I could not believe what I was seeing last night. After the Celtics pulled down consecutive offensive rebounds and reset their offense with a around a minute left to play, the Cleveland Cavaliers officially flew the white flag. Nevermind the fact that their deficit was a possible-yet-difficult-to-overcome nine points, Cleveland was content to play defense and try for stops.
"Hey, you guys got some cap space, right?"
Without a rooting interest in this series, I still found myself yelling at the TV to foul, pressure the ball, do something, other than let the clock run out on the NBA’s best regular season team. Even after the Cavs got the ball back, Mo Williams seemed content to race around for 15 seconds trying to get the perfect shot, and didn’t look to get the ball into LeBron’s hands, instead finding Sideshow Bob Anderson Varejao for a three that clanged off the rim, and the rest was a formality.
My heart would like to see LeBron stay in Cleveland, but my gut says that just won’t happen. If Mike Brown is canned as head coach (as he probably should be; Shaq and Z had no business playing so much last night), the odds of LeBron coming back increase dramatically, but without a pretty big roster overhaul (again) I don’t see how Cleveland’s chances are any better than this year. There has to be someone that can really push LeBron and light a fire under his ass, and teach him some accountability. As Adrian Wojarnowski wrote:
The next time you hear James, as the franchise star, say, “This was on me,” will be the first.
It’s a terrible thought that LeBron, the single most naturally gifted basketball player of this generation, still has so much to learn about accountability.
