Credit to JJ and our coaching staff for making adjustments in the second half. Denying him the ball and blitzing him at the top and everyone rotating on time was key in stopping him after that first half

Shows you how important ball handling is. KD is an all time scorer but he can’t be the person who initiates offence.

Lebron is maybe slightly less versatile at scoring but he can start and finish plays which will always make him more valuable to a team.

9 turnovers is not a good individual performance.

Swap KD and LeBron in 2018. KD loses in 5 to Indiana. Golden State beats Houston in 5

LeBron is in fact the greatest player of all time, this isn’t news to anyone paying attention

Down 2-0 against 41yo Lebron without Luka or Austin is crazy.

Rockets need FVV badly

Kd is a bucket not a leader. He could never truly be a bus driver.

The Rockets are so atrocious in the half-court. No one on their team can shoot except Durant and Reed Sheppard, and Udoka is sitting the latter even though they need him out there. 9 TOs is awful, but he was getting doubled every play, and his team was just standing around with their thumbs up their collective asses. Sengun would get the ball at the top of the key, have no idea what to do with himself, and just DHO for Durant every single time, and pray he creates somehow. Horrible to watch.

When you played in highschool with the ball hog player - even if he was really good - you basically stopped playing. Why try if he’s not going to give you the ball?

Of course the same thing applies to a bunch of ~25 year olds, even in the NBA.

KD needed a point guard tonight to beat Lebron

In his prime, KD needed not just any point guard - but Stephen Curry - to beat Lebron.

Good individual performance of 9 TOs and 3 points in a half lmao

KD didn’t have a good individual performance tho? He completely vanished in the second half. he scored 3 points in the second half and had more turnovers

The only time the conversation was even considered remotely close was when he was on a roster that had previously won 73 games (or I guess 2014 where he was definitely better in the RS) which sort of tells you how silly the debate was to begin with

Still one of the best shot-makers ever obviously, but more glaringly flawed than most other all-time 1st options for sure.

The turnovers were bad but the rockets were legit missing layups and wide open 3s how is that KD’s fault. Even when he did pass out of the double teams, the rockets were dropping passes or unable to finish shots.

Idk what y’all expect. The Rockets don’t even have a PG lol

I feel like this isn’t fair tho for multiple reasons

Because players have different roles on basketball teams.

LeBron is basically a lead ball handler all his career. 

Kd shouldn’t have to handle the ball this much. Heliocentric ball has become big in the 2020s but not every player has to play that way. If he had competent guard/big man play around him it wouldn’t look half this bad.

Secondly KD HAS led teams. I feel like most fans are new but he was the #1 option on his team from 2007-2016. He led a team to the finals.

His MVP year Westbrook was injured a lot and Okc was still great due to KD Leading.

Kds playmaking in comparison to LeBron is one of the reason WHY LeBron is the better player but I don’t like this angle of Kd of being bad.

Third point Durant is 7ft tall. What other 7fter is expected to be the main ball handler. It’s kinda cooked. Especially at 37 when he doesn’t have the acceleration he used to.

Rockets are a worse watch then orlando and portland

Not a fair comparison. Lebron is a point forward guy who can get guys good looks. Not really Durants game. And the Lakers doubled Durant a lot and forced him to give it up…otherwise he’d get a lot more shots up

I watched Sengun today im not putting any of this on KD he should be a better playmaker but this team is legit lost without him.

Nah that’s too harsh on KD. 9 turnovers is not representative of his career, and these are exceptionally mid teammates. Lebron assessment accurate tho

Kd doesn’t think that’s his job, never has. He doesn’t understand haha

This game is a testament of how much Russ, Steph, Dray, Harden, Kyrie and Book have helped alleviate KD’s ball handling load.

Sure, he is aging, getting slow and got almost no drive burst left, but it’s been a pattern in his career that when he isn’t paired with an elite shot creator or playmaker, he gets doubled easily and loses the ball more often than not. It wasn’t as visible when he was younger and healthier, but now that he’s asked to carry so much ball handling duties without elite teammates, it’s brutal to watch.

Steph was still the best player on those KD warriors. Actually you gotta credit D’Anthony and Ty Lue for seeing that the superteam STILL ran through its offensive engines in Steph and Dray. KD was just the unmatched outlet of their offensive system. The last bazooka nobody expected but proved lethal cause you had your hands full with the splash bros. The two rival coaches geared everything towards KD iso-ing. Let him cook, but let him cook alone. KD wasn’t good enough to involve others (whether it was through screening or simple passing), so you knew he was likely to go and score himself. Let them go into their split action with KD in the high post, or receiving the screen. It don’t matter. For the other coaches, It was better damage control than letting the splash brothers and QB-Draymond run the show.

Kerr ran the opposite but riskier actions vs the 2017 cavs: the gameplan was to double Kyrie, cause LeBron was tryna set him up. They let Iggy and Durant try to guard LeBron 1v1 while the rest geared towards stopping Irving. The more iso-prone a star player is on a team, the likelier the success when double teaming him.

If I’m the Rockets I stick KD in a corner and let the others run the offense and just let KD be the corner outlet. He’ll hit more than half of them. He’s just not a facilitator and running the double at him wastes half the shot clock by the time someone else gets the ball to do something with it.

Rockets are screwed with him or without him it doesn’t matter. Lakers are playing great defense. Probably the best they’ve played in the LeBron era the last two games. These coaches get paid to figure shit out.

If you look at their matchups outside of KD playing on a 73-9 team it’s really not even close. LeBron is so much better

Swap Jimmy straight up for Lebron in the Jimmy heat years… do they win Chip?

This is somehow worse writing than what chat gpt spits out.

This post by OP is accurate…

KD is more like of a one on one type of player… meanwhile LBJ is a team oriented player…

And also KD has no leadership skills at all, not like LBJ…

And the last point by OP, Sengun is a joke… KDs burner account is right…

Lebron is just better than KD. Plain and simple. It’s also the fact that lebrons support cast is also showing up like smart and kennard while sengun and sheppard are not. KD can’t do everything. Also houston doesn’t have a true PG which is really hurting them cause no one can move the ball and create plays while lakers have one of the best playmakers ever in Lebron.

KD is not a leader

I hate the Lakers but gotta respect what they’ve been able to do these past two games

Yes, I know KD never will be a leader from his first play off season.

Yuu think KD had a good performance?!?!

He’s just not a good enough playmaker and the Rockets are ass.

The ultimate buzzword salad

And if you had them swap places then the Rockets would be the ones up 2-0.

How is it a good individual performance if he has 9 turnovers?

KD had a bad performance, 9 turnovers is atrocious. The double teams completely shut him down.

Well, at least people will get off his Dickerson after tonight.

Lebron cooked KD.

They were never really comparable players.

This is a BS take. The lack of a playmaker has hindered Houston all season. The Lakers did masterful job of making KD give up the ball in the second half and his teammates failed to score.

This was a terrible game for KD lmao, not a summary for him at all. This feels like blatant disrespect to a guy who played well below his own standard.

JJ forcing the team to golf together is an underrated part of coaching that Ime will never comprehend.

both plays a diff role. star players doesn’t mean versatile. bronto is athletic and will always be able to play all roles due to the nature of who he is at a very high level.

KD has always been about iso and pure scoring. put KD with a point guard like halli and he can drop 50 easily.

To be fair, this falls more on sengun than on KD. Throughout his career, KD is a pure scorer. He is more of a Kobe, he needs someone to dominate for him to be effective (Shaq) or he can be dominant but needs someone to take advantage of the defensive gaps he creates ( Pau Gasol). Sengun fails to do either. LAL had been throwing double team to KD and KD had passed the ball to the open man but the team had failed to capitalize on that.

Rough go, guy comes back from a knee contusion (most likely) early at the ripe age of 37… has a bad game for his standards and gets the blame.

Udoka is to blame, not KD.

KD always strikes me as a guy that sees people that don’t work as hard as him as pathetic.

Not a good leadership quality but not necessarily a fault of his.

When I seen he had 20 at the half on good shooting I knew he was gone pull a playoff KD. Make 1 or 2 more shots and cause a bunch of turnovers lol

There was a line about , I think, Vince Lombardi, t that he could take his and beat yours and take yours and beat his. LeBron is that iñ the flesh 

Lebron has a losing finals record playing only on super teams in the eastern conference

Maybe one of them don’t have burner accounts trashing his own teammates on social media.

Excellent post and agree with everything you said. Edit: not being facetious I legit like this post.

LeBron is better than KD? Wow never thought of that.

If he is such an amazing general why did he have to leave Cleveland to win? If he is such a commanding leader who elevates his players why did he lose two championships while playing on super teams?

KD and LeBron are the same to me. Both are amazing players who had to join another alpha’s team to win anything.

KD is the modern day jordan. Statpaddder who is hoping for the team to be there for him.

But jordan would not have 9 turnovers