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Pissing Excellence
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["CLEVELAND: Thirty-one thoughts for 31 points from the Splash Brothers in an awfully impressive 110-99 takedown of the Golden State Warriors on Thursday…
1. Two weeks ago, on the Friday afternoon of All-Star weekend, LeBron James and Steph Curry joined NBA Commissioner Adam Silver for an NBA service project at a midtown Manhattan school.
2. At one point, a discussion about the MVP race surfaced. NBA TV’s Matt Winer, the event’s moderator, referred to James as a four-time MVP and to Curry as the favorite to win it this year. I wasn’t taking notes so I’m paraphrasing here, but James paused before offering a flimsy endorsement, agreeing with the idea Curry is the favorite to win. I remember thinking at the time, “There is absolutely no way he actually believes that.” His performance Thursday perhaps introduced his candidacy for a late run at a fifth trophy of his own.
3. James was out on the court shooting at least 2 1/2 hours before this game because he wanted to see the ball going in the hoop. It went in 23 more times during the game – 15 from the field, eight from the free-throw line on a night he fought a stiff back to produce one of his best performances of the season.
4. “If a guy plays like that with a sore back, imagine what he’s going to do when he doesn’t have a sore back,” David Blatt joked.
5. In 20 games since returning from his two-week siesta, James is second in the league in scoring (behind Harden) at 27.2 points. He’s also averaging 6.5 rebounds and 6.8 assists in that time. Most impressively: The Cavs are 35-12 when he plays and 2-10 when he doesn’t. Sounds like an MVP candidate to me.
6. James continues to downplay his interest in the race, but that seems to be a façade. He is acutely aware of his place in history and knows he is one more trophy away from tying Michael Jordan and Bill Russell with five. He’s two away from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s record of six.
7. “I think he took it a little personal,” J.R. Smith said. “A lot of MVP (discussions) and he’s not in that. But that’s just the competitive guy he is.”
8. If James loses out on the award this year, it will be because the first six weeks of the season were his undoing. Either that or else James Jones is right. I was chatting with Jones weeks ago about LeBron’s absence from seemingly all MVP debates.
9. “People get used to greatness,” Jones said. “They’re always looking for something new or fresh. Sometimes greatness becomes ordinary. But he’s the best player in the league.”
10. Warriors coach Steve Kerr joked before the game that Michael Jordan twice made it to three straight Finals and retired both times.
11. “It just absolutely saps the life out of you year after year, especially for a guy like LeBron who is the focal point of everything in this league and for his team, the energy he expends at both ends of the floor,” Kerr said. “He wasn't himself to start the season. How could he be after this four-year run? The fact that now he's motoring along and playing at a really high level speaks to his competitiveness. I think that break probably helped him quite a bit emotionally, just as much as it did physically.
12. Add up all of James’ preseason and postseason minutes, coupled with his Team USA commitments (13 games in 2012) and James has appeared in 415 games and played 15,674 minutes just during the time he was a member of the Miami Heat. Run the numbers: He crammed five full NBA regular seasons into the span of four years. For perspective, Kevin Love is in his seventh NBA season and has yet to play even 14,000 minutes for his entire career.
13. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything else,” James said. “I would love to keep getting drained. I’ve been part of five Finals and it’s very draining, but I’ll take it.”
14. Any celebration over this victory will have to wait until the results are back on Kyrie Irving’s MRI. It’s surprising, if he needs an MRI, that he was even put back in the game in the fourth quarter. The initial in-game injury update indicated Irving shoulder was “bumped” but he was fine. If he’s headed to the Clinic, clearly all is not well.
15. Irving is listed as doubtful for Friday’s game against the Pacers, a team that ended the Cavs’ 12-game winning streak three weeks ago at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. This is why the Cavs were searching for another point guard at the trade deadline. It will be curious to see which way Blatt plays this.
16. Common sense would indicate Matthew Dellavedova starts at point guard, but it wouldn’t completely shock me to see Iman Shumpert in the starting rotation. James is the pseudo point guard anyway and Shumpert has also played there in spurts this season. Again, the smart money is on Delly starting, but I don’t think that’s a lock at this point.
17. I was really impressed with J.R. Smith tonight. Twice he passed up wide open 3-pointers, hitting Kevin Love on a terrific look in the corner once and swinging to Irving for a 3-pointer another time. The defensive efforts from Smith, Shumpert and Irving were all impressive on the Splash Brothers, who combined to shoot just 10 of 30.
18. “Spectacular,” was how James characterized the backcourt’s defensive effort. “The New York boys did their job tonight.”
19. Curry shot 1 of 10 in the second half, including missing his final six shots. His final shot of the night was an air ball on a 3-point attempt in the final minute, sort of an indicator of how his entire night went.
20. “I hope (the MVP award) is not handed out on this one game,” Curry said. “I hope it’s about the body of work. Tonight wasn’t my best game. Shots that I normally make didn’t fall tonight.”
21. Funny moment after the game. Blatt said before the game he didn’t view this as a litmus test because, “I think we know what we’re capable of doing,” he said, “and I think we’ve shown that.”
22. So after the game I made the mistake of mentioning that whole litmus test thing before asking what kind of message this win sends to the rest of the league. Blatt asked what color litmus paper turns during a test, to which no one in the press conference had the answer. I guessed yellow, but I cheated my way to Cs in science. Blatt was shocked no one knew the answer, but of course he’s the Princeton grad.
23. “I didn’t study Chemistry,” he said. “I stayed as far away from the Chemistry department and Engineering quad at Princeton than you can imagine. I stayed in my English Literature area. Stayed in my lane. But whatever color litmus test was, then we passed the litmus test. We were a positive on that, yes.”
24. It was a long way to go for an answer to a fairly simple question.
25. “Somebody is going to be mad at me,” Blatt said. “I’m going to get a call from one of my friends who says, ‘You dummy, you don’t know anything.’ I know it’s going to happen.”
26. The Cavs continue to swallow up huge chunks of ground on the rest of East teams not named Atlanta. They have won all four of their games coming out of the All-Star break and have moved into first place again in the Central Division and third overall in the East, a game ahead of the Bulls. They’re now just 1 1/2 games behind the Raptors for the second seed and they play at Toronto next week. The Raptors enter the weekend on a three-game losing streak.
27. After Derrick Rose’s latest knee injury, Magic Johnson already took to Twitter to declare the Cavs Eastern Conference champs. James, however, isn’t getting caught up in predictions and declarations at this point, even when they come from a five-time champion.
28. “It means nothing, really,” James said of Magic’s tweet. “As a team we have to go out and we have to play. Words can only take you so far no matter who they come from. You have to go out and produce.”
29. The schedule is dramatically stiffening the next few weeks and this was a terrific way to kick it off, particularly since it was the only game of the night and the entire league was watching. The Cavs absolutely delivered a message to the other 29 teams, but guys were slow to admit that.
30. “We really don’t want to send a message to anybody, we just want to keep impressing ourselves,” Smith said. “I’m sure the rest of the league is looking at it like, ‘Oh my God they just beat arguably the best team in the league.’ But we feel as though we’re the best team.”
31. They just might be. Talk to you Friday from Indianapolis."]
1. Two weeks ago, on the Friday afternoon of All-Star weekend, LeBron James and Steph Curry joined NBA Commissioner Adam Silver for an NBA service project at a midtown Manhattan school.
2. At one point, a discussion about the MVP race surfaced. NBA TV’s Matt Winer, the event’s moderator, referred to James as a four-time MVP and to Curry as the favorite to win it this year. I wasn’t taking notes so I’m paraphrasing here, but James paused before offering a flimsy endorsement, agreeing with the idea Curry is the favorite to win. I remember thinking at the time, “There is absolutely no way he actually believes that.” His performance Thursday perhaps introduced his candidacy for a late run at a fifth trophy of his own.
3. James was out on the court shooting at least 2 1/2 hours before this game because he wanted to see the ball going in the hoop. It went in 23 more times during the game – 15 from the field, eight from the free-throw line on a night he fought a stiff back to produce one of his best performances of the season.
4. “If a guy plays like that with a sore back, imagine what he’s going to do when he doesn’t have a sore back,” David Blatt joked.
5. In 20 games since returning from his two-week siesta, James is second in the league in scoring (behind Harden) at 27.2 points. He’s also averaging 6.5 rebounds and 6.8 assists in that time. Most impressively: The Cavs are 35-12 when he plays and 2-10 when he doesn’t. Sounds like an MVP candidate to me.
6. James continues to downplay his interest in the race, but that seems to be a façade. He is acutely aware of his place in history and knows he is one more trophy away from tying Michael Jordan and Bill Russell with five. He’s two away from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s record of six.
7. “I think he took it a little personal,” J.R. Smith said. “A lot of MVP (discussions) and he’s not in that. But that’s just the competitive guy he is.”
8. If James loses out on the award this year, it will be because the first six weeks of the season were his undoing. Either that or else James Jones is right. I was chatting with Jones weeks ago about LeBron’s absence from seemingly all MVP debates.
9. “People get used to greatness,” Jones said. “They’re always looking for something new or fresh. Sometimes greatness becomes ordinary. But he’s the best player in the league.”
10. Warriors coach Steve Kerr joked before the game that Michael Jordan twice made it to three straight Finals and retired both times.
11. “It just absolutely saps the life out of you year after year, especially for a guy like LeBron who is the focal point of everything in this league and for his team, the energy he expends at both ends of the floor,” Kerr said. “He wasn't himself to start the season. How could he be after this four-year run? The fact that now he's motoring along and playing at a really high level speaks to his competitiveness. I think that break probably helped him quite a bit emotionally, just as much as it did physically.
12. Add up all of James’ preseason and postseason minutes, coupled with his Team USA commitments (13 games in 2012) and James has appeared in 415 games and played 15,674 minutes just during the time he was a member of the Miami Heat. Run the numbers: He crammed five full NBA regular seasons into the span of four years. For perspective, Kevin Love is in his seventh NBA season and has yet to play even 14,000 minutes for his entire career.
13. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything else,” James said. “I would love to keep getting drained. I’ve been part of five Finals and it’s very draining, but I’ll take it.”
14. Any celebration over this victory will have to wait until the results are back on Kyrie Irving’s MRI. It’s surprising, if he needs an MRI, that he was even put back in the game in the fourth quarter. The initial in-game injury update indicated Irving shoulder was “bumped” but he was fine. If he’s headed to the Clinic, clearly all is not well.
15. Irving is listed as doubtful for Friday’s game against the Pacers, a team that ended the Cavs’ 12-game winning streak three weeks ago at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. This is why the Cavs were searching for another point guard at the trade deadline. It will be curious to see which way Blatt plays this.
16. Common sense would indicate Matthew Dellavedova starts at point guard, but it wouldn’t completely shock me to see Iman Shumpert in the starting rotation. James is the pseudo point guard anyway and Shumpert has also played there in spurts this season. Again, the smart money is on Delly starting, but I don’t think that’s a lock at this point.
17. I was really impressed with J.R. Smith tonight. Twice he passed up wide open 3-pointers, hitting Kevin Love on a terrific look in the corner once and swinging to Irving for a 3-pointer another time. The defensive efforts from Smith, Shumpert and Irving were all impressive on the Splash Brothers, who combined to shoot just 10 of 30.
18. “Spectacular,” was how James characterized the backcourt’s defensive effort. “The New York boys did their job tonight.”
19. Curry shot 1 of 10 in the second half, including missing his final six shots. His final shot of the night was an air ball on a 3-point attempt in the final minute, sort of an indicator of how his entire night went.
20. “I hope (the MVP award) is not handed out on this one game,” Curry said. “I hope it’s about the body of work. Tonight wasn’t my best game. Shots that I normally make didn’t fall tonight.”
21. Funny moment after the game. Blatt said before the game he didn’t view this as a litmus test because, “I think we know what we’re capable of doing,” he said, “and I think we’ve shown that.”
22. So after the game I made the mistake of mentioning that whole litmus test thing before asking what kind of message this win sends to the rest of the league. Blatt asked what color litmus paper turns during a test, to which no one in the press conference had the answer. I guessed yellow, but I cheated my way to Cs in science. Blatt was shocked no one knew the answer, but of course he’s the Princeton grad.
23. “I didn’t study Chemistry,” he said. “I stayed as far away from the Chemistry department and Engineering quad at Princeton than you can imagine. I stayed in my English Literature area. Stayed in my lane. But whatever color litmus test was, then we passed the litmus test. We were a positive on that, yes.”
24. It was a long way to go for an answer to a fairly simple question.
25. “Somebody is going to be mad at me,” Blatt said. “I’m going to get a call from one of my friends who says, ‘You dummy, you don’t know anything.’ I know it’s going to happen.”
26. The Cavs continue to swallow up huge chunks of ground on the rest of East teams not named Atlanta. They have won all four of their games coming out of the All-Star break and have moved into first place again in the Central Division and third overall in the East, a game ahead of the Bulls. They’re now just 1 1/2 games behind the Raptors for the second seed and they play at Toronto next week. The Raptors enter the weekend on a three-game losing streak.
27. After Derrick Rose’s latest knee injury, Magic Johnson already took to Twitter to declare the Cavs Eastern Conference champs. James, however, isn’t getting caught up in predictions and declarations at this point, even when they come from a five-time champion.
28. “It means nothing, really,” James said of Magic’s tweet. “As a team we have to go out and we have to play. Words can only take you so far no matter who they come from. You have to go out and produce.”
29. The schedule is dramatically stiffening the next few weeks and this was a terrific way to kick it off, particularly since it was the only game of the night and the entire league was watching. The Cavs absolutely delivered a message to the other 29 teams, but guys were slow to admit that.
30. “We really don’t want to send a message to anybody, we just want to keep impressing ourselves,” Smith said. “I’m sure the rest of the league is looking at it like, ‘Oh my God they just beat arguably the best team in the league.’ But we feel as though we’re the best team.”
31. They just might be. Talk to you Friday from Indianapolis."]
http://www.ohio.com/blogs/cleveland...ebron-s-mvp-candidacy-kyrie-s-injury-1.570325
