The Heat went up 2-0 on the Bobcats Wednesday night in Miami — they’re the only home team to do so in the first round — and LeBron James led the way with 32 points, eight assists, six rebounds, and four steals. Josh McRoberts had eight points, four assists, a lone rebound and a forearm shiver that almost popped LeBron’s Adam’s Apple through his larynx and out the back of his neck. It was just a foul, though.
Listen, we know LeBron flops and that #LeBroning is a thing — even if some of our beliefs about flopping are a tad outside the mainstream.
But this McRoberts foul would normally be a flagrant as Greg Anthony astutely pointed out during the telecast. Even after LeBron tried to sell how gruesome the hit was by sputtering and acting like he choked on a Jujyfruit after the play, the refs still just called a foul. LeBron conspiracy theorists are speechless (say that 10 times fast). We’d be surprised if McRoberts wasn’t fined for the foul some time tomorrow, though.
Here are three different angles to convince you McRoberts went high enough with his forearm it would probably get a flag in the NFL. Not really a basketball play, but whatever — we just re-watched the Bad Boys 30 for 30 again today, and we’re in a Rick Mahorn state of mind.
This angle is particularly damning.
Charlotte Observer scribe Rick Bonnell agrees:
I like Josh McRoberts a ton. In Game 2 he did what he thought he had to. But Bobcats fans defending an elbow to the Adam's Apple is wrong.
— Rick Bonnell (@rick_bonnell) April 24, 2014
Put it this way: If LeBron did to McRoberts what McRoberts did to LeBron, many of you would have James deported.
— Rick Bonnell (@rick_bonnell) April 24, 2014
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Should this have been a flagrant?
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