Note: This rant was started last night after the Mavs won and then finished today. I don’t know if it is coherent at all since I’m still so hyped that Shawn Marion has a ring and I don't proof read, but you’ll get over it.
“Crazy. Karma is a bitch”
With that tweet directed at the Cleveland Cavaliers, LeBron James set the basketball world on fire back in January. The Cavs of course are LeBron’s former team. The team LeBron shit all over for at least two seasons when talking about the idea of leaving in free agency. Then last summer he left Cleveland to “take his talents to South Beach” and join up with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh on the Miami Heat. LeBron ended up tweeting that karma is a bitch because the Cavs lost by 55 to the Los Angeles Lakers and were on an 11-game losing streak. For some reason this pleased LeBron and he put up that tweet. I’m not sure how that is karma since they did nothing to deserve getting dumped on that way, but alright LeBron.
It gives me a great deal of pleasure to say 20 minutes after the Dallas Mavericks started celebrating their first NBA Championship, a year after The Decision, and after watching an entire career thus far of arrogance: Yes LeBron, karma is a bitch.
You see, after the Heat got their big three together, they had only Mario Chalmers and Michael Beasley under contract. Beasley was obviously getting traded and people weren’t sure what was going to become of Chalmers. So the Heat did what any organization would do in that position: they had a championship celebration.
Using the slogan “Yes. We. Did.,” the Heat had a stage show like something out of a Kiss concert, complete with pyro and smoke bombs. The Big 3 popped out of the stage and Bosh was flexing and screaming like an idiot, LeBron danced, and Wade stood around with his herpes. They said they were a dynasty, despite not even having a roster. LeBron promised more than six championships, as if that would somehow make them all better than Michael Jordan. They danced and pranced then were confused as to why people hated them. Maybe if you weren’t a team with a proven choker (LeBron) and a guy who thinks he is a superstar but isn’t (Chris Bosh) and a guy who gives STDs to his wife (Dwyane Wade) and maybe if you didn’t celebrate like you won it all before playing a single game, people wouldn’t care so much.
That pre-season, pre-having a roster championship celebration set the tone for the entire NBA season. You were either a fair-weather NBA fan and a frontrunner and wanted Miami, or you were a true fan of the game and wanted to see them lose to a team who embodied the concept of five people on the court working together over the idea of three stars and a bunch of scrubs. Or of course you were my Mom and had been a Heat fan since the 90s.
Either way, the Heat celebrated and partied it up all summer and talked such shit about how they’d top the 1996 Chicago Bulls’ all-time best NBA record of 72-10 and they’d win the championship. They flexed and pranced around once the season started and they would beat on bad teams. Of course they had a shit record against the league’s elite, but that didn’t matter. They were riding high.
Now here we sit on this glorious Sunday night and the Heat have fallen short in every way imaginable. How did it happen? It happened because of the perfect storm brought on by the basketball gods. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said after the game, “None of us really expected this.” Really, Coach Spo? Yes I understand you don’t go into a game expecting to lose, but deep down you couldn’t have seen this Finals Fail coming? Let’s look at some stuff that went down.
First off, the Heat had problems closing out games throughout the regular season because the ball would go to LeBron James and never Dwyane Wade. There’s nothing I need to say since it was put together wonderfully in this video. There was that beautiful span of time when they fell to the Bulls, Knicks, Magic, and Bulls again because of moments of unclutch play. For some reason against Boston and Chicago in the playoffs, LeBron James shattered the old playoff image of him being a choker. He closed out games against those teams like he was one of the best ever. But even then, Erik, you had to realize all good things come to an end. We’ll get back to that.
Over in the Western Conference, Dirk Nowitzki lost his fucking mind. He had a great season and should’ve been up with Dwight Howard as an MVP candidate not named Derrick Rose. People thought the Mavericks could potentially contend, but after years of failure previous they had their doubts. In the first round against Portland, many people thought Dallas would be sent packing. In Game 4, Dallas blew a 23 point lead and lost. People thought that was the end of the Mavericks and Dirk. We’d have to chalk Dirk up as another very good player who couldn’t hit that next level. Whoops.
Dallas came back from that loss and reeled off 7 straight victories, including a sweep of the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers. Then people thought the OKC Thunder would beat Dallas, but Shawn Marion played defense like it was 2006 to shut down Kevin Durant and Dirk continued his dominance and the Mavericks made the Finals once again, and once again they found themselves against the Heat. Dirk had played out of his mind all season and looked to finally destroy the notion of him being soft and a choker. After hitting so many big shots and leading the Mavs to numerous comeback victories in the post season, people still weren’t convinced Dallas could compete with Miami’s star power.
Sorry, but I’ll take the team that puts five people out there working together over the team with three egomaniacs treating the sport like a pick up game that will be so easy any day. As Bill Simmons put it, “8 always beats 3,” referring to the depth of Dallas over the star power of the Heat. Miami took Game 1, but in Game 2 they fucked up when LeBron and Wade started celebrating taking a 15 point lead with 7 minutes left. Dirk and Co. came to life and punished Miami, evening the series at 1 apiece. Miami took Game 3, but Dirk’s heroics despite being sick as hell came through in Game 4 to even the series again. The Mavs made the big plays down the stretch and came up with the win in Game 5 as well. This brought us to the deciding Game 6 in Miami. Spoelstra and the Heat may have been saying they weren’t in trouble and were still confident, but it sure didn’t seem that way.
Remember when I said I’d get back to LeBron closing out Boston and Chicago? Here we go. LeBron could close out Boston with ease since Rajon Rondo, their best player, was hurt, thus costing the Celtics down the stretch in games. Shaq was hurt as well and the C’s still hadn’t fully incorporated the new guys from that trade. All of this made them inferior to Miami, thus giving LeBron confidence to hit shots since he saw their weaknesses. Chicago is a young team with much to learn, and Luol Deng and Derrick Rose were cooked from playing so many minutes so LeBron had no problems hitting big shots and flexing and dancing. They were inexperienced and uncomfortable in the big games so LeBron had that swagger.
But once he went up against a crafty veteran team who had nothing holding them back from bringing it, LeBron did a disappearing act. Just like he always does. Shawn Marion outplayed LeBron in at least two games and his defense on the self professed “King” helped keep him out of the game. Of course LeBron is also mentally weak so once he realized Dallas was going to fight to the end he collapsed and relied on Dwyane Wade to have an amazing series. LeBron was nowhere to be found in the fourth quarter of many of the games. He had only 11 fourth quarter points going into Game 6. For the series he finished with 18 fourth quarter points…but Chris Bosh had 23. Dirk Nowitzki had 62 and was a death dealer in the clutch. LeBron was the one being shit on.
The Heat went back to their old ways of being unable to close out games as they gave up numerous fourth quarter leads to Dallas. Spoelstra had to realize that his team suddenly closing games was too good to be true, right? He had to realize that LeBron was missing during the big moments and had a history of doing this and history is always doomed to repeat itself...right?
LeBron came out in Game 6 and hit his first few shots while Dirk started 1-12. Dirk went 8-15 the rest of the way while scoring 10 points in the fourth and sealing the victory. LeBron had 21 points on 9-15 shooting, but if you saw that game you knew he was ineffective. He was driving to the hoop then passing the ball away. Dwyane Wade may have shot poorly but he at least went all out. In the biggest game of the year LeBron had as many turnovers as assists (6) and went 1-4 from the foul line. He hit his first four shots then suddenly didn’t seem to have much of an effect and finished with the quietest 21 points I’ve seen in a big game. Sure he had 7 points in the fourth, but how many times did he get the ball then whip it away to Mario Chalmers as if Wade's STDs were dripping off the ball?
And the moral of the story is as LeBron said those few months ago: Karma is a bitch. Before Game 5 LBJ and Wade were mocking Dirk’s sickness in Game 4 by fake coughing and putting their shirts over their faces like Dirk did in his postgame interview. Cool LeBron. Real tough for a guy who got outplayed by Shawn Marion. When that video game out after Dallas had already won Game 5, the Heat had signed their death warrant for Game 6. Dirk may have shot poorly initially, but in that fourth quarter it was like he had the game sliders all the way up and began raining fire down on the Heatles, sending them on a long and bitter vacation.
Not to mention the fans in the arena in Miami! As Dallas owner Mark Cuban said, “Our fans punked the shit out of the Heat fans.” There were an awful lot of blue shirts in support of Dallas for that final game. Even Miami’s frontrunner fans knew they were screwed. Hell with two minutes left in the game Miami’s weak ass fans were already walking to the exits. LeBron choked in the biggest series of his life and did it in front of a crowd unwilling to support him and the team. It was beautiful.
That’s what happens when you mock a player who is demolishing your team. That’s what happens when you declare your team a dynasty when there’s no roster. When you act like LeBron and the Heat act, that crazy thing called karma gets you and you choke and fail miserably on the biggest stage in the sport. Chris Bosh acted like he was a superstar and such hot shit, and his season ends with him falling on the ground sobbing like a baby.
Now LeBron is saying he’s fine since he’s got a better life and more money than all of us and people have to get back to their lives and stop ripping on Miami. Hey fuck face, if you don’t want the scrutiny then don’t always try to draw attention to yourself. Don’t have championship celebrations before there’s even a team. Don’t go on television and have an hour infomercial that culminates in you kicking your former team in the balls for no good reason. Don’t shit all over a sports city that has been shit on for decades then say only your real fans will understand this move. Don’t tweet stupid shit about taking joy in your former team losing when clearly they were never built to withstand something like you leaving. Don’t dance and flex while you beat inferior teams. Don’t mock Dirk Nowitzki for being sick since he went out and played like Jordan and you played like Karl Malone.
Here is a guy with so much skill and who could be so amazing, but he acts in ways which draw attention to himself, and then he says everybody else is messed up when they don’t like how he acts. He refers to himself as “King James” and acts so arrogant, but then when the going gets tough he calls out everybody else like we all did something. Hell Chris Bosh played better than him in the biggest game of the year! LeBron is a total douche and so cocky for no reason, but once again it is summer time and LeBron James is not an NBA Champion.
People thought Jason Terry’s tattoo of the Championship trophy would be the ultimate stat curse in NBA history, but it appears as though all those lavish celebrations in South Beach and that talk all summer about domination was the real curse. Dwyane Wade mockingly said back in March, “The world is a better place because the Heat is losing.” I don’t know if the world as a whole is a better place, but the basketball world certainly is. The concept of a team still rules over all, and for that all real fans of the game should be pleased.
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