LEBRON JAMES SCORES ON THE BUZZER TO LEVEL SERIES FOR CAVALIER AGAINST THE BULLS

BY AYODELE ODUMADE

In a season where almost all the teams in the NBA playoffs appear to be evenly matched, Lebron James hit a shot with 1.5 seconds left of game 4 of the Eastern Conference Semi Final, for the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Chicago Bulls to level the series 2-2.  The game ended 86-84 but that did not tell the whole story of the game. The Chicago Bulls restricted the Cavaliers to just 12 points in the third quarter and dropped quite few shots from down town in a very physical game.

Last Friday Derrick Rose was the hero for the Bulls on Friday as he hit one on the buzzer to take a 2-1 lead in the series. Yesterday (May 10), it was payback time as James scored on the buzzer exactly 26 years to the day that Michael Jordan did the same to Cleveland in the playoffs.  Lebron’s shot equalled the same number of shots Jordan hit on the buzzer in the playoffs (three).

James almost became the villain of the game as he turned over the ball a few times and committed an offensive foul with just seconds of the game remaining allowing Derrick Rose to tie the game. At this stage, the Bulls had run out of timeouts and Cleveland had to use their last two timeouts just to inbound the ball due to the brilliant defence of the Bulls.

The Cleveland Coach, David Blatt almost blew it as he called a timeout, which his team did not have. He was the only one who was not aware that his team no longer had a timeout. His assistant, Tyron Lue realised what was going on and pulled his coach off the court. Had any of the officials spotted his attempted call of a time out, it would have been a technical foul against them, the Bulls would have had two free throws and possession with the game tied at 84 at the time. That almost certainly would have cost Cleveland the game.

Cleveland then benefitted from a stoppage to review an incident with Lebron in the game and huddled in a timeout when they should not have at this stage there was only 0.8 seconds left on the clock. The officials added 0.7seconds onto the clock and Lebron tore up the script and hit the winning shot at the buzzer.

Critics and pundits feel that the Bulls have blown their best chance of reaching their first conference finals since 1998. Game five is in Cleveland on Tuesday night.  The Bulls would have to win that game to stand a chance as Lebron James has never lost a game 7 in the NBA Playoffs!