On Lebron and the Final Shot

The instant the ball left Lebron James’ hands for the last time Monday night, headed for Donyell Marshall instead of the basket, talk shows around the country had the next day’s leading piece.

It’s strange how much one player’s reputation can depend so much on another’s jump shot. If Marshall had hit his three-pointer, the Cavs win the game and Lebron is the second coming of Magic Johnson (well, Charles Barkley would still have criticized him, but Barkley probably would have criticized Magic too). Instead, the shot clanked off the rim and Lebron was once again the scared player unwilling to take the last shot.

But the real story behind the decision never really hit the airwaves. While I’m sure Lebron appreciates that Steve Kerr supported the kick-out pass (of course Steve Kerr supported him – his entire career was defined by one kick-out pass), Donyell Marshall should never have been standing in that corner.

Let’s go back over the situation.

On one end of the play was the marquee name left in the postseason. Lebron James was mired in a miserable scoring night, for reasons we’ll come back to. He had poured in just 10 points on 5-15 shooting, hardly numbers that really warranted taking the final shot. He hadn’t been to the foul line all night, which probably left him somewhat uncomfortable trying to draw the foul. All important considerations.

On the other end was Donyell Marshall. And while everybody mentions that Lebron hadn’t been to charity stripe all night, Marshall hadn’t been to the three-point line. He had played just nine minutes and taken three shots, making one of them. Outside of the threes he jacked during the halftime shoot-around, Marshall was completely unprepared to come in and drain an ice-cold jumper.

But Marshall is a professional sharpshooter, right? Even if he hadn’t been in the game much, it’s his job to knock down threes. And, as everybody is fond of pointing out, Marshall hit six three-pointers in the finale against New Jersey.

The thing is, Donyell is one of the streakiest shooters you will ever see, and not the sort of streak that carries over from game to game. In the other five games against the Nets, he shot a combined 3-for-15. It’s been a season-long trend: Marshall will hit five threes in one game, then hit one three in five games. So while Marshall hit about one-third of his threes for the season, he was really hitting in about one game out of five.

What you had in the end, then, was an ice-cold power forward that only makes his jumpers about once a week, with the game in his hands as time runs out. The press praising Mike Brown for his great play call need to take another look at the state of the game. Even as wide-open as he was, there was almost no chance Marshall was going to make that jumper. It’s not Lebron’s fault; Marshall should never have been in the game.

Going for the win on the road is a great idea, in theory – when your team actually has somebody that can make a three-pointer.

As we’ve already established, Donyell wasn’t that guy Monday night. The Cavs have three other players that were clearly more qualified to be in that corner: Sasha Pavlovic (40.5 percent threes), Daniel Gibson (41.9 percent) and Larry Hughes (33.3 percent). Pavlovic and Hughes had each gotten into the flow of the game, and Gibson is a substantially better three-point shooter than Marshall (Lebron obviously would never get that open for the shot).

But on that night, none of them were hitting their shots; the Cavs were a combined 1-9 in threes before the final play. The one make was from Pavlovic, who was 4-14 on the night. Clearly the Cavs had no business looking for a three-point shot. It wasn’t a bad decision on Lebron’s part; it was just a bad play.

Consider for a moment the two players who really led the Cavs Monday night: Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Anderson Varejao. Neither were in the game on the final play, replaced instead by Donyell Marshall and Drew Gooden.

Now imagine that, instead of Marshall standing in the corner, it was Varejao barreling unchecked to the hoop while the defense collapsed on James. With Lebron shooting, the hoop was almost guaranteed to begin with, and Varejao would have been there to clean up whatever was left. Who knows what would have happened in overtime, but at least the Cavs would have had a chance.