AUBURN HILLS, MICH. - Forget about all the focus on LeBron James and his decision to pass at the end of Game 1. It turns out that the Cavaliers were fortunate that he was even playing in the fourth quarter. According to the rules, James should've been ejected late in the third quarter.
The NBA made no official announcement, but a league official confirmed Thursday that after a video review, NBA Senior Vice President Stu Jackson charged James with a flagrant foul-penalty 2 on a play with 1:20 left in the third quarter Monday night. Had it been called at the time, James would have been ejected.
There was no fine announced, but the usual for flagrant-2 is $5,000. Jackson could've suspended James for Game 2, but decided against it.
As James was following through on a jump shot, he elbowed Detroit Pistons center Chris Webber in the head with his right arm. Webber crashed to the floor. There was no foul called by the three game officials.
The maneuver was almost exactly the same as the two elbows Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant was suspended for during the season. As Bryant was falling after releasing jump shots on both occasions, he swiped at Manu Ginobili of the San Antonio Spurs and Marko Jaric of the Minnesota Timberwolves. He was suspended after each, with the NBA calling it ``an unnatural basketball act.''
Webber said he didn't feel James intended to hurt him on the play.
``I had jumped up there with him, and we made contact,'' Webber said before Game 2. ``I didn't think he did it on purpose.''
Though there was some chatter about the play on Internet sites and a clip was posted on YouTube, there was almost no media scrutiny of the play. Instead, all were reviewing James' decision to pass to Donyell Marshall with five seconds left.
Had the clip been replayed as often as Bryant's elbows, especially the one against Jaric after his first suspension, the NBA might have felt pressure to issue the same penalty.
More Z, please
There weren't a lot of offensive highlights for the Cavs in Game 1, with center Zydrunas Ilgauskas being the exception, scoring 22 points and grabbing 13 rebounds. ESPN analyst and former NBA coach Hubie Brown couldn't be happier that Ilgauskas played a prominent role.
``Centers can't pass the ball to themselves. When you have a center who can shoot like that, he keeps the defense honest, forces double teams, and you can't foul him,'' Brown said Thursday night. ``He's the total package.''
Brown said that, if he were the Cavs' coach, he wouldn't worry about the infamous last shot from the other night or Ilgauskas. Right now, guard play is the club's primary worry, he said.
As for James, he said that he feels sorry for the superstar, because right now he's not getting a lot of help.
``Every shot is a difficult shot for him,'' Brown said.
Z's big night
Ilgauskas said his performance in Game 1 pleased him, but he's not expecting to get some of the same wide-open looks the caused his eyes to bulge Monday night.
``I'm not going to try to score like that. I got some good looks,'' he said. ``I do the stuff that helps the team win.''
Dribbles
Cavs coach Mike Brown wasn't really up on news of the NBA Draft Lottery from Tuesday night. He has heard the names Greg Oden and Kevin Durant, and when informed they would likely be heading to Western Conference teams, he could barely contain his glee.
``I haven't watched those guys a lot, but people tell me they're impact players,'' he said. ``I'm just glad they're impacting the West first.''
YouTube inside a quote. That's next level shit right there.
On a another note. Chrissy Sheriden sees this as a chance to start up as much propaganda as possible..
I wrote him back. I had nothing to do for 20 minutes.
Look, I'm not going to lay a bunch of homer garbage on you. Did Rip Hamilton foul Lebron? Probably; hard to tell, but it seemed like it might have been called that way. However, you need to calm down about this. Officials do not like to blow the whistle to decide the game. The refs are not supposed to whistle everything that looks like contact, they are supposed to whistle clear fouls with evident intent. At home or on the road, it's very debatable whether Lebron would have gotten that call.
And frankly, you in particular should be especially circumspect when it comes to reporting what Detroit Pistons players do.
Having an awkward moment just to see how it feels.
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I wrote him too. Was too tired to remember what I said, but I do remember it had something to do with him basically saying it's wrong to show good sportsmanship. I mean he expressed outrage over the fact that the coach and a star player whose super famous both took the high road and set a good example for younger people imo. I remember Wade's classless ass whining himself sideways about rip hamilton doing that "bumping stuff" and swearing that it wasn't defense, but hacking after he lost. But would be the first one to be offended when Dirk put the blame on himself rather than the heat for losing the title.
Lebron and mike Brown helped the propaganda by bitching so hard during the game. But for a reporter to call them out for not whining is low ball attempts to increase false drama in this series and proof of sheridan's lack of ability to come up with anything worth a shit in the article department. I highly doubt he's expressing outrage over Lebron not getting suspended for popping webber in the mouth.
rollin through your neighborhood, middle finger up
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I should have included this in my 'calming words' post, but at halftime I did a bit of channel flipping and on Discovery they were rerunning the 'Dirty Jobs' episode with the alpacas. It continued into the third quarter when we made our run. Nuff said.
nice win and nice to be up 2-0. but if we don't play significantly better in cleveland, we'll get blown out and come back to detroit tied at 2-2.
i hope we pull our socks up and guys like billups and prince can have better offensive performances, leading us to a 3-0 lead. we really can't afford for this series to go 6 or 7 games or we'll lose to the spurs like we did in 2005.
So Sheridan is bitching about RIP's no call when Lebron pulled a Kobe?
Phil Wenneck: The man purse. You actually gonna wear that or are you just fuckin' with me? Alan Garner: It's where I keep all my things. Get a lot of compliments on this. Plus it's not a purse, it's called a satchel. Indiana Jones wears one.
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Originally Posted by Matt
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