The Celtics won in Cleveland without Isaiah Thomas on an Avery Bradley buzzer beater (drawn up beautifully by Brad Stevens). LeBron had his worst game of the playoffs with 11 points on 30 percent shooting. Why? Here are our top 10 theories.
The top 10 reasons LeBron James was so bad in Game 3
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10. LeBron’s shot was off, Marcus Smart shot better than anyone could ever expect, J.R. Smith got completely lost on the game-winner, and sometimes good teams lose games they aren’t supposed to lose, even in the playoffs.
9. LeBron forgot his reading glasses back in Boston. Now he can go back to retrieve them.
8. He was protesting this awful tweet from the NBA.
6. The Cavaliers came out to the Monstars theme in a moment of pure pettiness. Unfortunately, Cleveland must have forgotten that the Monstars gave up a huge halftime lead and lost at the buzzer.
5. LeBron had tied MJ’s record for most consecutive 30-point playoff performances in Game 2. The Basketball Gods, who don’t want us to feel joy, refused to allow LeBron to break it.
4. Trainwreck co-star Amy Schumer, who was courtside, told LeBron an overly raunchy joke before tip-off, and LeBron spent the entire game trying to figure it out.
2. LeBron is a fraud.
1. It has been a while since he’s been to Miami ...
The Warriors and Spurs meet again on Monday (9 p.m. ET, ESPN). Golden State can punch its ticket to the NBA Finals with a win. We don’t yet know whether Kawhi Leonard is available.
Mark Cuban admitted that the Mavericks tanked in April. The league can’t really enjoy seeing that in the news. But can they do anything about it?
[sees this and double-checks that LaVar Ball didn’t play at Hiram College]
Pretty powerful story from Sam Amick on what Zaza Pachulia’s family has faced since Gregg Popovich called him out for a “dirty play” to injure Kawhi Leonard. Zaza made a cogent point that the “manslaughter” analogy Pop used could be misunderstood and led to an extremely aggressive backlash toward Pachulia ... which is what has seemed to happen. It’s pretty disturbing what he’s had to deal with.
Chauncey Billups is getting a look for the GM job in Atlanta. Could he convince Melo to waive the no-trade?
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