After the Thunder’s 15-point meltdown in Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals, LeBron James said this:
“I don’t want to sit here and be the coach of OKC but I seen a lot of things that could have been done better.”
Do you prefer college rule, cardstock or construction?
(Now, I suppose you might be saying, “But Royce, shouldn’t you eat yours? You just wrote about how the Thunder should learn from the Heat.” And you’d be right. But I also said this in that piece:
“They’re closing games with impressive style. Now, it’s about closing a series. They’ve got a leg up on the Mavericks 1-0. As goes anything with the Heat, one time of failure and all this goodwill flies out the door. One time of not closing and finishing poorly and everyone is ready to write and talk about their problems.”
Maybe I just got it backwards. Maybe the Heat were the ones learning from the Thunder.
The Heat totally blew this one, no doubt. Their possessions were poor, they didn’t play defensive and Dirk totally Dirk’d them. At the same time though, they kind of did their thing. They just missed some shots. The trust was there. All those quotes from Wade and LeBron are still applicable anyway.
And really, there’s something for the Thunder to learn here again: It happens to everyone. Even the really good, experienced guys. Winning is hard. Especially when you’re playing Dirk.)
[...] It’s funny how words can come back and bite you in the behind, as this Miami meltdown was “Hollywood as Hell,” but in LeBron’s words, a “lot of things could have been done better…” [...]