i'm not saying anderson varejo, who has made a career out of cheap shotting people, should have cheap shotted lebron.
what i'm saying is that the cavilers demeanor and performance was void of any sort of competitive pride. long story short... they have no balls.
this is a guy who more or less said "i'm going to miami because you guys all suck," and did so in the most disrespectful way possible. and here he is, back "home" again, and you spend the game cracking jokes with him and letting him talk shit to your bench while he torches you?
i, for one, was disgusted... and i feel really bad for the cav fans that their own team didn't feel it was important enough to at least play with the same pride that they have.
the knicks/heat had a huge rivalry in the late 90's, for one reason and one reason only; pat fucking riley.
pat riley snaked his way out of new york, quitting on the knicks by fax. riley's return to the garden the next year was the closest thing to last night that i can ever remember. riley even went out on the court and waved his hands, egging the crowd on as they booed.
i remember ewing and harper and maybe a few other players went over and gave him the courtesy hug. and then they went out and tried to rip the heat's hearts out, at the start of what became a bitter, intense rivalry for the next 4-5 years.
there was no joking, no smiling, no fucking around... it was a war every time the teams played. the way it should have been.
the cavs complete lack of heart, balls, toughness last night falls under the same umbrella as lebron joining up with wade and bosh to begin with; we have a generation of players who have grown up without that competitive fire that the generation(s) before them had. it's sickening.
why? i think it's pretty simple. used to be you played your 20+ games in high school, and in the offseason you went to camps and played at the park, where if you lost you'd have to sit for an hour, so you had to fight tooth and nail every play just to stay on the court.
now the kids all go off to their AAU tournaments, where they have 6 games in a weekend, so they learn how to coast at times so that they can make it through the weekend. it's a culture where players bounce around to form superteams, rather than sticking together and trying to work their way up. sound familiar?
disgusting.
once the older generation of players in the league now... the kobe's, pierce's, KG's, duncan's, etc. etc... retire, the NBA is in for a world of hurt.
He looked like a real shitbag telling his players to be wary of "the disease of me" and then he shows them that he only gives a shit about Pat Riley and not his players.
