With the Cavs down by 2 with just under 8 seconds to go, the ball is inbounded to Lebron James. He stands a few foot behind the 3 point line at the top of the arc, dribbles the ball for about 6.5 seconds with a defender right in front of him, then jacks up a well contested 3 which misses. Now if T-Mac had done that, do you think there would be trade T-Mac threads all over the GARM and people would be saying he is "not clutch" or "soft". Why does Lebron get away with this criticism? It was an awful play, he could have drove inside for an easy 2 for OT or even tried to run something to get someone an open 3 but instead he stood and then jacked a contested one. Thoughts?
I think he did that becasue that game didn't really matter, becasue if look it the Cavs are lock for the 4th seed.
I think that's a poor excuse. Does he not care about his teammates who have been putting effort in for a couple of hours that he thought he could just decide for himself the game doesn't matter??
Lebron didnt wanna be late to his party... http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2008...-caron-butler-to-have-dueling-parties-in-d-c/
Lol, of course I'm not suggesting our GARM should be full of trade Lebron threads but my point is people (non rockets fans lets say) criticize T-Mac as a chucker and non-clutch but you won't see them recalling this moment by Lebron in any of discussions in the future
LeBron is arguably one of the 2 best players in the league. He's 23. His prime is yet to come... He's taken his team to the NBA Finals with a weak supporting cast. He's going to be pursued heavily once he becomes a free agent in 2010 - with the Nets seemingly first in line to bring him to Brooklyn. The Cavs fans know what they have and they know that if they piss LeBron off - he may just bolt in a few years. TMac is none of the above. Not a top 2 player, no longer "young", possibly in or past his prime, never gotten past of the first round, and no one else has expressed interest in him. So he gets more criticism.
Maybe the shoot wasn't that bad but it was a bad decision by LeBron cause he knew he has been strugglin' to shoot the ball the wole night (1-7 from 3pt line)
the worst part was that he LET the clock bleed. what if you miss? don't you want a chance at a second attempt? let the clock bleed if you're tied. not if your losing. should've gone to the basket for 2 right away. the wiz had no timeouts left... what would they do tied with just seconds left? half court heave? stupid play call by mike brown.
and that's why Kobe is still better than Lebron. Kobe would have scored at the rim or been at the line shooting free throws.
critics will always be critics. I remember when lebron was being labeled as soft for passing to the open man instead of taking the shot.
Where exactly is Lebron 'getting away w/ criticism'? I'm seriously asking, I haven't watched highlights on ESPN or anything...did they defend Lebron taking that shot? And I think you're confusing the GARM w/ public perception of Tmac. The GARM overreacts 5x worse or better depending on the situation. Everyone is criticizing Lebron's shot on the Cavs message board I frequent. It was a horrible shot, and typically Lebron would drive 9 times out of 10 in that situation. He's had many last second winning shots this season (unfortunately...the Cavs are good enough to win but not good enough to put teams away) and it's rare for him to take such a poor shot. Last night was lousy and a big let down, considering they were down 5 w/ 30 seconds left and managed to get into a position to win or tie at the end. And the labels 'soft' and 'not-clutch' aren't thrown around w/ Lebron because he hasn't played that way this year or last. On the other hand, Tmac's inconsistent play earlier this season and last season left him open for it. Fortunately Tmac is now playing the way we all knew he could.
It may be a poor excuse, I didn't like what he did either. I'm just giving a reason to why he might have done it that way.
Kobe's shooting percentage in the clutch says otherwise. As for the Cavs, they have more come from behind 4th qtr wins than any other team in the NBA by a wide margin, so please just stop it
If you don't think Tmac is clutch, go watch game 2 of the Mavericks playoffs series a couple years ago.
