighting the world on fire. So Dallas won't have to get too much from those guys to get Ws.

I don't have a clue who's going to win, but I'm leaning toward the Heat. That said, Dallas has a good defense and a decent O that can become unstoppable when Dirk is feeling it. That's a great recipe for success in a 7 game series.

Yup, James isn't tall enough.

Lebron can leap you say? Perfect. He'll bite on the ball fakes and give Dirk and one opportunities.

Dirk is German-Jesus, he can't be stopped.

/texags

I hope James does end up guarding him. Foul trouble on "Bron Bron" would be great!!! This is a different Dirk from years past. The physical play will not bother him.

I don't think LeBron is going to guard Dirk until the 4th quarter, or unless he is going absolutely bat**** in later games and LeBron has proven effective in earlier games.

Haslem, depending on if his conditioning is up to par, which I'm assuming it will be by this time, and Bosh will probably guard him for the majority of the game.

Dirk is gonna get his, I'd rather have LeBron roaming passing lanes and using his quickness for help defense and recovering on 3 point shooters.

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I hope James does end up guarding him. Foul trouble on "Bron Bron" would be great!!!

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Refs didn't even call many fouls on Collison. You think they'll call fouls on Lebron?

In their two meetings this year:

Dirk Nowitzki
8/21 FGM/A 9/23 FGM/A
0/4 3PM/A 1/5 3PM/A
10/10 FT 3/3 FT
9 Boards 6 Boards
4 Fouls 4 Fouls
26 Points 22 Points

Dallas 98 Dallas 106
Miami 96 Miami 95

Gonna be an interesting series, I wouldn't say the regular season means nothing but at this point Dirk is playing lights out basketball especially compared to these numbers

For the record Lebron had 4 fouls in one game, and 3 in the other.

EDIT: Thank you Stryker. I missed that one.

[This message has been edited by CFTXAG10 (edited 5/31/2011 11:10a).]

You do realize these teams played twice this year right? Both games were before the new year so you have to take the stats with a grain of salt. Dirk in December was different than Dirk in May. I think the best defense on Dirk would be to have bosh or whoever guarding the fadeaways and have LeBron coming from behind to try and block the shot, but the timing would have to be perfect. I don't think Dirk will be frustrated this series, he has too many moves, too many weapons he can go to if one is shut down.

As OKC showed, the best defense on Dirk is to face guard and deny him the ball in the post and on the wing. If he catches the ball in that area, it's already too late.

Only way Dirk pulls this one out is if Carlisle coaches circles around Spolstra.

Which will be tough for Carlisle, because Riley will make all the adjustments between games.

I caught one of these two games, but I don't remember who was guarding Dirk. Anyone remember?

Seems like the majority is leaning towards Lebron defending Dirk in this upcoming series.

I think they'll put bosh on dirk early to keep lebron out of foul trouble. 2nd half, mostly fourth quarter it will be lebron vs dirk no doubt.

"Refs didn't even call many fouls on Collison. You think they'll call fouls on Lebron?"

Are you serious? Everyone that was on Dirk in the last series was in foul trouble. You need to watch the game.

If they play Bosh on Dirk, who is going to guard Chandler? All 6'9 inches of Joel Anthony? The Mavericks length is really going to be a problem for an undersized Miami roster.

Maybe they'll dust off Big Z or Dampier.

Good job Flies!
Reverse jinx is always awesome !!!



Laura

I love it. I was wondering if someone was going to make a thread like this.

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I would guess that after about 5 minutes, a switch is what will happen. He will abuse Bosh.

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Too bad for the heat they did it late in the game, when there was no time to switch.

He did get abused though - that part was correct