Trust me, I am the last person to start referencing unwritten rules. The mere idea that they even exist is one of the main reasons I hardly watch any baseball until October, so I am not going to say that Paul George broke some phantom code of honor. I won't even say something ridiculous like he inevitably lost his team the game by slamming home a insanely flashy, completely unnecessary 360 dunk during the first quarter of a 1 point, must-win game. On the other hand, I will say that his team stood next to no chance of winning after he did so. I enjoy gratuitous displays of athleticism and showmanship as much as the next guy, but there is a time and a place for them. That time is not the beginning stages of Game 7, and that place is definitely not your opponent's home floor. Call it karma. Call it fate. Call it whatever the hell you want as long as you admit that that particular play carried some bad juju. I have no problem with a player wanting to embarrass his opposition, but he damn well better wait until that opposition is dead and buried. Let's just say that being up 21-20 with 4 minutes left in the opening frame probably isn't the proper time to try to piss on the gravestone. What Paul George did was the equivalent of a baseball player bat flipping on a lead off double in the second inning of a World Series clincher. It was like a football player doing his opponent's end zone dance before that opponent has even stepped foot on offense during the Super Bowl. It was like a hockey player needlessly starting a fight when his team has the lead and all the momentum in a playoff game. It was a plea to the sports gods to rain down hellfire on Paul George for treating a Game 7 like it was the 'And 1 Mixtape Tour'. Some will say that this missed call on his alley-oop pass when the game was on the line was the gravest of injustice, but all you have to do is hit the rewind button to see it was actually the most poetic of justice...
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