2016 NBA Finals - Cleveland Cavaliers Vs Golden State Warriors

He is allowed into the stadium once the game is over. So if the Warriors win, he can go in and celebrate.

 

Yeah the NBA spin on this one is fierce.

They've been adamantly pointing out: "Hey this isn't about this one incident, it's about all the incidents leading up to it! He hit a guy in the crotch a lot this post-season!"

Okay. So when a guy walks over you and you try to stand up and you hit him in the nuts, that's the same as all the other times? The right move here was a no call. They didn't call it in the game and they shouldn't have called it afterwards. The only thing to do here is assign LeBron a technical and the NBA knows it. Unfortunately, that would mean disciplining their golden goose so they wouldn't do it without someone else taking the fall too. Pathetic. It's a pathetic look from the NBA.

 

Playoff rules should be: you get 3 "points" and you're out a game.

Flagrant 2= 1.5 points.
Flagrant= 1 point.
Tech= 0.5 points.

Get to 3, get suspended. Reset after every series.

 

It's win win for Lebitch and the NBA. Lebitch gets what he wanted by taking out the guy who has been the Warriors best player this series and their vocal leader. That pull down move and stepping over Draymond was pretty clearly designed to make him lose his cool and get him riled up. The NBA gets what it wants by handicapping the Warriors and giving this thing a chance to extend to at least 6 and maybe 7 games if they continue to give the Cavs home-cooking refs in the Land of Cleve. It also gave the NBA an opportunity to debunk the talk that they have been favoring the Warriors and that's why they didn't suspend him in the WCF.

The only thing I like is that Lebitch got himself a new nickname in the process. And it fits so perfectly. It was hilarious that Green calling him that made him freak out so hard. Then he had to go cry to the media about it afterwards. What a B****!

 

Agree with Thompson and the rest of the Warriors all the way:


Klay Thompson on LeBron James: Guess his feelings just got hurt
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7:17 AM PT

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  Brian WindhorstESPN Senior Writer

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OAKLAND, Calif. -- The tension between the Golden State Warriors andCleveland Cavaliers increased significantly Sunday as Klay Thompson andLeBron James broke into a war of words about a previous war of words.

The Warriors, stung fromDraymond Green's suspension as a result of his flagrant fouls, targeted James and his sensitivity to trash talk after James complained that Green crossed the line during the Warriors' Game 4 win Friday.

"Guys talk trash in this league all the time. I'm just kind of shocked some guys take it so personal," Thompson said. "I don't know how [James] feels. But obviously people have feelings, and people's feelings get hurt even if they're called a bad word. I guess his feelings just got hurt. I mean, we've all been called plenty of bad words on the basketball court before. Some guys just react to it differently."

James laughed at Thompson's words.

"My goodness. I'm not going to comment on what Klay said, because I know where it can go from this sit-in," James said. "It's so hard to take the high road. I've been doing it for 13 years. It's so hard to continue to do it, and I'm going to do it again."

That comment from James then drew reaction from the Warriors side, from an unlikely but powerful voice. Ayesha Curry, the well-known wife ofStephen Curry, tweeted a response at James.


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Ayesha Curry

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High Road. invisible bridge used to step over said person when open floor is available left to right.


That revealed another reason the Warriors are upset with James. Green's flagrant foul Friday came after James stepped over Green, a gesture seen as disrespectful in basketball. The NBA dinged James with a technical foul for the act, calling it a "physical taunt."

Green was not available to reporters, but some of his teammates spoke for him.

"It just shows as a basketball player, as an athlete, a guy does something like that, you kind of lose respect for him," Warriors forward Marreese Speights said. "I had a lot of respect for LeBron over his career, since he was in high school. But do things like that to get a guy suspended? That's kind of disrespectful, a little bit."

Said Stephen Curry: "I don't know what LeBron's intention was. You have to ask him. Obviously, Draymond thought it was disrespectful and wanted to get up and say something, so that was his reaction to it. I would have probably done the same thing."

James, in fact, was asked what his intentions were when he stepped over Green. He said play was going on and he was attempting to get back into the play and wasn't trying to bait Green.

"I was just trying to get back into the play. I think what had happened [with Green] was intentional," James said. "I knew we got into a grapple at the top of the key, but me just trying to get back into the play."

James, naturally, had teammates backing him up.

"There's definitely some things you can't say to another man," J.R. Smithsaid. "But some people don't live by that code."

All of that adds spice to a rivalry that has remained mostly tame despite the back-to-back Finals matchups, but the fact remains that the Warriors are ahead 3-1 in the best-of-seven series.

"At the end of the day, we've got to go out and show up and play better tomorrow night," James said. "And if we don't, then they're going to be back-to-back champion, and that's it."

ESPN's Dave McMenamin and Ethan Sherwood Strauss contributed to this report.

 

Monty McCutchen is one of the refs tonight. He was the ref in game 3 when the Cavs won.

Also, when Monty McCutchen is the referee, Warriors went 3-2 at home. When he wasn't one of the refs, Warriors went 47-1.

Edit: When he is the ref, the home team has a winning percentage of 41.7%, which is the lowest of any main referee in these playoffs.