Despite holding a 26-point lead in the fourth quarter, the Cleveland Cavaliers managed to lose to the Atlanta Hawks. When a team blows such a substantial lead, it’s hard to pin it on the officiating. The Cavs did their best, though. From ESPN’s Dave McMenamin:
“It wasn’t a foul on my sixth foul,” said LeBron James, who fouled out with 1:52 remaining in overtime and the Cavs up by three, for contact with Atlanta’s Paul Millsap while jostling for rebounding position. “I knew I had five [fouls]. I knew the ball was going long. So I may have grazed Millsap a little bit, but I mean, throughout the course of a game [that happens]. I didn’t push him or anything like that.”
James fouled out for the second time this season, and just the sixth time in his career.
“We had some bad breaks, obviously, with the jump ball,” James said. “A couple of their guys were out of bounds. And then with the jump ball for Kyrie in the corner, I’m sitting right next to the ref [Leroy Richardson] and asking for a timeout, and the explanation he gave me, I never heard in my 14-year career. Never. So it doesn’t take away from the fact that we still had a huge lead to start the fourth, but every play counts, no matter what is going on.”
…
“He told me that I’m not allowed to call timeout because he didn’t know who had possession of the ball,” James said. “And I was the one who entered the ball to Kyrie. And as soon as I seen Millsap go trap Kyrie in the short corner, I looked at him and called timeout twice — at least twice — and he wasn’t even paying me no attention. And that’s when the jump ball happened. I said, ‘Why?’ He said, ‘I can’t call timeout because I don’t know who has possession of the ball. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know the tie up.’ I said, ‘That doesn’t make any sense because we have the ball. I entered the ball to Kyrie, so you shouldn’t even be worried about the tie up or not. I’m calling it as soon as I saw Kyrie is getting tied up in the corner.’ So I’ve never heard that one before. I’ve never heard that explanation before in my life.”
The Cavs weren’t fans of Richardson’s officiating:
One member of the Cavs could be heard uttering “f—ing Leroy Richardson” outside the visitor’s locker room after the game.
Kyrie Irving decided against criticizing the referees:
“How much is the fine for talking about the refs?” Irving said when asked about that charge call. “It’s like $50 [thousand], $25? Not worth it. Not worth it, so sorry. I had some good conversation with the refs — just a few plays that didn’t go our way. That’s not the kind of the first step that led to the breakdown of what happened in that fourth quarter and why it extended the game. There were some things that could’ve gone a different way but didn’t, and now we just got to move on from here.”
There were certainly some questionable calls in the game, but the Cavaliers could have – and should have – maintained their 26-point fourth-quarter lead regardless of the officiating. I mean… it was a 26 (TWENTY-SIX)-point lead. This one is on them, not the refs.
After Sunday’s loss, the Cavs are once again even with the Boston Celtics for first in the Eastern Conference. Getting the no. 1 seed may not be a priority for the Cavs, as they’ve elected to rest James and Irving (and possibly Love, who is listed as questionable) against the Miami Heat on Monday.
