In Kobe Bryant’s fourth game back from an injured achilles, the Los Angeles Lakers played against the Charlotte Bobcats on the road in the Time Warner Arena and escaped with an 88-85 win—their first since his return.
The win will, perhaps, allow Pau Gasol to continue their road trip with his pride intact.
At least, that might be the impression you’d get from Golden State Warriors center Festus Ezeli’s reaction to a Josh McRoberts dunk Saturday night.
Josh McRoberts dunk on Pau
— Festus Ezeli (@fezzyfel) December 15, 2013
Kemba Walker attacked the baseline and bounced a pass to McRoberts, who was cutting to the basket from the top of the key. From there… well, we’ll let the video tell it.
Gasol, who picked up Walker as he cut across the baseline could only turn around and accept his fate. At that point, McRoberts already had a full head of steam on the way to the basket.
The dunk—a clean, lean-in, cock-back tomahawk jam—looked much worse in real-time than it does in slow-motion. When you slow it down, you realize that Gasol was unable to get out from under the basket to make a quality attempt at a block.
Although, it may very well be that Gasol ducked out of the way to simply avoid getting dunked on with an elbow to the face, much like Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin once did on a similar dunk in April of 2012.
Griffin’s dunk was just mean and vicious—complete with power, an authoritative elbow and a ‘cool guys don’t look at explosions’ type swagger as he walked away.
McRoberts has a ways to go before he attains that level of dunk awesomeness.
His team could also do better at closing out close games. A victory for the Bobcats might have actually made that dunk mean something.
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