Against the Indiana Pacers it worked. It brought the house down. It was LeBron in full particularly in the third quarter when his annoyance reached its peak and all of the indignities of the past few games cranked his furnace up to high. As Dave Hyde points out in The Sun Sentinel when he sat down to rest for a few minutes in the fourth quarter the Heat s lead instantly shrank. Not that he needed any reminding at that point what was happening but you could almost see him thinking even a king needs to sit down for a few minutes guys. Sheesh.
At this point the Big Three was a fantasy Adrian Wojnarowski writes on Yahoo.com a relic of what suddenly felt like a bygone era. While plenty of people were happy to cheer James s dominance Ian Thomsen writes on SI.com he made his unhappiness painfully clear to his teammates writes Ken Berger on CBSSports.com and his comments about returning to my Cleveland days were certainly meant to shame them into returning to the stage.
Yes as Greg Cote writes in The Miami Herald James on his own is more than enough to hold off the Pacers. He could cut through all the noise the pregame fixation on flopping by him and others the idea that someone like Lance Stephenson could be taunting him in this series yes Brian Windhorst writes on ESPN.com Stephenson provided any extra motivation James might have needed and carry the whole show by himself.
But surely he also realized the San Antonio Spurs the quintessential ensemble cast were sitting in their ice baths at the home for aging basketball players waiting for the N.B.A. finals saying Hmm the Big Three reduced to a Big One a medium and a small. ... That explains the anger in even the most dazzling of one man shows.
With James swatting aside any thoughts of an upset one had to flip over to the Mets Yankees baseball series to find any real sporting chaos Thursday night as the Mets were polishing off an unthinkable four game sweep the final two at Yankee Stadium. This did not go over well in Dynastyville with Ian O Connor of ESPN.com picturing an afterlife tirade by George Steinbrenner. For some reason the Yankees have served as a sort of rehab program for the bedraggled Mets Filip Bondy writes in The Daily News although Mike Vaccaro argues in The New York Post that the series may end up helping both teams in their own way. The Yankees have an influx of regulars coming back to the lineup Mark Feinsand writes in The Daily News which did not seem that crucial until now and the Mets have not exactly been cured of being the Mets.
An extended convalescence by Yankees outfielder Curtis Granderson gave him time to think about donating $5 million to his alma mater Illinois Chicago for a baseball stadium. And everyone else sitting around in rehab most likely took note of the events in Boston Thursday when Jacoby Ellsbury stole a team record five bases and took one home as a souvenir Gordon Edes writes on ESPN.com.
It was after all a good day for one man shows.
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