Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Spurs: We can live with the jumpers
Focus on keeping James out of paint
MIAMI — Even after allowing a 35-point performance, the San Antonio Spurs have no plans of altering the way they defend Miami HeatforwardLeBronJames.
Many of James’ points were scored on contested jumpers, something the Spurs say they will live with. Thestrategy remains to keep James out of the paint.
“Yes, I mean they were contested jumpers,” Spurs guard Danny Green said. “You’renot going to block his jump shot. He’s 6-9 and he’s pretty athletic. So, you’ve got to live with contested jumpers. But, the little other mistakes we made defensively and offensively where we could have got some better shots, you know we can fix those.”
James was in such a groove on the perimeter he attempted just five free throws. All 11 of his thirdquarter points came on jumpers.
“Hewas getting to the rim a lot,” forward Tim Duncan said. “I think we’d rather make him shoot the ball although through a stretch there he made four or five in a row, and he really kind of opened it up for himself and was feeling good. Wewant to keep him away fromthe basket and keep him off the line, all of those things. For a stretch there, we didn’t do a good job of that.”
Coach Gregg Popovich said he never thought of double-teaming James. The downside of that is James’ ability to create opportunities for others.
“Well, you can go double him if you want,” Popovich said. “He’s a pretty good player. I’m going to guess he’s going to find the open man.”
The Spurs have typically givenJamesthejumpshot. It worked during the early portion of last year’s Finals. James eventually figured it out.
“We didn’t expect him to shoot that well, but he got hot,” Green said. “That’s what stars do in this league. You got to make adjustments. What hurt us is we got out rebounded and we didn’t shoot too well from the free throwline.”