BROOKLYN — No explanation was provided by LeBron James, and no outrage was expressed after Joe Johnson accused the King of flopping on Johnson’s final offensive possession.
LeBron was asked about it, but the questioner made the always fatal journalistic mistake of asking a two-part question. Part one was about the flop. That was the tough question, the one everyone wanted answered. The second question was completely benign, and that was the one James answered.
Memo to aspiring journalists: NEVER ask a two-part question. The interviewee will always answer only one of the questions, and it will always be the easier of the two.
It’s like starting a question with the phrase “Talk about … ”
You hear questions like that all the time in NBA news conferences, except “talk about” is not a question. Somebody tried that number on Gregg Popovich over the weekend, and Pop snapped: “That’s not a question!”
Gotta love Pop.
Gotta love LeBron, too, after watching him in action in Miami’s Game 4 102-96 victory over the Nets on Monday night. No one in Brooklyn can stop this guy, with the possible exception of Jay-Z’s bodyguard, who is said to carry a 40-millimeter pistol to help protect his boss. Unsure if the fella was carrying that 40 at the game, but when he ushered Jay-Z and Beyonce through the crowd at halftime, nobody got in his way. Not even close.
It was somewhat of a surreal night at the Barclays Center, the game looking for 47 minutes like it was a throwback from LeBron’s Cleveland days. You know, the games where one guy was head and shoulders above everyone else on the court, be they Cavs or members of the opposition.
This one finally broke from that mold in the final minute when it was Chris Bosh, not LeBron, who hit the biggest shot of the game, a 3-pointer with 57 seconds remaining. And then again after that when Miami calmly got the ball into the hands of Ray Allen when they knew the Nets would foul, and Allen calmly did what he does best, nailing all four free throws.
So it was a game and a night that reminded you of Cleveland days, reminded you of journalistic no-nos, reminded you that certain celebrities have armed-to-the-teeth bodyguards, and provided a window into the thought process of the two-time defending champs, who in all fairness are just now beginning their season.
The 82 regular-season games and the seven playoff games that preceded this? An extended exhibition slate.
Even Dwyane Wade acknowledged before tipoff that this was Miami’s biggest game since last June, Game 7 of the NBA Finals when they knocked off the San Antonio Spurs for their second straight title.
What we get from here will be a true reading on whether the Heat is championship worthy, whether they qualify as a dynasty. A three-peat gets you there, and going to the finals four straight years gets you there, too. And after the Heat finish off the Nets, whether it happens Wednesday in Miami or Friday night back here in Brooklyn, they will continue this brand new season.
The only question that seems relevant after this Game 4 is whether they have enough. Because there are other teams out there that can defend LeBron better than the Nets did in surrendering 49 points to him — a total that would have been 50 if LeBron had not clanged his final free throw with just over a second remaining.
“That’s the first time I’ve been disappointed in myself in a while,” James said.
The Miami coaches prepared the team for this game by breaking out videotape of Game 4 of the Celtics-Heat series in 2011, the swing game in the Toronto-Orlando series in 2007, and the 1986 Game 4 between the Celtics and the Bad Boy Pistons.
The message was clear: This was the night to seize control not only of the series, but of the season.
When you are a two-time defending champs, the road to a three-peat is a rough one. No matter how much anyone argues that the games from November through the early part of May actually matter, the players know deep down in their hearts that they don’t. And so they go through the motions, underwhelming us by doing nothing that approaches the accomplishments of a year ago, from the 66 victories to the 27-game winning streak.
These guys didn’t even think it was that big of a deal to finish ahead of Indiana, and after watching the Pacers for the past couple months, it is hard to disagree.
But when the time came to turn on the afterburners and switch into their fastest gear, they were able to do it.
They can thank LeBron for that. And they can thank the officials, too. Because it was referee Jason Phillips who whistled James for a questionable foul midway through the second quarter, sending James into such a rage that he yelled at Phillips as though he was a tow truck driver who just hooked LBJ’s Bentley.
If LeBron had tried that rant on Joey Crawford, he would have been T’d up.
But Phillips? He took it like a wimp, and James emerged from the encounter so furious that he immediately took it out on the Nets, scoring on Miami’s next three possessions with two layups and a dunk.
You got the feeling then that Brooklyn had no chance, but to their credit the Nets never let Miami pull away.
It was close enough that the Nets found themselves in consecutive Iso-Joe situations in the final 90 seconds, with Johnson misfiring both times from mid-range. On the second one, James undoubtedly flopped. Andres Nocioni and Manu Ginobili both would have been proud.
But with James splayed out on the floor, Johnson could not hit the open shot that could have made this outcome completely different.
Yes, Johnson was correct in pointing out the flop.
But his consecutive misses? Hey, that’s a flop of a different variety, but a flop of his own nonetheless.
“Their strategy was getting the ball in the hands of the guy they wanted to get it in, and they did that.” Wade said.
So we come out of this game knowing that the Heat do indeed have an extra gear, but only because they have the most talented player in the game. But they also have a version of Wade that looks like a shell of the Wade from 8-9 years ago, and a version of Bosh that makes him look like the American Pero Antic. I mean, seriously, is there any center or power forward that has fallen in love with the 3-point shot more than this guy?
“It’s not hard, make the right basketball play — make or miss,” said James, whose final field goal came with 2:49 remaining.
That was the line he used to use back in his Cleveland days, when folks wanted him to take the last shot no matter what — and he was criticized when he passed out of double coverage at the end of close games and let wide-open teammates take the final shot.
Back then, James was far and away the best player on the court, an incredible specimen.
That’s who he was again on Monday night, and the only thing nasty you could say about him was that he flopped on defense on the most important possession of the game. He’ll probably have something to say about it tomorrow. For now, it’ll go down as an unaddressed footnote to one of the greatest playoff games he has ever played.
It was a game that reminded us that the Heat, finally, were ready to begin their season.
And on May 12, we learned a little bit more about them. It’s just too bad we couldn’t learn about how James felt about being labeled a flopper. All we learned was that truism about two-part questions — they should never, ever be asked.
Chris Sheridan is publisher and editor in chief of SheridanHoops.com. He has never asked a two-part question.
Dear Joe Johnson, complaining about a flop which didn’t even get a foul called on it is a really dumb way of deflecting attention about the fact that you missed the open shot.
All NBA players complaining about flops tend to be ridiculous because there’s not an NBA team where no-one flops. A lot of the biggest complainers are either big floppers themselves or teammates of big floppers. They need to give it a rest.