Seven years ago, Dwane Casey came to Toronto on the heels of winning a title as an assistant coach with the Dallas Mavericks.
The de facto defensive co-ordinator in Dallas, Casey orchestrated the defensive schemes that helped the Mavericks upset LeBron James and the Miami Heat in six games.
James was effectively shut down in the series. After averaging nearly 27 points and getting to the free throw line 6.5 times per game during the regular season, he was held to just 17.8 points and just three visits to the charity stripe per game while posting a shooting percentage below 50.
Barely a few hours had passed after, when, as the Mavs were out celebrating their first-ever championship, Casey was in negotiations to take on the head coaching position with the Raptors. A position that would come with the somewhat daunting task of turning around a franchise with, at the time, a seemingly bleak future.
Casey succeeded, establishing a string of franchise-bests and helping lead the Raptors to consecutive playoff appearances and their first ever conference finals.
But, like Dr. Frankenstein, he created a monster that would lead to his own playoff demise.
Following his Herculean 43-point, 14-assist performance against the Raptors in Game 2 of their second-round series last night, James took to the podium and, when asked about how his game has evolved, credited Casey’s defensive game-plan in that 2011 Finals for helping to shape the player he’s become:
“Dwane Casey drew up a game plan,” James said looking back at the Mavs-Heat series, “…to take away things I was very good at and to make me do things that I wasn’t very good at, so he’s part of the reason I am who I am today.”
If it sounds overly simplistic, that’s because it was.
I sat down with Casey earlier this season to tape an episode of Inside the Huddle, in which an ex-player or coach and I watch film of an iconic game they were a part of. Casey and I re-watched the Mavericks’ Game 2 win over the Heat in the 2011 Finals — a dramatic comeback in which James was “limited” to just 20 points.
The Mavs had success when keeping James contained to the perimeter. “We were blitzing the pick and roll with LeBron,” Casey recalled. With active defenders like Shawn Marion covering him, Casey worked to ensure that the driving lane was taken away from James in the hopes that it would force him to shoot jumpers, the clear weakness in his game at the time.
Of course, in Dallas, Casey had a far more experienced group that revolved around a bona fide superstar in Dirk Nowitzki who the Mavs could turn to when they needed a timely bucket — something the 2017-18 Raptors can’t claim. But the blueprint for how to beat James was put into place.
Fast-forward to Thursday night in Toronto, and Casey elected to defend James one-on-one. The myriad of mid-range shots James took are — in a vacuum — probably what you want if you’re trying to limit his impact on the game. It was certainly the case during that Mavs-Heat series.
This time, James had spent years turning a weakness into a weapon.
He went into Game 2 openly telling his teammates that if he gets a mismatch (read: any Raptor defender covering him man-to-man), those are the precise sorts of shots that he planned to unleash, with the confidence in 2018 that he can and will make them.
Great players who remain great for as long as James has — 15 years and counting — do so by embracing evolution and working to not only to add to their game, but learn from what history can teach them.
It’s why James’s game is as advanced as it is, and it’s why so many stars point to him as motivation to continually improve.
And, no, the irony that James is putting his better-rounded game into practice against the coach that made him realize exactly where he needed to get better is not lost on any of us.
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