LeBron James did everything for the Cavaliers last night. He scored 37 points, grabbed 18 rebounds, and dished out 13 assists during Cleveland's 114-111 overtime win against the Hawks. He played through a series of painful injuries. And after the game was over, he even defended his teammate Matthew Dellavedova, who got tangled up with Al Horford at one point during the game and ended up getting Horford ejected from the contest. It seems some opposing players think Dellavedova is a dirty player—and LeBron doesn't like it.
"I'm a little bit off about it," he said, "because this is my guy. This is my teammate and this is a guy that goes out and works his tail off every single night and people are trying to give him a bad rap. He doesn't deserve it and I don't like it."
LeBron also wondered why more people didn't criticize Hawks forward Pero Antic for shoving him during Game 2 of the Cleveland/Atlanta playoff series. In his eyes, that was a way dirtier play than the play that Dellavedova was involved in last night.
"In Game 2, when Antic two-handed shoves me out of the air," he said. "I mean, the fact that I'm still playing, we don't talk about it, but he two-hand shoves me in the air. So what are we really talking about? Are we going to talk about us trying to win basketball games or about those guys trying to figure out a way to [prove] that Matthew Dellavedova is this type of [dirty player]? This guy, he works his tail off every single day. He beats the odds and he comes to play as hard as he can every single night. If they're focused on Delly, then they're focused on the wrong thing."
LeBron has a point. The Horford/Dellavedova play was a turning point in the game last night. But it wasn't the reason the Hawks lost. So Atlanta should probably stop worrying about it and worry about Game 4 of the series instead.
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[via ESPN]
