Leave it to Dan Gilbert. Throughout this series there has been no shortage of glaring opportunities for him to look justified in blasting the officiating, and yet - being the big old basketball brain that he is - he somehow managed to pick the one game in which it appeared the whistles were being blown in his team's favor instead of in their direction. Admittedly, the road team boasting a 13-0 disparity in free throws seems extremely odd, but that's not because it looked as though the refs were playing some dirty pool, but rather because a noticeable amount of nitpicking was actually benefiting the Cavaliers. Having watched the first half, instead of just bickering at its box score, it would be impossible to come to the conclusion that both Draymond Green and Steph Curry were deserving of the three fouls they each carried back into the locker room. As someone who had their fingers crossed that Cleveland would make this a series, not once during the first half did I feel as though the officials were working against that goal. Therefore, at the risk of exposing my own tin foil cap, I'm going to say the difference in shooting fouls could probably be attributed to LeBron James spending the early portion of the game facilitating open jumpers as opposed to attacking the rim, as well as Cleveland's undeniable ability to remain more steps behind than your gimpy grandfather on their own end of the floor. The Cavaliers make offense look hard when they are on offense, and they make offense look easy when they are on defense, so perhaps the fact that the charity stripe isn't meant to provide actual charity to those in need could have contributed to the contrast in trips to it? I mean, as much sense as it makes for the NBA to conspire to get this star-studded series over quicker, I just thought I would introduce those theories, even if they are a bit craAaAazier than using a small sample size of one particular stat to imply that the fix is in. In all fairness to a man that doesn't even really deserve to have his actions judged justly, I can't really blame Dan Gilbert for angrily throwing some shit at the wall before realizing what he had done and trying hopelessly to scrub his fecal post off the internet before anyone saw. Despite being up 6 at the time, there's not a person on the planet that thought that lead was safe. The Cavaliers came out firing on all cylinders, took advantage of a half in which the 'Splash Brothers' couldn't hit the pool from the diving board, and - with the snake's rattle already warning everyone that his fangs might make an appearance - entered the dreaded third quarter with but a lousy two possession lead to show for it. Dan Gilbert searching for something...no...anything to preemptively blame for what was about to come is really just symbolic of how hopeless this Cavaliers team is against this Warriors team. This is why no reaction could be considered an overreaction to Cleveland wasting LeBron James' historic Game 1 effort in unforgivable fashion. Steph Curry was bound to follow it up with a night where the entirety of Oracle Arena offered itself up to him as an orifice after he put on one of his patented shooting displays. Given the workload that he hasn't had to carry, Kevin Durant was bound to have a night where he put that excess energy into looking like the unstoppable alien that he is. Given the workload he has been carrying, LeBron James was bound to have night where he looked...::audible gasp::...human. I guess the point is that Dan Gilbert really had no choice but to blame the officiating, no matter how fair it was at the time. The only alternative would have been blaming his own cheap ass for letting the architect of Cleveland's first championship team in over half a century walk over the well-deserved raise he refused to give him. Definitely easier to slap some asterisks next to a free throw imbalance than admitting that your frugality may have predictably sabotaged what will likely be LeBron's last season before it even started.
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