Most significant reason JJ was so awful in last year's playoffs

[NineOhTheRino]

Honestly Joe played OK the first 4 games of the first series but after that he was hideous. Seeing how killer he is now versus how awful he was at the end of last season through the start of this year gives me some hope that it was the elbow. I know some will argue that Joe has always struggled against good defenses but that doesn't explain way he experienced such a severe drop off in production after game 4 of round one.

Edited February 3, 2011 by NineOhTheRino

[macdaddy]

Whether you give LD credit for anything at least give him this. This is what he predicted about the offense. Opening it up to move the ball has made it easier for Joe to get good looks. Last year defenses could leave everyone but Bibby to double Joe. That's no longer the case.

[Wretch]

The constant isolation offense funneled Joe into a glove of defenders. Even if he was hurting or slumping, that surely didn't make it any easier.

[Lrenfro]

Honestly Joe played OK the first 4 games of the first series but after that he was hideous. Seeing how killer he is now versus how awful he was at the end of last season through the start of this year gives me some hope that it was the elbow. I know some will argue that Joe has always struggled against good defenses but that doesn't explain way he experienced such a severe drop off in production after game 4 of round one.

I wish you could add one more option "Coaching".

[exodus]

JJ averaged 23 ppg over the 1st 6 games against the Bucks.

[Bawse]

CHOKE

[WraithSentinel]

A combo of the elbow and offense. I went with elbow for this poll since I can't choose both. JJ should have had this surgery during the offseason or went to Dr Andrews earlier and at least let him look at it.

[Diesel]

It's really plain to see.

First 4 games versus Milwaukee:

Joe = 47.6%, 52.2%, 40.8%, and 50.0% respectively.

For the rest of the playoffs: Joe never shot above 37.5%.

In the season against Milwaukee: 39%, 52%, 63%.

In the previous years sweep by Cleveland, Joe shot 50%, 33.3%, 47.4%, and 38.9%.

You can't make me believe that Milwaukee shut down Joe better than Cleveland could?

It's the elbow.

Edited February 3, 2011 by Diesel

[High5]

A combination of everything. Joe has proven when he's healthy that his struggles can't all be pinned on injury.

Edited February 3, 2011 by High5

[Seano]

Who knows what the ultimate reason is? It might very well be a combination of all of those things. I would think fatigue might very possibly have played a role despite his outstanding conditioning, after having logged SO many minutes in the regular season (and so much of that arguably needlessly, had Woody not been so reliant on ISO-Joe and allowed himself to utilize his bench a little bit more). So who knows? He just had a bad series, and that is something that can (and does) happen to the best of them sometimes.

[High5]

Who knows what the ultimate reason is? It might very well be a combination of all of those things. I would think fatigue might very possibly have played a role despite his outstanding conditioning, after having logged SO many minutes in the regular season (and so much of that arguably needlessly, had Woody not been so reliant on ISO-Joe and allowed himself to utilize his bench a little bit more). So who knows? He just had a bad series, and that is something that can (and does) happen to the best of them sometimes.

Unfortunately he's had more than one bad series. His play has dropped off from the regular season in every series and a couple of them have been tremendously awful.

[capstone21]

Woody had made our team predictable. A playoff series allows an opposing coach to really study the other team, since Woody doesn't make adjustments it allowed Orlando to really focus on shutting down our iso-offense

[yungsta]

i really think it was our horrible offense. The magic was 1 of the best defensive teams in the league and that iso stuff wasnt gonna work

[tbhawksfan]

Woodson definatively lost the team during the MIL series. I think the players 'checked out" on him. They knew his time had come.

[NineOhTheRino]

Woody is 1 man. How we blame the failures of a 12-man roster on 1 man is mind boggling. I wonder who gets the blame for the 53 regular season wins.

[dhawk]

Woody is 1 man. How we blame the failures of a 12-man roster on 1 man is mind boggling. I wonder who gets the blame for the 53 regular season wins.

Surely you can see playoff basketball is different than the regular season when in a series you see your opponent doing the same stuff over and over. You can scheme to stop them (especially if one player has the ball all the time) and make them adjust (coaching). If they refuse to adjust (Woody), then a less talented or overmatched team can possibly win a 7-game series. In the regular season, jumping from team to team and city to city in a 82 game schedule, you don't have time to scheme to that degree considering the next team you play is somebody different. So Woody's way, got us 53 victories but Iso-offense doesn't work in the playoffs if that's all you going to do. Lakers run the triangle, Kobe goes iso at selected times, if he went Iso all game, its overkill, eventually easier to defend forcing him to take tougher and tougher shots, Lakers lose. LD apparently understands this, and wants more ball movement than Iso, Woody didn't, he wanted ball movement only after Joe gets trapped to death and the shot clock running down.

[AHF]

Surely you can see playoff basketball is different than the regular season when in a series you see your opponent doing the same stuff over and over. You can scheme to stop them (especially if one player has the ball all the time) and make them adjust (coaching). If they refuse to adjust (Woody), then a less talented or overmatched team can possibly win a 7-game series. In the regular season, jumping from team to team and city to city in a 82 game schedule, you don't have time to scheme to that degree considering the next team you play is somebody different. So Woody's way, got us 53 victories but Iso-offense doesn't work in the playoffs if that's all you going to do. Lakers run the triangle, Kobe goes iso at selected times, if he went Iso all game, its overkill, eventually easier to defend forcing him to take tougher and tougher shots, Lakers lose. LD apparently understands this, and wants more ball movement than Iso, Woody didn't, he wanted ball movement only after Joe gets trapped to death and the shot clock running down.

Same rationale applies to our highly exploitable "auto-switch" defense.

[GST]

Woody's offense had no "plan B" that was designed to open up when "plan A" was closed down by the opponent's defense. You have got to have a "plan B" in the playoffs because your opponent will implement a special defensive plan to shut down what you normally do. I think a lot people on this forum recognized this flaw in Woody's offense.

[NineOhTheRino]

Playoff basketball 80% halfcourt and isolation. The motion junk will not work against a good defensive team. You honestly think Boston will allow JJ a wide open backdoor screen? Not happening. Woody did what he had to do to compete. The only dependable offense at the time was JJ and Woody had to ride JJ till the end. So no I don't put a great deal of blame on Woody. Woody gave them the gameplan, but unfortunately they were PHYSICALLY unable to execute it.

Edited February 4, 2011 by NineOhTheRino

[AHF]

Playoff basketball 80% halfcourt and isolation. The motion junk will not work against a good defensive team. You honestly think Boston will allow JJ a wide open backdoor screen? Not happening. Woody did what he had to do to compete. The only dependable offense at the time was JJ and Woody had to ride JJ till the end. So no I don't put a great deal of blame on Woody. Woody gave them the gameplan, but unfortunately they were PHYSICALLY unable to execute it.

The best teams don't run predictable iso offenses like Woody did. When have you seen Boston do that in the playoffs, for example? The gameplan was brutally bad. With a HUGE talent advantage against the Bucks, Woody got royally outschemed. That series never should have gone to 7 games.

People don't focus on the defensive side as much but we were equally predictable and exploitable there as well. Last year's playoffs were a coaching fail by any measure.