It's pretty clear. The Hawks guy flopped, but LeBron had his hands in the small of his back. Didn't push but he sold the flop well. It's smart, really, and dumb of LeBron. If you feel hands on your back you have a good chance of baiting the ref. Def. needs to be fined for flopping though.
i'm pretty sure russell westbrook has historically been absolutely awful at last second shots, like 4-27 or something over some stretch. but i guess since my player getting an mvp is on the line then he now makes stephen curry look like a crappy shooter and just absolutely can't miss, even from 35 at the buzzer.
i'm starting to think lebron should bet a bonus championship for winning one with ty lue as his coach. two straight games ty wears lebron out and still loses the game at the end of a pathetic regular season where the cavs obviously don't care. either a) hold the team accountable and care and play lebron or b) sit lebron. i didn't even watch the game but i feel like i know how the 4th went just from the play-by-play. i mentioned this when d'antoni did it to harden against someone recently, but ty failed to rest lebron in the stupidest way possible. you're up 26 after 3 and you put lebron in the game to start the 4th? that's almost criminal. keep him out of the game and in case of emergency, break glass. but putting your star in when you're up huge? now if something goes wrong you didn't rest them and now you can't rest them. and even worse, things predictably go wrong because stars stop playing hard when they are up huge, especially guys like harden and lebron who have to drive a lot. so they half-ass it, trying to not use energy or get hurt, inevitably that plays a part in some quick 9-0 run or something, and then it's a 17 point game and coaches who aren't guys like pop get scared and decide their star has to play the rest of the game. so instead of just monitoring the 4th quarter and putting lebron in if things go wrong, he puts lebron in on cruise control, watches things go wrong, then panics and plays lebron 47 minutes. now sure, from the replays it looks like the cavs got fairly well and screwed on that jump ball with both hawks standing out of bounds and who, other than a rockets fan, could predict an overwhelmed hawks team suddenly going into beast mode in a 4th quarter to make an inexplicable comeback. but it's still stupid coaching.
2 additional notes. the hawks have no been involved in 3 of the most infuriating games for me this season. the 20 point rockets comeback that still pisses me off when i think about it and these last 2 cavs games, where a team that barely gives a **** somehow wins when resting all of their starters and then makes a historic 4th quarter comeback in the next game. they're like the bulls, an average team that goes long stretches looking like they hate each other and don't even like basketball, and yet they mess everything up. the hawks had two combined runs of 71-23 against the cavs to finish the last two regulations. earlier this year the rockets had the first 13 point, 4 and a half minutes left comeback for the entire nba in something like 3 or 4 seasons (and then immediately gave up the same comeback to the spurs). just in the last few weeks the clippers have blown an 18 point lead with 5 minutes to go, denver blew a 13 point lead with 4+ to go tonight, and the cavs blew a 17 point lead with 5:15 to go. crazy comebacks all of a sudden.
The timberwolves need a little more seasoning but they're going to be legit. I predict next season they'll be fighting for the eighth spot
how pissed are lakers fans? seriously as the lakers were bringing it up the court i was thinking "it's the wolves, people always hit shots against them and they always lose close games" and then even after a disaster of a possession the lakers down 2 drain a game-winning 3 on them. funny.
Up by 2pts, Thibs ISOs Rubio on last possession to secure the Win. lulz Followed by a wild finish on the other end
ignoring the fact that harden accounted for the same number of points as westbrook did tonight, something tells me if harden was dominating these last 5-7 games then suddenly it would become a season long award about all of westbrook's triple doubles and the last few games when seeding is already locked up wouldn't matter. whatever narrative it takes from the media for my player to not win the award.
Think positive. Its a Win Win. If Westbrook Wins MVP, I hope they present it to him when they play the Rockets and right in front of Harden's face. Then Sit back and watch Harden go to work.
Bazemore was out of bound at the end of regulation when he forced the jump ball. Can they not review that?
You clearly have no idea that this year they have an award show to present the trophies and if they did tell WB personally or it gets leaked they won't do it in Harden's face. Harden could only read it on Twitter if he uses it during the playoffs. Or have someone from the Rockets tell him.
What a pity they are doing it this way. Harden would of have the chance to bamboozle Westbrook if it was the other way.
