It’s time for Super Pissed LeBron
Published by The Cavalier May 1st, 2006 in LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers, Washington Wizards, Refs, Gilbert Arenas
Who’s the angriest boy in the whole magical kingdom today?
We actually wrote up our Cavaliers-Wizards Game 4 thoughts immediately following the travesty yesterday, but it was beyond incoherent, and considering most everything we compose is 64% unreadable anyway, we decided to refrain from publishing it.
Here’s the deal, okay? If you’ve been a Cavs fan this year, the “comfortable halftime lead” has been a mixed blessing. While it’s nice to have, the team will, without fail, come out flat in the second half and immediately allow the opponent back in the game. This is exactly what happened last night.
That said, they got freaking totally jobbed by the officiating, as well. Four offensive fouls on Bron? Four?
“It seems like they are trying to take my aggressiveness away,'’ James said. “It seems like I’ve had more offensive fouls called on me in this series than the first 82 games combined.'’
“I don’t know how LeBron James could be on the floor for 45 minutes and pick up four offensive fouls. To me, it is shocking,'’ Cavs coach Mike Brown said. “It’s tough to overcome.'’
That’s nice, Mike, but you’ve got two days to go all Eddie Jordan on these guys. HIs handiwork netted the Wiz a 34-21 advantage in fouls and put Gilbert Arenas on the foul line 17 times.
Forget this game - there are bigger issues here. Someone in the league office needs to lay down the law on flopping. It’s gotten beyond ridiculous - tell the players to stop falling down, and this includes the Cavs. Period.
Tell the refs that just because somebody falls down, it doesn’t automatically equate to either a charge or a block. In fact, they should assess a technical foul for anything determined to be a flop. It’s annoying as shit to watch and disrupts the flow of the game.
We’re sorry about the lack of jokes, but we’re no less angry this morning than we were last night. A perfectly awesome day of NBA basketball was ruined for us by various people doing various things.
So the refs are now giving LeBron all the calls and shafting the cavs at the same time?
Somebody impartial needs to step in and sort this out…EVERY fan is crying foul in EVERY series. It’s not a new thing, but it’s out of control this year.
You guys fell victim to the “2nd Half Collapse..(sponsored by Geico)”
I didn’t say he was getting all the calls - he wasn’t getting anything.
Every time he tried to drive in the second half, he’d get called for something. It made the Cavs completely revert to the “stand around and watch one guy dribble” offense.
This loss is all on the Cavs - they stopped moving the ball and lost all their aggressiveness is the 2nd half. Mike Brown didn’t adjust to what the flow of the game was giving us.
The refs did not help at all, however - it was completely imbalanced officiating, and the numbers back that up.
Don’t worry, I am going to investigate this to it’s fullest since I have no team in the playoffs. I’ll publish my results tomorrow.
full acountability.
Again, much of the joy is drained out of this potentially funny post by the fact that you are the world’s biggest baby. When your team wins, the Cavs are awesome, Lebron is chosen, and all is right with the universe. When they lose, it’s everyone else’s. Eddie Jordan did it by pointing out some bad calls that went in the Cavs favor. The refs did it by derailing what otherwise would have been a perfect game. Boo hoo.
You know what? There are hard fouls in the NBA: everybody who saw that play with Haywood besides you knew it was clean. Hard, but clean. And the zebras were blowing lots of whistles yesterday, but Lebron was being stupid. When he saw that he wasn’t getting the calls, he could have brought it up court less. But, he insisted on driving hard and made life easy for tough juice. Gasp, could it be because he’s inexperienced? Oh jeez, am I banned from the site for pointing out his shortcomings?
In conclusion, this is getting old. It’s possible to be a fan without being annoying. Don’t go Bill Simmons on us.
Obviously Lebron is off-the-map good at basketball, but he needs to watch himself. He was being really pouty when things weren’t going his way in the second half, like ‘don’t the referees and the Wizards know they’re only witnesses for the Lebron show?’
Maybe he’ll get over this as he gets older, but having been anointed so young is obviously having an effect. Because he was being a bitch last night in the second half, and it took him out of his game.
Zack,
When did I say the Haywood foul wasn’t fine? I clearly mentioned it the other day only in response to Wizards fans who are claiming this series is fixed. Point out where I said it was a dirty play, because I don’t think it was at all.
What part of this statement is blaming everyone else?
This loss is all on the Cavs - they stopped moving the ball and lost all their aggressiveness is the 2nd half. Mike Brown didn’t adjust to what the flow of the game was giving us.
I’m completely biased and have never made a secret of it, but I think I’m pretty fair. Go read through February in the Cavs archive and see how I tore them up when they were playing like retards.
And have I ever banned anyone? Where’d that come from?
And the flopping is a problem - the Cavs do it as much as anyone, especially Snow and Varejao.
The officiating was rough, but my biggest gripe was with the strange change in offensive game plan in the third quarter. All first half the Cavs dumped the ball in to Z, and even though he wasn’t scoring a lot, most of the Wiz D would cave in to swat at him, and then he could bounce it out to someone (okay, LBJ) with an open shot or a lane. Brown took Z out in the 3rd, and the shooting % went in the dumper. When Z went back in later and they went back to what was working in the first 2 quarters, the damage was already done and the teams were just trading baskets and running out the ten point trail train.
I was so angry I threw a baby at my TV. A BABY. You think my wife was happy about that? No. No she wasn’t. But then she said, “Why isn’t Z in the game?”
When LeBron starts making 3s he falls in love with it - you could see it yesterday.
As unselfish as he is, he’s always aware of records and stats.
That sucks about the baby. You should probably get rid of it now.
i misread the haywood comment…my mistake. the banned comment was a joke. but taken in context with the rest of my rant i can see why you didn’t read it as such.
Amen about the flops. Did you notice that when James Posey went all Artest on Kirk Hinrich, shoving him from behind out of nowhere, that he didn’t fall down? You know why? Because most of the time in life, no matter what happens to you, you don’t fall down. When was the last time you saw someone get punched in the face and fall down? That’s got to be worse than when someone touches Manu Ginobili’s shoulder, right?
My only problem with lebron is that he expects ppl to move out of the way when hes heading to the basket… umm this isnt the playground. why is he always surprised when he gets called a foul? whatever, if he makes it to the second round, it will be an easier win for my pistons, otherwise we have to deal with gilbert.
I’m not going to talk about the officiating much, enough’s been said. I loved the D.C. crowd and their eagle eyes for traveling and the TV commentators flogging the end of the game 3 over and over. Look people, travelling is rampant in the NBA. Virtually every dunk that’s not an alley-oop and half of all lay-ups come via travels. LeBron’s travels get noticed because more attention is focused on him than any player in the game, the series, or the entire playoffs.
The problem nobody’s mentioned is LeBron trying to be a good boy and pass all the time. And how can you blame him. All your life people tell you to involve your teammates. You’ve got guys wide open for threes in the corner. So you dish it off, and they either miss or let it bounce off their hand into the crowd like an idiot. (I’m looking at you, Damon Jones.)
And on that note, what are the Cavs paying Damon Jones for and how long is his contract, anyway? Yes, he’ll hit a great shot at a key moment once every half dozen games or so. This makes us forget that the rest of the time he throws up bricks, plays no D, and is generally a useless prima donna.
Mark my words, offseason priority A-#1 for the Cavs should be securing the services of a reliable outside shooter. Jones doesn’t cut it. Murray hits one sometimes. Hughes was supposed to help with that, and he doubtless would have if injuries hadn’t destroyed his season. But something has to be done.
I digress. The next stage in LeBron’s development must be the ability to shoulder the burden of carrying the team down the stretch. I don’t mean that he isn’t physically capable of doing it now, or even that he’s not mentally able to, it’s more of an emotional thing. Sooner or later he has to realize that he is the best player on the team by miles and he can’t count on his teammates to always pick up their game if he leads them by the hand long enough. Part of being a leader is not being such a nice guy when the situation calls for it.
They desperately need a legit point guard, as well.
Somehow in the postseason we’re back to LeBron bringing the ball up, when he needs to be either posted up or coming off screens on the wings.
A new offense and a PG to run it are essential.
The flops are silly. I remember Ben Wallace flopping to draw a charge on Iverson a couple years back - as if Iverson can knock him down with a baseball bat. In this regard, basketball has become soccer.
The other thing I hate is that bitching the whole game WILL get you calls. More bitching = more calls, so long as you don’t swear. Brown calmly comes over and chats with the refs. This has absolutely zero effect on them.
LeBron will be fine. He looked whiny because there were a lot of questionable offensive fouls called (both sides). Don’t worry Marshall and Jones’s outside shooting will come around any day now.
The cavs need a new pg, they need to move Larry Hughes (good luck) and get a shooting guard that can shoot. Get a rebounder that can defend. They also need to get rid of their entire bench and get some real players. Oh and a new offense.
Eddie Jordan is a baby. Look at Mike Brown taking the high road and not stooping to that baby’s level. I felt bad after someone called him a racial slur in Cleveland, but after his comments the other day I think he probably deserved it. He acts so smug and is proud of crying about the officiating. He should have been fined for his comments. So pissed.
i can’t understand why any of you would bitch about THE CAVALIER being biased towards the Cavs and LBJ. can’t you read his f*&#$ng nick!?! anyway, what can i say? it’s all a matter of perspective. the wizards fans are probably seeing the officiating much differently. one thing’s for sure, this blog is 100% hilarious!
I guess I’m wired differently than NBA officials. If some cry baby coach whined to the media about the job I was doing, I would screw that guy over to the point where he’d never open his mouth about the refs again.
Instead, these guys cower and try to make it up to Eddie Jordan. Eddie Jordan?!?!
LeBron walked. Get over it. If you want the refs to go completely by the book on the little things, then they’ll have to call “carrying” on every NBA player who walks the ball up the floor.