A lot has been made of LeBron James’ game winning shot over the Orlando Magic, in Game 2 of the NBA East Finals.
You can’t take anything away from a guy that catches and shoots from 25 ft with a guy in his face and 1 second remaining on the clock. It’s a skill set even few NBA players possess. There’s a reason the Cavs weren’t inbounding to Anderson Varejao. And you can’t expect the highlights to not dominate SportsCenter, certainly when said player is commonly referred to as “The Chosen One” by fans and insiders alike.
What will undoubtedly be missed in all the post game hoopla will be the actual events that got us to this point – and that is a disappointment.
I’m going to bypass the details of the Magic’s actual comeback. For context’s sake, it was a relentlessly chippy, grueling display, orchestrated over the course of 2.5 quarters and 23 points. It’s something you rarely see in professional basketball – the type of effort that is almost exclusively saved for the play-offs, where time is actually a constrained resource.
As time wound down in the 4th quarter, the game took on a borderline WWE feel, as if Vince McMahon and the Rock were somewhere lurking in the locker rooms, just waiting for LeBron to challenge somebody for the NWA TV Title. There were mystery calls and make-up calls, bouts of non-contact contact, and official conferences that saw personal fouls overturned as travels (thats right, travels). In one stretch so many charges were taken, even Shane Battier was uncomfortable. Oh, and don’t forget that great NBA rule that enables a team to advance the ball, via warp zone, from under the basket on one side of the floor, to the total opposite side of the floor, simply by calling time out. Can somebody tell me why this makes sense?
All that said, it was an entertaining game, and to say that the Magic stepped up, even when the future looked bleak (or even predetermined), is an understatement. As a guy whose passion for NCAA hoops is only matched by the players’ themselves, I was impressed by the Magic’s desire and effort, from top to bottom. It seemed no matter who checked in – Marcin Gortat, Courtney Lee, Mickael Pietrus, even J.J. Redick – the level of intensity never diminished.
I don’t think it’s even necessary to speak to the clutch play of Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu down the stretch. Hedo’s play in the final 60 seconds of basketball was the stuff that makes guys named Hedo household names in Indiana. LeBron was LeBron, single handidly willing his way through the lane and to the hoop. Carrying the city of Cleveland on his back.
Alas, Hedo will be better known for being the victim of a driving cut, only moments before becoming the Craig Ehlo to LeBron’s Michael Jordan.
This is truly unfair.
Without becoming too Encyclopediac, there are distinct differences between LeBron’s game winner last night and Michael Jordan’s dagger against Cleveland in 1989*.
Let me emphasize that LeBron’s version took place at home, in Game 2, on a catch and shoot situation, in a seemingly man on man defense, against a defender with the closing speed of a tree.
I’ll spare you the fact that in order to get open, Michael had to weave his way in and out of oncoming traffic. I won’t make Michael’s coming to the ball, placing him farther away from the basket, as an actual obstacle to scoring. I’ll gloss over details, like the ones where he needs three dribbles simply to position himself and his body in such a way to square up and get a reasonable look at the basket. I’ll ignore the fact that Craig Ehlo was actually playing defense, so much so, that Michael released the ball on the way down. Oh, and did I mention that if Michael misses, the Bulls go home?
Think Michael’s shot didn’t hurt? Look at Craig Ehlo. Look at him. That’s the face of a man that did everything he could, yet could not stop the greatest player to have ever lived, at a time, when his legend was yet to exist. It’s the face of man who just watched a chance at the NBA Finals go down the drain. It’s the face of a guy that just realized he became the punchline for somebody else’s game winning shot.
LeBron, your shot was amazing. It truly was. But it wasn’t even in the same hemisphere. Frankly, you shouldn’t have even been able to catch.
Why Stan Van Gundy is in a man to man, I’ll never know. Why he isn’t over playing LeBron, completely denying a catch, I can’t answer. Why he guarded LeBron with the likeness of a lamppost, is beyond me. Why Hedo actually thought LeBron was going to go back door, where the best that could happen (from LeBron’s perspective) is a tie, I couldn’t tell you. For the life of me, I can’t explain why a shot, so hard, was allowed to be so easy. Maybe LeBron’s talent makes it seem effortless, or maybe, after tirelessly coming back for 47 minutes and 59 seconds, Van Gundy and the Magic were just thoughtless.
In any event, see you in Orlando. You know, for game 3?
*At the time, the first round of the NBA Play-offs was a best of 5 game series.
