Revenge is best served cold — real cold.
One game after watching Derrick Rose sink the Cleveland Cavaliers on a buzzer-beating jumper, LeBron James returned the favor. With seemingly zero visibility – thanks to the outstretched arm of Jimmy Butler in his face – King James buried a three-pointer at the buzzer to lift the Cavs to an 86-84 Game 4 win over the Chicago Bulls on Sunday. Their Eastern Conference semifinal playoff series is now at 2-2.
James definitely added to his ever-growing legacy with this shot. See for yourself.
With the score tied at 84, the final play was designed for LeBron to take the ball from out of bounds — but the King quickly overrode Cavs coach David Blatt on that.
"I was supposed to take the ball out. I told Coach there was no way I'm taking the ball out unless I could shoot it over the backboard and go in," James said to ESPN.
"So I told him, 'Have somebody else take the ball out.' The play that was drawn up, I scratched it. I just told Coach, 'Just give me the ball. We're either going to go into overtime or I'm going to win it for us.'"
James wound up doing the latter, knotting the series up at two games apiece. The heroic play might have been negated, were it not for Cavs assistant Tyronn Lue. He pulled Blatt off the court as the Cavs coach was going to call timeout, at a point when Cleveland had no timeouts remaining. Blatt would have never lived that down.
Perhaps Rose described James's shot better than anyone else.
"There's nothing you can do about it," Rose told ESPN of James' contested game-winning jumper. "He hit a great shot. He's a hell of a player."
In other playoff action Sunday, the Los Angeles Clippers went up 3-1 in their series with the Houston Rockets via a 128-95 win. The Rockets' Hack-a-Shaq strategy on DeAndre Jordan didn't help their chances, as he hit 14 of his 34 free-throw attempts and the Clippers still managed to destroy Houston. DJ also managed to do what he does best — finish Lob City alley-oops from Chris Paul.
Don't look now... but the Clippers are finally playing to their potential and seriously looking like the best team in the league.
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