Don’t poke the Bron. Tobias Harris did, and the Orlando Magic felt the ill-effects. After Harris and LeBron James received double technicals midway through the third quarter of last night’s game between the Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers, The King scored 18 points to change his team’s two-point deficit to a 98-89 win. Post game, LeBron said Harris’ insistence that he was flopping “deactivated chill mode.”
Here’s video of the incident:
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Though most players would have taken greatest exception to the elbow, James maintained that it was Harris’ trash talk that spurred his big finish. Via Chris Haynes of Northeast Ohio Media Group:
“It wasn’t the shoulder or the elbow, it was the words that he said that got me going,” James acknowledged. “I was actually in chill mode tonight but chill mode was deactivated after that.”
James wouldn’t reveal which one of Harris’ trash-talking comments got to him. At any rate, it didn’t matter. Harris shouldn’t have gone there and has no one else to blame but himself.
Why would Harris do such a thing when his team had the momentum for much of the game?
“I have no idea. I have no idea,” James responded. “I have zero problems with Tobias Harris. I don’t. I have no problems with him. I don’t know what he has with me, but I have zero problems with Tobias Harris.”
LeBron added four boards and two blocks to go with his 18 points after clashing with Harris. He helped hold the Magic’s high-scoring forward to two points on 1-of-5 shooting from that point on, too. Awe-inspiring shots like this were commonplace for The King down the stretch:
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Yeah. That doesn’t exactly seem like “chill mode.”
But did Harris learn a valuable lesson, at least? No way. The 22 year-old made it clear that his contentious brand of intensity would never waver:
“I’m not going to back down from anybody. That’s my game,” Harris said. “I’m going to give you 100 percent every night no matter who it is. I know we got into a little talking, that’s all part of the game. It’s just to fire my team up, that’s it.”
That’s well and good. But next time the Magic meet the Cavs, Harris would obviously be best-served by allowing LeBron to simply “chill.”
What do you think?
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