NBA Playoffs Thread

I've been there for a while now. And I'm a Pistons fans, so I can bitch.

Shitty coaching, lazy defense. Both, but more of the former. Whoever guarded LeBron was on an island. Tayshaun, Chauncey, Rip. All of them got crossed up and blown by during LeBron's explosion. The Cavs simply spread the floor and let him go to work.

Instead of double or triple teaming him as he penetrated, the Pistons just let him go. I don't care how much of a zone he was in, when LeBron is double or triple teamed, he'll pass the ball. But last night, to whom? Z and Gooden - both threats to hit the 10-15 foot jumper, mostly Z - were fouled out. Varaejo is no threat to score from anywhere outside of six feet. Marshall has been atrocious this series. Gibson was having an off night (when he was actually in the game since he was switching back-and-forth with the biggest non-scoring threat on the team in Eric Snow). Bottom line, the Pistons had TOO MUCH respect for the Cavs supporting cast and hardly left who they were guarding to help out on LeBron. It was sickening to watch, I don't care how in the zone LeBron was.

 

Simply amazing. The greatest single-game performance by a Cleveland athlete ever. Downtown Cleveland was rocking after the game tonight. With Saturday's Game 6 being played here, coupled with the Indians certain beatdown of that other Detroit team, we're going to have a party like never before.

And it's not even the Finals yet.

 

You sound pretty confident, fanboy.

 

Leave him alone. He's from Cleveland. When have they ever had a chance to be happy about sports since 1948?

 

LeBron's performance has wiped away all doubt about Game 6. I had the deja vu feeling throughout the series that this would end up just like last year, where the Cavs won the middle three games but choked away the series. But no longer. Nothing that happened in the past applies. This is new territory, with the greatest player in this city since Jim Brown leading the way. Last night was the greatest clutch performance by a Cleveland athlete since Albert Belle stepped to the plate in the bottom of the 11th inning of Game 1 of the 1995 ALDS against Rick Aguilera with his team down by a run. The only thing missing was LeBron pointing to his flexed muscle as he walked off the court.

Of course, Charlie Brown always believed he would kick the football the next time ...

 

Watching the highlights this morning, all I could think about was the column on ESPN.com a few years ago where Phil Jackson's lackey, Charley Rosen, wrote this after the Cavs got the No. 1 pick:

A note to long-suffering Cavaliers' fans: Don't get caught in the LeBron James pipe dream. The best King James can ever be is an average NBA player.

Ouch.

 

NDub: You can bitch all you want, but you're bitching to deaf ears. Your team(s) have won championships recently. Cleveland teams? Not so much.

Doc: No, we have not had much to celebrate lately (though 1995 and '97 were nice), but the last major championship for a Cleveland team was 1964, when the Browns shut out the heavily-favored Baltimore Colts, not 1948.

TSP: I realize we're cut from the same sports fan cloth, but when I think about the first game of the 1995 ALDS, I tend to remember the 13th inning, when little Tony Pena hit a homer for the win.

I grew up just outside Cleveland and I have always braced myself for the worst. (Even last month, a few minutes after the Cavaliers held off the Nets for a 1-0 lead in the conference semis, I turned to Ms. Bobcat and said, "OK, they'll win this series, but they're still going to lose to the Pistons in seven.")

But something about this team, this year ... I don't expect the Cavaliers to win a championship, not now, but a trip to the NBA Finals after an up-and-down season, after all the talking heads talking smack about LeBron James, after 43 years of mostly misery, yeah, that would be nice. That would make me smile. That would make a lot of Clevelanders smile.

 

Orange Hat Bobcat: What you said!

 

Me, too. Tony Pena's HR was the greatest moment in Jacobs Field history and will be hard to top. Nothing short of a World Series victory clinched at home will do it, and even that will be hard to knock the Pena HR from the perch. That HR was just the perfect moment to cap the Indians rise from the ashes.

But it would never have happened if Albert Belle hadn't saved the Tribe with a bottom-of-the-11th HR off Aguilera to keep the game going.

 

I don't get the people who are calling out LeBron's critics. IMO his play in Games 1 and 2 warranted criticism. His play in Games 3 and 4 deserved praise, and last night's performance can't possibly receive enough adulation. Now if he goes out and shits the bed in Games 6 and 7 does that mean we shouldn't have praised him for those good games? I don't like the people who always snap back and act like someone shouldn't have been criticized. Great for LeBron to answer his critics, but to act like the criticism wasn't justified doesn't fly with me.

Now if his critics are acting like their comments somehow inspired LeBron's performance then that's just asinine. And if some moron like Skip Bayless still finds a way to criticize him after last night then that'd be ridiculous.

 

He hasn't showed up on 1st and 10 since since LeBron started dropping clutch shots in game 3.
Not only is LeBron saving the NBA but he's also saving 1st and 10.

 

Sure he can save the NBA, but saving 1st and 10 -- let's not get ahead of ourselves. God himself couldn't save that show.
Bayless will be slamming LeBron Monday if he doesn't score 50 Saturday. Guaranteed.