The Rockets and Cavs face off on Thursday night (8 p.m. ET on TNT) in a matchup of one of the best in the West against the three-time defending Eastern Conference champs. What makes this arguably more interesting than that billing would indicate is that Cleveland is 5-6 this season and has struggled tremendously, particularly on the defensive end, which is a problem when going up against James Harden and the Rockets.
That said, the Cavs have been at their best against good teams and have played down to lesser opponents. Add in LeBron James already getting into his subtweeting/sub-instagramming mode early, and this has all the makings for a great early regular season game.
Historically, prodding LeBron James before a game doesn’t go very well and we don’t have to look too far back to find an example. Most recently, the Wizards duo of John Wall and Bradley Beal said last year the Cavs avoided the Wizards in the playoffs on purpose. LeBron subsequently hung 57 points on them in his best game in years and single-handedly carried Cleveland to a win.
Despite evidence suggesting you shouldn’t poke the bear, the Rockets’ social media team couldn’t pass up the juicy opportunity to have some fun with LeBron’s Instagram post featuring the angry Arthur fist meme with a phenomenal hype video trolling the King.
https://twitter.com/HoustonRockets/status/928653905239588864
If you’re going to mess with LeBron, this is at least a very funny and well put together way of doing it. The Arthur references are tremendous and the photoshop of the Arthur fist as LeBron’s hand is [chef kissing fingers motion].
The video is, rightfully, getting lots of love and attention, and whether he admits it or not, you best believe it will be seen by James. For the Rockets’ sake, they better hope Harden and company can take advantage of Cleveland’s defensive woes to the point where a classic LeBron performance isn’t enough, because if he wasn’t already motivated to show out tonight, this will certainly have him ready.
