Mark Cuban reveals Dallas Mavericks’ thoughts on holding back LeBron James in 2011 Finals

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban recently revealed some details about the team’s zone defense, which he used to slow down the Miami Heat and LeBron James in the 2011 NBA Finals.

“The year we won, a long time ago, I remember it was a preseason game against Chicago,” Cuban said. “I thought, ‘Rick (Carlisle), can we play zone the whole game?’ Back then, no one practiced against zone.

“So if you run into a zone, they’re always caught off guard. And you can always get back into the game and extend the lead. He said, ‘That’s a great idea. Let’s give it a try. So we ran it It. We had a great season going into the Finals against Miami, playing zone defense against LeBron. All you had to do was give him pause because LeBron was always going to make the right move. game. He always wants to play the right basketball. When you’re facing a zone, you have to understand what they’re doing – is it matchup? Whatever it is, it slows him down. That gives Our advantage.”

It was impressive that Cuban and Carlisle were able to slow down James that season, especially after Miami’s Big Three won Game 1 of the NBA Finals against Dallas.

In fact, the Mavericks trailed 2-1 in that series, but the team fought back to win games four, five, and six to capture the championship.

That was James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade’s first season playing together, and they went on to make three NBA Finals together, winning two of them.

In the 2011 NBA Finals, James did not play his best basketball. The four-time champion averaged just 17.8 points in the series. He averaged 7.2 rebounds, 6.8 assists and 1.7 steals per game, but his scoring was well below his season averages.

In the series with Dallas, James really struggled in the fourth quarter. He failed to score in the fourth quarter of Game 4 and only scored two points in the fourth quarter of Games 2, 3 and 5.

Cuban is right about James’ mentality, as the future Hall of Famer is very good at making good decisions on the basketball court. Dallas seemed to want to prevent James from being the aggressor by playing a zone defense and letting James find the open man.

It certainly worked, as the team captured its only NBA championship in the Dirk Nowitzki era.

While that series wasn’t the best performance of James’ career, he did redeem himself in the playoffs. The 2011 NBA Finals kicked off eight seasons in which James reached the Finals each time.

He has now won four championships — two with Miami, one with Cleveland and one with the Los Angeles Lakers — and showcased his greatness countless times in the postseason.

James hopes to continue the glory days for the Lakers in the 2023-24 season, especially since the team reached the Western Conference Finals in the 2022-23 season.