The Cavaliers blew open their game against the Heat in the third quarter, taking a 23-point lead with a couple minutes remaining. They looked poised to coast to their ninth straight victory. Then LeBron James got upset at a no-call on a drive to the rim and ... got ejected for the first time in his long career.
LeBron air-punched the wrong hombre
We have that and more in Wednesday’s NBA newsletter.
Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
Officially, it was a one-technical ejection. Referee Kane Fitzgerald’s explanation was pretty good, as these things go: “It was a culmination of a couple different acts. Immediately after the no call, he turned and threw an air punch directly at me and then he aggressively charged at me and then he used vulgarity in my ear a few times.”
This is wonderfully detailed. The air punch is a classic show of anger among large NBA players — Draymond Green has perfected it, and DeMarcus Cousins pulls it out regularly — but it’s never been used to justify an ejection, as far as I can tell. Aggressive charging? LeBron took like two steps toward him. “Then he used vulgarity in my ear a few times” is just a beautiful icing on this disaster cake.
Fitzgerald essentially explains what happens every time an NBA star gets mad and picks up a technical: A demonstrative show of disappointment, some light on-court stalking to ensure the point gets across, some 16-letter words said in close proximity. This is basically a “How to Pick Up a Technical in the NBA in 2017” manual. Yet LeBron got booted.
Had it been a close game or cost Cleveland its streak (it did not), this would be a bigger deal. Thankfully, it is not and we can just laugh about the whole incident. We need things to laugh about these days, don’t we?
Scores Galore ...
MIA 97, CLE 108
PHX 104, CHI 99
WAS 92, MIN 89
DEN 77, UTA 106
MIL 112, SAC 87
... And So Much More
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Be excellent to each other.
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