Hero Ball

Throughout the playoffs when stars on teams decided to take over and score, the pundits derided the stars as playing "hero ball" and not team ball.

Today the Cleveland Cavaliers are alive because LeBron James and Kyrie Irving played hero ball and were heroes.  James is James, he can play like that eight days a week. Irving is, I have come to find out, a very good player--but last night he was beyond very good.

James and Irving scored 82 of Cleveland's 112 points. If either of them missed a shot or two, and if Harrison Barnes did not have an atypically bad game, the pundits would still be disparaging the Cavaliers for playing hero ball because the Warriors would have prevailed.

If you have only two horses, you have to ride them.  Sometimes you have to play hero ball. I will write again what I've written in previous blogs: Had the Thunder not played hero ball with their consistently other worldly studs Durant and Westbrook--the Warriors would have taken that series sooner.

Another note, I am crazy about Draymond Green.  He is a great player. However, his suspension last night for multiple flagrant fouls was deserved and an indication of counterproductive team behavior.  The Warriors need Green; he can't keep getting technical fouls and flagrant fouls such that he is disqualified.  If I were a Warrior I would be less upset at the officials for disqualifying Green than I would be at Green for behaving in a way that resulted in a suspension.