Welp, if nothing else, we got treated to an example of how little LeBron James has had to work with this postseason that's so glaring that it would leave J.R. Smith squinting mindlessly into its replay. I think we all wish that it didn't come at the expense of debatably the best game that the Cleveland Cavaliers have played throughout these playoffs and/or potentially sabotaged the competitiveness of a series that just started. Still, it's all-but-impossible to come away from that sequence - in which a short-armed, go-ahead foul shot in the final seconds was compounded in stupidity by the type of situational awareness that you'd expect from a second grader that suffers from ADD - without treating as fact that what the best player in the league has been able to accomplish in his 15th season is largely in spite of his team. On a night in which LeBron casually posted the most efficient 51 points and 8 assists you'll ever come across, he was left holding an 'L' because his own teammate literally ran away with any possibility of a 'W'. Unfortunately, as crazy as it seems given how clueless a professional basketball player has to be to not know the score of a Finals game in the waning seconds, the truth is that it would be disingenuous to put the full focus of the blame on J.R. Smith. After all, he was merely the only obstacle that LeBron James was unable overcome, as opposed to the only one put in front of him. What we saw in the 4th quarter of road game against one of the most talented teams in the history of professional sports was basically a game show in which the producers had the one common goal of seeing LeBron James off with the depressing toot of a trombone. Between the undeniable stank of the home cooking that had referees building up to their grand finale of summoning an idiotic rule that no one knew existed to overturn the result of a hugely consequential coin flip...
...and the sheer senselessness of a presumably comatose head coach that was too busy fulfilling his main role as a suited spectator to put his hands together in a 'T' formation as confused chaos ensued...
LeBron James basically took the floor in overtime covered in the sewage that Jordan Clarkson kept splashing up every time he tried (and failed) to help after having trudged all the way up Shit's Creek almost solely on the strength of his paddle. J.R. Smith definitely contributed largely to the toughness of the travel by using the contaminated waters to finger paint the magnum opus of his limited mental capacity, but he wasn't the only anchor on board as the Cavaliers wasted the greatness they witnessed. He was just the one whose dumbstruck face we should all shame if this series ends in less than six.
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