You’d have thought that LeBron was robbed of the NBA Championship by his reaction. The Lakers and LeBron James were robbed of an obvious foul call late in their 125-121 loss to the Celtics, but it’s not like the game was that important.
Ah, there’s nothing like seeing LeBron James, the biggest star on the Los Angeles Lakers, crying due to a loss to the Boston Celtics. Actually, I’d be happy watching any Lakers player cry about losing to the Celtics, but that’s beside the point.
Okay, I’m just kidding (sort of), but LeBron really was overreacting in that situation.
For those who don’t know, the Lakers and Celtics game last night came down to the very last possession as the teams were tied 105-105 with less than 5 seconds to go. With the Lakers in possession, LeBron James was given the ball and he drove to the rim with three Celtics players trying to stop him from scoring a game-winning layup.
And, fortunately for all Celtics fans, they were able to as LeBron’s attempt hit the backboard and bounced out.
End of story, right? Well, no, as it was made clear after the final buzzer sounded that Jayson Tatum, one of the Celtics trying to stop James’ drive, slapped his wrist and caused LBJ to miss the layup, which is obviously a foul and should have been called. However, the reason why I’m even writing about this is how outrageous all the LA media and players have been acting since the game ended in a 125-121 Celtics OT victory.
From LeBron James jumping and hysterically complaining all over court as if he just learned the entire world was about to explode to the Lakers supporters in the media saying that the refs need to be “held responsible” and that this loss may have doomed the Lakers season, the reaction to this miss call is completely overblown.
There’re hundreds of these missed hand-checking infractions every week in the NBA and even more missed travel calls, personal fouls, etc. every game, though they usual come in the beginning or middle of the action. It’s only because this missed call happened on the literal last play of the game and that LeBron James was the one who got fouled that all of these media heads and outlets are up in arms.
If this missed call was on Thomas Bryant going up for a layup at the 2:31 minute mark in the 2nd quarter, you’d never even know it happened the next morning.
But that’s kind of obvious as if LeBron was able to go to the line for two free throws, he was more than likely going to make at least one of them to win the game for LA. Yet, that’s where I also have an issue with how this foul is being treated as all of the LA media sycophants and supporters are acting like the Lakers could have won the NBA Championship if they reigned supreme last night.
I may be mistaken, but the last time I checked, the Los Angeles Lakers were sitting in 13th place out of 15 teams in the Western Conference with a 23-27 record.
Even if they won last night, they’d still be one place better in 12th and have a marginally better record of 24-26. That would still leave them three games behind the Timberwolves for 6th place and an automatic playoff berth, and two games behind the Utah Jazz in 10th place for the final Play-In Round spot.
Tell me how this loss will alter their season irrevocably? It’s just going to go down as one of the 40+ losses they’ll suffer.
So, in other words, the Lakers are one of the worst teams in the league and they lost to the very best (statically speaking) team in the league in OVERTIME. There was another five minutes of basketball to be played after the layup no-call for the Lakers to come out of Boston victorious.
These media people all seem to forget that…which is typically when it comes to polarizing figures and teams like LeBron James and the Lakers.
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