Chicago Bulls 87 beat the Miami Heat 86; LeBron James and Dwyane Wade miss again
By Sam McPhee
If you have been reading the last couple of weeks, you will remember my rapidly shortening patience with the inability of Miami to close out games. Forget just games against big teams, although they are an awful 1-9 against the elite teams this year.
If you have been reading the last couple of weeks you will also remember I banned myself from talking about the Heat because I feel I am constantly repeating myself, like the rest of the media, talking about their obvious issues and flaws.
I said if the Heat put in a strong performance against the Bulls Sunday night I would lift the ban. We received anything but.
So I shall stick to the issues here at King James Gospel. That is King James himself.
LeBron finished with 26 points 8 rebounds and 6 assists, shooting 10/18 from the field, 1/2 from 3 and 5/6 from the line. Normally that would be a strong enough performance to assume the Heat would have won the game. We all know better than that.
In the lead up to the final two shots of the game, Luol Deng had an opportunity at the line, to which he only made 1/2. After missing the first he scrambled for the rebound, realising his team was still down by 1 point.
To be fair I am looking at this from a LeBron James fan point of view, which basically means a Miami Heat fan point of view, and I saw it as nothing but Deng clumsily stumbling as traffic all homed in on the ball. The fact the officials say it was Mike Miller that pushed Deng pretty much sums up the quality of officiating in the NBA.
I dare anyone to name me a sport on the planet with worse officiating than the NBA. In no other sports do home crowd advantages effect the referees, nor do the reputations of player’s coincide with the decisions made by these officials. It is by far and away the most corrupt officiating of any sport in the world and I realise that may upset people out there but if you can honestly name me a sport that is worse in these areas I would be glad to hear it.
Deng clearly ran into Bosh whilst scrambling for the ball, trips over his own feet and falls down. He isn’t appealing when he gets hit because he knows it. The fact the referees make this call in Miami is even more astonishing. If it had happened in Chicago it would be a less bitter pill to swallow, but the fact it was in Miami can mean nothing else than yet another mistake by men who are professional officials.
It’s staggering.
James then had a chance at the other end to win the game. This was less blatant but 9 times out of 10 that is called a foul on LeBron. Twice Noah has his hands all over LeBron’s arms, whilst he is dribbling and again during his lay up attempt, and there is no call.
Even if it wasn’t a blatant foul, it was at the worst a superstar call. I’m sure you are all familiar with the term. It basically meanssuperstar players receive more leniency on the defensive end and are more likely to get calls
on the offensive end. Kobe is the prime beneficiary of this, especially on those ridiculous jump shot and ones.
Wade then had a chance to win it after grabbing the offensive rebound from LeBron’s fouled miss, but he was unable to hit.
It is the fifth time James has missed a game winning/tying attempt in the last 3 weeks. Normally one of the best closers and finishers in the league, he has had no success with the Heat. Nor have any of their other players.
Miami host the Lakers on Thursday. Let’s pray I can lift my ban then.