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LeBron James and the Lakers have failed to blow an accurate whistle for several games this season, and once again burned them with a brutal 125-121 overtime loss to the Celtics in Boston on Saturday night.
The score was tied at 105, and the Lakers had the frontcourt sideline out of bounds in 4.1 seconds to play in regulation. LeBron curled around the top for his pass inbounds and continued downhill directly, reaching all the way to the rim for a game-winning layup attempt. He didn’t even paint iron. There are obvious reasons for that. He was apparently fouled by Jayson Tatum, who ran straight across LeBron’s left forearm.
Let’s take a closer look here.
Don’t mind the abusive comments on your tweets. These games are not cheating. They simply couldn’t answer the phone. According to multiple reports, the league admitted to missing the call without waiting for his final two-minute report the next day normally.
I can understand LeBron’s frustration at the boiling point. This isn’t the first time this has happened to him or the Lakers this season. Heck, it’s not the first time this month.
In fact, James was burned in a no-call on another potentially game-winning layup attempt in a two-time overtime loss to Dallas on January 12. The Last Two Minute Report confirmed that Christian Wood had indeed hacked LeBron, with the score tied and the final seconds ticking at the end of the first overtime.
Yep, this is another tough beat for LeBron and the Lakers. That said, in both instances mentioned, the Lakers should never have been in a position to be wronged by the authorities in the first place.
Durbin Hamm admitted he was ‘kicking’ after losing to Mavericks [himself] Instead of double-teaming with Luka Doncic and the Lakers at the end of regulation, he let them play one-on-one instead, eventually hitting the game-tying three-pointer.
But that wasn’t Hamm’s first or biggest mistake in that possession. He should have fouled the Lakers’ Doncic before the shot to prevent him or anyone else from attempting a tying 3.
I’ve said it hundreds of times and I’ll say it again. Deliberately allowing a foul is an act that is mentally considered to undermine your chances of success, but if late in the game he’s up to three, it’s a silly thing to do. But until the league finds a way to conscientiously enforce its own rules, allowing opponents to attempt his 3-pointer to tie the game, rather than sending his two-shot free throw to his line. There is no statistical justification for
But there are still coaches like Hamm who are too stubborn to accept basic math, or too afraid of fouling when shooting. After watching Doncic burn down the Lakers in a tie-three a few weeks ago, you’d think Hamm wouldn’t repeat the same mistake.
But he did. In the possession before James was stripped of his throw in a potentially game-winning free, the Lakers had a 3-point lead with the clock winding up in less than 10 seconds of him. LA had multiple chances to foul and protect the Celtics from game-tying attempts, starting with Troy Brown Jr. and Patrick Beverly putting Malcolm Brogdon’s double team at the top of the key. bottom.
Instead, they let Brown swing the ball to Tatum, who then swung it to Al Horford, who had a wide-open 3 into the corner. That’s what a shot defense tries to defend against every game, and the Lakers were happy to shoot it when the game was on the line when the Celtics had multiple opportunities to foul.
Horford missed, but it doesn’t matter. It’s bad coaching that’s salvaged by luck… at least at first. Another problem with letting a team hit a tying three shot is that the team is much more likely to generate his rebound offensively than a free throw.
Jaylen Brown swooped down to catch Horford’s mistake and finish the layup… plus a Beverly foul. He scored a free throw to equalize.
To clarify, Beverly played ridiculous by fouling Brown. you are three Let the man put it down. Disputing that shot is a catastrophic error. But things happen in chaotic situations. clock winding. tight game. loose rebound. Instincts and emotions rule. Again, that scenario should never have happened. Ham must call the Lakers for a foul.
That’s not the only late-game mistake Hamm has made this season. His very small final lineup can be very questionable.Saturday, he fired him in the middle of overtime, only (cleverly) not playing against Russell his Westbrook for the entire fourth quarter. I just threw it in (unwise).
Westbrook played well and badly in overtime. Again, it doesn’t matter. If he’s unreliable enough to be on the floor in the 4th quarter, it’s a prayer to throw him into overtime at random, especially as part of his lineup with his collectively unshootable little three-guard.
A few weeks ago, Hamm let Westbrook completely fumble the last possession of the game, with the Lakers trailing the Sixers by one and rather than calling a timeout, LeBron would at least touch the ball at such a crucial moment. I made it
After that loss, Hamm said he liked the Westbrook-Joel Embiid matchup so much that he never considered calling timeouts.
“I do that scenario every day, twice on Sundays,” says Ham.
As I wrote then and will continue to write, that comment is nothing more than Hamm trying to push Westbrook’s back and possibly defend himself by justifying a bad decision. The property was a wreck and I could see it happening very close in slow motion.
Even though Hamm liked the matchup at first, there was no way it would work once Westbrook fumbled the ball. Had Ham called a timeout at that moment, he could have engineered a play that would have given LeBron the ball and given the Lakers a better look at the basket, with about seven seconds still remaining.
These are horrible decisions and cost the Lakers important wins they can’t afford to lose. It happened again on Saturday when a regular stole the game from the Lakers that Hamm should have finished one possession early.
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