These refs are so full of shit. I wanna punch a hole in my wall right now.

6/7/2011 11:08:54 PM

Wade is doing some legendary shit right now. Holy cow.

6/7/2011 11:23:07 PM

Legendary turnover there. Just triple team Wade

6/7/2011 11:24:00 PM

Why isn't Lebron playing?

6/7/2011 11:25:46 PM

he sprained his vagina

6/7/2011 11:27:04 PM

Lol he is he's just been humbled in the finals AGAIN. Best role player in the history of the league.

[Edited on June 7, 2011 at 11:28 PM. Reason : the way he is invisible and forcing passes against terry you would think he was out of the game.]

[Edited on June 7, 2011 at 11:28 PM. Reason : i hate wade but he is truly great]

6/7/2011 11:27:05 PM

This whole goddamn series they have missed open shots like that.

[Edited on June 7, 2011 at 11:31 PM. Reason : another wide open miss and Dirk does a great acting job]

[Edited on June 7, 2011 at 11:35 PM. Reason : MAKE THE FUCKING OPEN SHOT. 3 MORE MISSES WIDE OPEN. WHAT A JOKE]

6/7/2011 11:30:54 PM

This is the most pathetic thing I've ever seen. The last three minutes of this game have been missed open shot after missed open shot. These guys are supposed to be pros.

6/7/2011 11:36:13 PM

Deshawn Stevenson is not the guy I want taking shots for me in a pivotal game 4 in the NBA finals

6/7/2011 11:36:34 PM

would you prefer shawn marion?

6/7/2011 11:37:37 PM

Stevenson already has like four 3-pointers this game

6/7/2011 11:38:45 PM

Have a bad feeling that Wade will win this game at the free throw line

[Edited on June 7, 2011 at 11:39 PM. Reason : scored early, but will still take that]

6/7/2011 11:38:47 PM

I would prefer the guy that didn't have Abraham Lincoln tattooed on this neck

6/7/2011 11:39:29 PM

are we going to see Lebron's patented stepback fadeaway 3 pointer on this next possession

Dirk to the line


[Edited on June 7, 2011 at 11:43 PM. Reason : make it Jet]

6/7/2011 11:40:32 PM

cmon Jet you've been talking shit leading up this one, drop these 2

[Edited on June 7, 2011 at 11:44 PM. Reason : that a boy]

6/7/2011 11:44:01 PM

lol Wade

6/7/2011 11:46:19 PM

FUCK YOU MIAMI. D-WHISTLE BANGS THE BALL OF HIS KNEE TO END IT

6/7/2011 11:46:37 PM

hats off to dwade. that was one of the most remarkable final performances i've ever seen. He just didn't have enough help.

LEBRON BLINKED AND CREATED THAT OPEN SHOT. WHEN LEBRON BLINKED THE ENTIRE DEFENSE HAD TO REACT AND MILLER WAS ABLE TO GET A SHOT OFF.

[Edited on June 7, 2011 at 11:48 PM. Reason : LEBRONS GREATNESS]

6/7/2011 11:47:01 PM

wade missed a free throw and bobbled the ball at the end. i guess that means he sucks now.



bottom line analysis, right there

[Edited on June 7, 2011 at 11:49 PM. Reason : ]

6/7/2011 11:47:30 PM

8 points? 8? Really?

6/7/2011 11:48:06 PM

Can I get a binky for baby bron bron?

6/7/2011 11:49:56 PM

Lebron will kiss Wade and make him all better at their normal joint butt buddy press conference

6/7/2011 11:51:03 PM

What was his regular season PER? That's way more important than scoring a point in the fourth quarter of the pivotal game of the NBA finals.

[Edited on June 7, 2011 at 11:51 PM. Reason : x]

6/7/2011 11:51:09 PM

6/7/2011 11:54:14 PM

Quote :

"what a great friggin game"

[Edited on June 8, 2011 at 12:02 AM. Reason : bit ugly w/ the missed shots, but still...]

6/8/2011 12:02:36 AM

^^Not even worthy of that distinction tonight.

But seriously - LEBRON SUCKS HE IS NO GOOD I WOULDN'T WANT HIM ON MY REC LEAGUE TEAM ALSO HE IS A SHITTIER HUMAN BEING THAN VICK, WOODS, AND ROETHLISBERGER - you guys ride his jock 100x harder than his apologists/fans. He was fucking awful tonight. Wade, Bosh, Chalmers all had better games. Joel Anthony and Lebron were tied for 4th best performance on the team.

Also, Carlisle-Spoelstra is quite the mismatch.

[Edited on June 8, 2011 at 12:04 AM. Reason : ^]

6/8/2011 12:04:23 AM

Lebron doesn't have big game confidence. Wade does

6/8/2011 12:06:25 AM

the best player in the world hands down doesn't need big game confidence, he's still the best ever, haters gonna hate

6/8/2011 12:10:46 AM

It's the finals; every possession is priceless. Subsequently, Lebron's over-thinking everything this series. He's made some great offensive plays but he's not being "selfish" enough. He's not even taking shots within the flow of the offense, he's looking to be a facilitator too much. Also he's shooting like shit, which is a separate issue.

But big game confidence? He carried them through the ECF, when Wade was playing horribly/injured (Bosh had a couple of great games as well). He made big plays down the stretch against Boston. People have selective memory when it comes to sports, but the collective, hive-mind vitriol spewed at this guy is absolutely retarded.

edit: It's not even about him being the "best player in the world" (conditionally or otherwise), it's about the fact that people expect the "best player in the world" to play flawlessly in every single game, as if all-time players never before had bad games in the playoffs or finals. Lebron might be an insufferable, entitled, gigantic douche, but he's an insanely good basketball player by any standard (excepting people with no concept of reality).

[Edited on June 8, 2011 at 12:15 AM. Reason : haters gonna herp]

6/8/2011 12:11:15 AM

he made big plays down the stretch against Boston while up 3-1 and Rondo had a broken arm

crown his ass

6/8/2011 12:12:33 AM

Lebron had 1 basket tonight that wasn't a dunk... the sportswriters were right, he's almost as good as Jordan as we speak

6/8/2011 12:12:37 AM

The finals is what counts the most and through 8 games, I'm not sold that he is an all time great.

6/8/2011 12:15:08 AM

Quote :

"as if all-time players never before had bad games in the playoffs or finals"

name me one single superstar in NBA history who has scored zero field goals in the 4th quarter of an NBA Finals game

Lebron has already done it twice this year

nobody is saying Lebron isn't a great player, I'm simply trying to bring the people back to reality who think he's hands down the best player in the game

I think this Finals is showing that both Wade and Dirk are better players

6/8/2011 12:16:43 AM

^^^Jesus dude...ok, I'll bite. I guess the Heat won the 2 games in which Rondo wasn't injured without Lebron's help. What's the Chicago condition? Bosh "won" 2 games for Miami, right? The only reason Lebron shut down Rose was because he was still feeling the effects of that ankle!

People who've followed basketball more closely and longer than you or I have called him the best player in the world. I don't think 4 fucking games decides that one way or another. Just like 1 shitty game doesn't make him a piece of shit player. As I type this I realize I'm wasting my time.

[Edited on June 8, 2011 at 12:19 AM. Reason : carat]

6/8/2011 12:19:01 AM

you're acting like Jordan and Kobe and Duncan and Bird and Drexler and Erving also had this shitty of Finals games every now and then

they didnt

why are you defending him so much after tonight? i thought the haters were the ones on his jock the hardest?

Quote :

"people who've followed basketball more closely and longer than you or I have called him the best player in the world"

Scottie Pippen played like 15 years with Michael Jordan and he says Lebron is better than Jordan...whats your point

[Edited on June 8, 2011 at 12:22 AM. Reason : .]

6/8/2011 12:20:13 AM

LeBron James is not an elite receiver

6/8/2011 12:21:49 AM

They clearly are. Nearly every bad play he makes results in multiple posts in this thread. Also again you act like scoring is the only thing that matters. He had a terrible overall game tonight.

Because he didn't score a field goal in the 4th quarter of game 3, he had a terrible game 3?

Pippen was obviously wrong for saying that. Lebron isn't anywhere close to Jordan. That's also obviously not what I was referring to. BUT PLEASE, GO ON

6/8/2011 12:28:09 AM

it was game 2 where he had no field goals and only 2 free throws

he had a terrible 4th quarter of game 2...he just jacked up fadeaway 3 bricks, and the heat lost

like i said i think its clear Wade and Dirk are both better players

[Edited on June 8, 2011 at 12:31 AM. Reason : .]

6/8/2011 12:30:14 AM

Speaking of great players, this is what I think of everytime Barea gets the ball.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46Vy5qdOc-E

6/8/2011 12:34:19 AM

^^My bad. He absolutely choked and didn't come through late in game 2. Guess that game is still in his head (shot selection late, not deferring to Wade's hot hand).

6/8/2011 12:39:38 AM

The Lebron hate is so ridiculous. He had a bad shooting game but overall he still had a net positive impact on the game. You realize he had 9 rebounds and 7 assists right?

Wade had another great game, he's the MVP of the series no matter what happens.

Now if you wanna talk about a bad game, Dirk was awful. If he had a 102 degree fever then that explains why he sucked dick out there and I can understand that, but let's be honest about who sucked, okay?

What a bizzare decision to start Barea. He nearly cost them that game. Look, Kidd is having an unbelievable series he's playing like the hall of famer he is (he's even playing great defense for god's sake).... Stevenson is playing out of his mind and is one of the reasons the Mavs are hanging in this series... but you're going to bench those two for the guy who has been the worst player in the series over the first three games? Just bizarre. Even Chicago's stupid coach wouldnt do something more ridiculous.

Quote :

"reminiscent of LBJ with Cleveland a couple years back and D Rose with Chicago this year."

Lol, Rose didn't have any help? Deng dominated, Boozer/Noah outplayed Miami's frontline, and Brewer had a solid series. Rose was one of the REASONS Chicago lost that series because he was terrible each game. You people need to seek professional help.

[Edited on June 8, 2011 at 1:07 AM. Reason : a]

6/8/2011 1:04:38 AM

LeBron is held to a higher degree of scrutiny because he bailed on his previous team. If he had this bad of a performance in Cleveland, his apologists would be noting his lack of help. Now he has that help, so it's harder to defend him when you remove the one excuse he constantly had back in Cleveland.

and there were huge gaps where Chicago's bench and role players underperformed last series, by the way. Miami made Chicago's role players beat them, and they couldn't. I don't think any analyst worth a damn would put the burden of that series on Rose. Seriously, I enjoyed reading your snarky comments much better when you were all over Allen Iverson's jockstrap and vehemently hating on Marcus Stone. I miss that guy. Can you bring him back?

6/8/2011 1:28:33 AM

dallas has really changed, a lot of credit goes to cuban in changing the makeup of that team, the old mavs would never have won a game like this with dirk shooting like shit and them struggling to score points against a super talented team in the finals, having said that I still think miami will win the series

6/8/2011 2:47:33 AM

^^^is that a joke about kidd having an unbelievable series? 6 points (on 30% shooting), 6 assists and 4 TOs a game? he's been worthless on the offensive end...but has played good defense.

6/8/2011 6:37:24 AM

6/8/2011 10:10:26 AM

6/8/2011 11:30:14 AM

Great timing by Rick Reilly (who is an insufferable twat)

LeBron James playing as big as ever

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=6634464

6/8/2011 11:34:15 AM

Quote :

"is that a joke about kidd having an unbelievable series? 6 points (on 30% shooting), 6 assists and 4 TOs a game? he's been worthless on the offensive end...but has played good defense."

That whole post is a joke. Face is always playing idiots advocate.

Quote :

"Now if you wanna talk about a bad game, Dirk was awful"

Notice the trend here? Last game he said bosh was terrible, this game Dirk is awful. Both hit the winning shots. The dirk assessment is much worse condisering Dirk was dominating the defensive glass in the 2nd half protecting the rim and knocking down free throws before CREATING the winning basket on a drive to his week hand with rough bumpy defense from the heat.

Quote :

"What a bizzare decision to start Barea... but you're going to bench those two for the guy who has been the worst player in the series over the first three games? Just bizarre"

When will casual fans realize that starting is not important. If you were even competent at reading box scores you would notice that Barea had less minutes than everyone except cardinal. This move was made for lineup balance so that the B team would not have barea out there with the small lineup.

Quote :

" Look, Kidd is having an unbelievable series he's playing like the hall of famer he is (he's even playing great defense for god's sake)"

0pts 3ass 4to

I'm not saying Kidd had a terrible game but theres no way a hall of famer can't have more than 3 of anything besides turnovers in a game like that.

[Edited on June 8, 2011 at 11:39 AM. Reason : not even gonna speak on the rose stuff. just absurd.]

6/8/2011 11:39:01 AM

Good insight on how gamblers think

I'm going big on Baby BronBron tonight

Quote :

"These NBA finals have been a zigzaggers dream. Back and forth the wins -- and the covers -- have gone. And you can see how quickly bettors caught on by the way the money has flowed for Game 5. After winning Game 4, the Mavs opened as two-point favorites. Immediately, money came in on Miami. According to sportsinsights.com, 58 percent of bettors favor the Heat. In fact, there's been so much action that one of the sharpest books on the Internet, CRIS, has dropped the game from two to pick. (Notice the classic bookmaker hedge in the Game 5 line, by the way: Despite Dallas winning Game 4 as three-point faves, the bookmakers, knowing all the money would come in on Miami, opened the Mavs a point lower at minus-2. Clearly, that didn't stop the stampede.) So how do you find opportunity in a series like this? One way has been to bet the under. Despite the fact all four games have landed below 190, with three of them landing below 177, bookmakers have consistently settled on totals in the mid-to-high 180s. Generally, in a combative series such as this one, the scoring gets lower from game to game. And yet, I haven't seen the total moves keeping up with the actual scoring decreases. There's another way to find opportunity that Big Al McMordie and I discussed the other day, too. Big Al was on an East Coast swing and we had sushi during his visit to New York. We had a pretty far-reaching conversation about the future of Internet sports betting, his favorite restaurants in NYC and the sharpest books online. But we also chatted a lot about finding value in a series as tight as this one, with series prices changing dramatically from game to game. Big Al(@bigal_com) had a series of great tweets about this over the past couple of days. Since there are only a few hours left to take advantage of what we talked about, I thought I would share. Essentially, he was trying to force me to think about the series more strategically, rather than, as he put it, "Buying something you don't need, like a sunroof in Seattle." You have to begin with the premise that Dallas will not win back-to-back games in Miami to close out the series. Not an unfair notion. Sure, the Mavs have been a great road team during the playoffs. But the probability that they would win two in a row to close out a series? Very low. That meant, coming off of a Game 3 loss, they needed to win Games 4 and 5 at home. Based on that, Big Al played a game of betting math. This is honestly what separates those of us who bet game to game from those who do this every day and truly look for value. The price on Dallas to win the series after Game 3, when they were down 2-1, was plus-315. (If you're looking for another example of how this series has swung back and forth remember that, when it opened, the price was about plus-165.) Al's theory was, if he liked the Mavs to win the NBA finals, why buy the plus-315 and hope it all works out over the next four games. Instead, buy only the next two games and, if it continues to work out, roll it over. In other words, buy what you need. For example, Big Al liked Dallas in Game 4 on the money line. The odds in the game were minus-133, meaning you bet $1,333 to win $1,000 (or $133 to win $100). If you won that game, you had $2,333 to roll over into tonight's Game 5, in which betting on the Mavs on the money line will cost minus-110. If Dallas wins, you have another $2,100 to play with. Now you've got roughly $4,400 to bet on what Big Al guesses will be a series price of Dallas minus-140. Let's say, just for kicks, the Mavs can split those last two games in Miami and win the title. If they do, you've won another $3,140, giving you a total of $7,540 off an initial investment of $1,300 -- that's $6,200 in winnings, divided by the initial investment of $1,300, means that you essentially bought Dallas to win the series at a price of around plus-480 before Game 4. Remember, the actual price was plus-315. The good news is, if you still like the Mavs, you can do this for Game 5 and find some value. Right now, the price for them to win the series is plus-195. If you bet $1,100 on the money line tonight (Dallas minus-110) and you win, you'll get back $1,000. Again, the assumption here is that the new series price with Dallas up 3-2 will be Dallas minus-140. Take that $2,100 you have from the Game 5 money line win and put it on Dallas to win the series. Win that and you pocket another $1,500. Combined, from those two games you have walked away with $2,500 off an initial investment of $1,100 on the Dallas Game 5 money line. Convert that to a money line wager and it's roughly plus-227, which is still better than the plus-195 being offered right now. I know, the math is complicated (and if you think I miscalculated, call me out and I'll fix it). But the point is that this is how a lot of professional bettors think. It's not about just the game in front of them. It's about the next four games, the prices being offered and what direction they are going to go. Of course, if Miami wins tonight, forget about it. Making bets after that means you're no longer playing the odds, you're gambling on them. "

6/9/2011 3:53:23 PM

if Lebron is hot in the 1st three quarters tonight like Wade was in Game 4, I wonder if its Wade who just stands in the corner doing nothing the whole 4th quarter

6/9/2011 4:10:00 PM