Tyronn Lue coached his Cleveland Cavaliers to a complete domination over the Atlanta Hawks in game two of their Eastern Conference semi-finals series. In the rout, the Cavs unloaded for an NBA record 25 made three-pointers which broke both the single game playoff record and the NBA record for any game. They dominated and sent a message; the Cavs are here decimate the competition.
With the big blowout, some Hawks players felt disrespected by Cleveland and what they did. Players said the Cavs lacked professionalism and they seemed upset. Someone else who was upset was Inside the NBA personality, Charles Barkley. Chuck said the Hawks need to go and ‘take someone out’ which angered not only former NBA star Charles Oakley but also Cavs coach Tyronn Lue.
Following from Dave McMenamin of ESPN.
“I don’t think there’s any place in our game to take someone out if they’re playing well,” Lue said on a conference call with reporters Thursday. “I think you can take it upon yourself to play harder and do things to stop it or stop a team from playing well.
“But when it gets into trying to hurt guys or trying to take guys out, that’s just not right. Hopefully the referees will keep an eye on it and make sure it’s a clean game. We don’t mind if it’s a physical game, but clean and everything that they do and we do is basketball-related. I don’t believe in taking guys out and trying to hurt guys because a team or a player is playing well.”
LeBron James, however, shook off Barkley’s comments.
“That’s Chuck being Chuck,” James said Friday. “At the end of the day, I don’t think that has anything to do with the game of basketball. It’s not for our game. I think for us and for those guys, we want to bring a physicality to the game. But as far as taking someone out, I think that over-exceeds what our league is all about.
“You never want to try to jeopardize anyone being injured. So I don’t think, for us, we’re not going to have that on our mind. We’re going to still play our physical style of play, both offensively and defensively, and I think the referees will do a great job of taking care of the game. That has nothing to do with basketball.”
“That’s something that the players felt like it was within their grasp, they wanted to go for it,” Lue said. “I mean, records are made to be broken, I don’t see anything wrong with it. We didn’t do anything malicious. We were up 40 points and we got our starters out with four minutes to go in the third quarter.
“We got LeBron out with 2½ minutes to go in the third quarter. So I don’t think we did anything to rub it in their face or anything like that. We played the guys who don’t get a chance to play a lot, and they felt good on the floor and they wanted to go for the record.”
