The pettiness in the days between Game 4 and 5 in the NBA Finals was one of the biggest talking points leading up to Monday night’s surprising Game 5 Cavs win in Oakland. The series is now 3-2, with Game 6 on Thursday night back in Cleveland. While we haven’t really heard from either team as they practice before tomorrow, Richard Jefferson has already used some strong language about Klay Thompson after his impromptu editorializing about LeBron James on Sunday.
According to Chris Mannix at The Vertical, Cavs officials were silently seething when Klay made a “man’s league” comment aimed at LeBron’s public declaration that Draymond Green went over the line in Game 4 and the lack of calls going his way. They couldn’t believe the same guy who called out Cavs center Timofey Mozgov for a moving screen had the temerity to talk about toughness.
As we all know, Green was suspended for Game 5, and the Warriors fans booed themselves hoarse every time LeBron got the ball Monday night. The booing and the belief LeBron played a role in the suspension didn’t matter, as James and Kyrie Irving combined for 82 points to blow the Draymond-less Warriors off their home floor. But it was clear Cavs forward Richard Jefferson wasn’t gonna let Klay’s apparent hypocrisy go unnoticed in public.
“If it’s a man’s game, shut up about the [illegal screen],” Jefferson told The Vertical. “Or don’t say anything about LeBron. Klay, he’s like my little brother. But we can’t contradict ourselves.”
If Richard had ready= any Walt Whitman, he would know that we — as human beings — contradict ourselves all the time.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Did Klay use language deliberately aimed at messing with LeBron? Absolutely. Did it work? Absolutely not — James exploded in Game 5, and while Kyrie got a lot of ink, James’ energy on both sides of the floor will be remembered come MVP time if the Cavs actually come back in this series.
But this is also grandstanding, and Jefferson knows this, too. He’s not dumb and the comments to Mannix are deliberate. Almost everything is at this level and at this time is done for a reason. We’re at the whatever-it-takes moment of the season, and that includes little digs at opponents through the media. Whether any of this empty air proves effective, we’ll see Thursday night. We doubt it, though. The court is where this series will be decided, no matter how much the talking heads want you to believe otherwise.
(Via The Vertical)
