Continued - Aside from last year with KG and Pierce, the most talent that he's ever played with was in his final year in Phoenix, where, even as the 4th option, he was the go-to guy for that team. A lot of people forget that he got some freakish eye injury in that 2005 series against Dallas, which forced him to miss the final 4 games of said series, as well as the first 2 games against the Spurs, and I believe that, had he been able to play from game 1, that series against the Spurs might have been very different. I'd still expect San Antonio to have won, but not in 5 games, and not on the Suns' home court. Check him out in this clip when he's going up against, again, the best defense in the league, or, at least one that was tied equal to Detroit in that distinction that year. He's being defended by Ginobili, Bowen, Parker, and even Duncan on switches, and they couldn't do anything with him, despite his eyegear
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmSSYeHSq0UFinally, at least to me, it seems that, the more accomplished his teammates are, the more lethal he's been. Especially in the postseason. He's probably your 1b scorer if his partner in crime was Pierce, but in crunch time, I'm going to Joe. Now, the reason why I think he's better than Ray also has to do with the playoffs. Johnson may not have always had the best of outings (whether that's because of injury and/or defense, idk), but at least he's consistently showed up lol. As great as Ray Allen was, he was all Katy Perry in the playoffs for us (hot and cold, up and down, blah blah blah
) almost every year. In 2008, he got destroyed by JJ seemingly at will, and only got worse in the next series. There was even a game where he DIDN'T SCORE. Yes, Cleveland's defense was excellent, but the way that they shut him out completely for the ENTIRE SERIES was pretty alarming, and his high for points was 16 in game 2. He scored 4 POINTS in game 7 (a trend which would unfortunately continue in 2010), and his best shooting game was 4-10. If he wasn't scoring, he wasn't giving you a lot of anything else, and I remember a lot of people on here being worried about it, because that should not have been a 7 game series. It should have been over in 5, but we couldn't win on the road, and might have lost game 5 if Rondo hadn't saved us. Personally, I think Doc's 'offense' was mostly to blame, but still, the guy averaged 9.3 ppg on 32.8% from the field and 16.7% from 3 while being guarded by Wally World. Really, Ray? I know that Pierce had a turrible series as well, as everyone did aside from KG, but at least he was guarding and being guarded by Lebron. Ray really only regained his form about midway through the Detroit series iirc, before having an excellent Finals, but you can't deny that he just flat out disappeared, and for long stretches.
What about the 2009 series against Chicago? Yes, he hit some incredible shots and had that unreal 51 points in game 4, but he started the series off with a 1-12 showing in game 1, and was shut down by JJ Redick against Orlando, lol. Do I even need to mention his 3-14 performance in game 7? Ugh. I'm not blaming him for game 3 against the Lakers in 2010, btw, because Artest kneed him in the thigh on his first jump shot, in a typical display of class (sarcasm), and I know how incredibly clutch he was, but I believe that Joe would have been a better fit - on both ends. Especially in crunch time, when plays break down and guys sometimes have to go one-on-one, and the ability to have 2 guys who could create their own shots would have been amazing. Ray just wasn't that kind of player. I'm sure that you'll disagree with me here, and that's okay, but I just wanted to get all of that out there. Now where do I hand this paper in, lol?
Topic: Joe Johnson and Paul Pierce - the duo that never was (Read 9613 times)