Record: 41-34 (Goddamnit)
Wow, that was a rough pick to lose. There isn’t anything to say about Cavs-Knicks Game 3. There isn’t any clever scenarios to make up. There is nothing to be learned. Sure, there are things to be learned from the Cavs. There are lessons to glean if you are Dan Gilbert. Did you see Dan in his black jacket and black-framed glasses sitting behind the league camera people? Perpendicular to the Cavs’ bench? Maybe now that this is the fourth year of failing with the King Theoden/Wormtongue pairing, Dan Gilbert can grow a set of balls, stop crying about his NL1 kid that kept winning the draft lottery, and trade King Theoden. Doubtful, but that’s the lesson! King Theoden can still be used to trade for someone actually good, and the DPOY that King Theoden won, makes his contract to much larger than his performance. In a game featuring a salary cap, King Theoden’s disproportionately small contributions to winning are a big problem but there are still teams that aren’t wise to this. There are teams out there who will buy King Theoden’s bullshit. Too bad one of those teams is Dan Gilbert’s.
Why isn’t there anything to glean from this Leastern Conference Finals Game 3? Because it was over before two minutes transpired. The Cavs never ran back on defense like their season depended on it for the entire game. Little Game James has made a career of not playing acceptable defense during the postseason, but somehow that same characteristic imbues itself in the other Cavs players. Little Game James really got traded to this team at the trade deadline and immediately infected it with his lack of Care Factor. Truly incredible that a 36-year-old can arrive on a team and immediately become the defining characteristic of it. It speaks to the blank piece of paper that was this Cavs team’s personality before Little Game James. The Cavs team was so lacking in identity that only a second of Little Game James’ presence was needed to mentally condition them into giving up during the postseason in despicable ways. Which in yesterday’s case, was not running back on defense and losing track of people in baffling ways off the ball. If there aren’t two things more emblematic of the Little Game James Show than not running back on defense and losing track of people off the ball, I’ll be damned. Actually, trying and failing to get foul shots is probably more emblematic.
“Focus on making the shot, James! I know he’s a great player, but I don’t like him.”
Ugh, I’ve been writing these same things about Little Game James for about a decade. About. Don’t run the actual numbers. We’re about to file an IPO for our media company and it’s important that you focus on the bigoted phrasing and blatantly uninformed sex stuff. We even have pictures of vaginas on our filing paperwork that we gave to the corporate attorneys. Shaved vaginas, and “ai”. Wrongbomb is worth 500 million dollars. Print it.
The Knicks’ coaches had a lot of fun scheming up ways to have off-ball movement and screens lead to open layups at the rim against this beaten-down Cavs defense. The Knicks’ assistant coaches had fun, and the Cavs assistant coaches had their hands over their faces like they were going to go into their hotel rooms and overdose. Kovid Towns’ seven assists were grossly inflated by the stat keepers but there was one to a diving Mr Attendance at the rim that completely lost Little Game James. What happened was, Mr Attendance set an off-ball screen for General Woundwort after GW passed the ball to Kovid. GW’s defender was Dean Wade. Little Game James stayed with General Woundwort on the Mr Attendance screen. Mr Attendance jogged to the rim while Kovid held the ball. Little Game James backed away from General Woundwort, thus handing back that responsibility to Dean Wade, but Little Game James didn’t move towards Mr Attendance at the basket. Kovid threw that ball in there and Mr Attendance made the easy layup. Really, the first two minutes should’ve been Quitting Time for watching this game, but that play 4 minutes into the third quarter would have served as a good spot as well.
Mr Attendance is being “guarded” by either Little Game James or Frodo, and that’s too big of a problem for the Cavs to overcome when their season is on the line. Look at Mr Attendance. What does Mr Attendance look like he’s good at? Oh, running off the ball and running in transition? You’re telling me that Mr Attendance looks like he hunts gazelles with spears? Well, you’re a bigot, but besides that, “running” is not something that Little Game James or Frodo can contain. That’s one of their many Kryponites on defense. Frodo also has the problem of being beasted. Goodness, was Frodo taken to the weight room. Even the gazelle-hunting Mr Attendance took Frodo to the basket during bully ball.
Listen, Frodo is broken down. It’s the third round of the playoffs and Frodo is small and exhausted. It’s painful watching the Cavs players just hand the ball to Frodo on offense like they literally can’t do anything but tell Frodo to make a very difficult, labor-intensive shot. That was the Cavs offense. They actually did better when Frodo went to the locker room and they were forced to play offense without their binkie. Jaylon Tyson was not catching the ball well all game, but when Frodo went out, he actually had the chance to dribble and he had an and1 on stepson. Terrible series for stepson.
But yeah, Frodo was running back on defense like he was a 60-year-old man. Maybe that’s what is causing injury suspicions. After this year’s update to the scoreboard regarding the Frodo and French Rejection divorce, French Rejection is still winning. This Leastern Conference Finals appearance counts, but goodness gracious it looks like Frodo will be swept. French Rejection and Frodo were meant to be together. Two people with flaws that are too deep and insurmountable. Two people who make hopes and dreams impossible. You didn’t enjoy rooting for that Jazz team. You found yourself preferring to build something new that had the possibility of not featuring a giant who can’t catch and a Hobbit who gets injured because he insists on dribbling the life out of the ball and not playing to make teammates better. When Frodo tries to “make his teammates better”, what happens is that Frodo throws no-look passes into four defenders and starts a fastbreak that ends with Mr Attendance outrunning him to the rim and making a layup. Frodo really can’t do anything other than dribble too much for his own good and get hurt because of overuse. Because the alternative to that is turnovers and fastbreak layups. Fun!
Can King Theoden be traded after this game is over?
We asked that during this game. It’s hard for us to watch King Theoden play offense with such a high, weak center of gravity. It looks like King Theoden will never be able to get low enough to be a good offensive player. Go ahead and tell me that he is 24 and still had a lot of potential to not be an offensive liability. Calls on King Theoden.
In addition to King Theoden’s inability to establish a “base”, he turns over the ball a lot. Bad, inaccurate passes that have no chance of being caught. Losing the ball while dribbling because he bumped into a defender and lost his balance. Mainly those two, but of those two, mostly the former. Josh Hart got a lot of steals courtesy of bad King Theoden passes. Go ahead and tell me that King Theoden is “soft-spoken” or even more internet-brained, an “introvert”. Yuck. King Theoden has some growing up to do. He needs to play with “fuck you”. One might even say that he needs to play with “toughness”. We’ll stick to “King Theoden needs to get a dick”.
Jordyn Woods showed up with Kovid Towns’ dad to watch Kovid. She was looking like a ghoul with her excessive Kylie Jenner makeup, but you can understand the relationship between Kovid and Jordyn. Two retards being happy with each other’s retardation. That makes sense to me! It’s not something that I will look appreciatively at, but it’s something that I can understand. What I can not understand is any woman loving King Theoden. How can you appreciate a man like King Theoden? He’s aggressively uncharismatic. When he speaks, you feel weighed down by life difficulties. Things feel insurmountable. Heavy. King Theoden’s words don’t feel dumb. His words make you feel like everything stops and you’re trapped in a prison of King Theoden’s blankness. Men are supposed to make things happen. They are supposed to create things out of nothing. Men are supposed to be dangerous and fun. Toxic Masculinity! LMAO! But yeah, King Theoden is not a man, and it’s hard looking at his blank face during a game where he has 5 turnovers and gets pushed below the baseline by stepson during free-throw box-outs.
One more thing about King Theoden! The broadcasters had another bizarre applauding of King Theoden when he had to dribble the ball up the court against Josh Hart, who maybe caused three of King Theoden’s five turnovers. Sam Merrill and Frodo didn’t want to dribble the ball up the court so King Theoden had to dribble up against Josh Hart in less than eight seconds. He barely did, and the broadcasters couldn’t stop complimenting King Theoden for being able to do so. Very bizarre. Is King Theoden sponsored by the American-Israeli Political Action Committee?
Screw the Cavs. I hate myself for picking them. That really hurt watching that performance. The Conference Finals need to be over now.
Thunder ⛈️ (+2.5) over SPURS 🤠
- Yeah, you can tell me that Ajay Mitchell is out and that De’Aaron and Dylan are giving it another go. You can tell me that, and I’m going to go right up to the window and take the Thunder as underdogs again. CTESPN isn’t going to make another article about how this is the first time in 34 games that the Thunder are underdogs because they were underdogs last game. At this point in the playoffs, I want to make picks that would hurt less to lose. Picking the Spurs and watching De’Aaron Fox and Dylan Harper get seriously injured while the Thunder prevent the Spurs from dribbling would hurt A LOT.
