After the Cleveland Cavaliers buried an NBA single-game record 25 three-point shots in a Game 2 win over the Atlanta Hawks in the Eastern Conference Semifinals last Wednesday night, NBA on TNT analyst Charles Barkley said Atlanta needed to take out a player on Cleveland’s roster in Game 3 as a response to 123-98 loss.
Through most of Game 3 at Philips Arena Friday night, which Cleveland won, 121-108, the Hawks and Cavaliers played physical, but nothing that crossed the line, that is until guard Jeff Teague body-checked LeBron James into the fans sitting along the baseline, an infraction that drew a flagrant-one foul.
“At the end of the day, I’m just happy I didn’t…I was actually run into two kids and a lady on the baseline,” James said. “Hopefully, I didn’t hurt them. I scrapped my leg a little bit, but I’m fine. I’m okay. I went back and checked on them and made sure they were okay because I couldn’t really stop. They were fine.
“Once I found out they were fine and I was able to walk off the court, I’m okay. That doesn’t matter. What I can control is getting my body ready for Sunday, and just try to close this series out. We’re a team that’s destined for greatness. I really believe that. We have a mission and another chapter in our goals on Sunday, so we look forward to the challenge.”
While James did not care much to talk about the flagrant-one foul, Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue and Atlanta coach Mike Budenholzer addressed the infraction.
“I thought it was handled the right way, a flagrant foul, two shots and the ball, and we’ll take it,” Lue said. “For me and the team, just stay composed, keep our heads and keep playing the way we’ve been playing. It was a flagrant foul. LeBron got up. Our guys got ‘Bron, made two free throws and got him out the game, so it wasn’t a big deal to me.”
Budenholzer added, “I’m sure it was probably the proper judgement or ruling by the officials. I haven’t looked at it, and I’m not saying it was a flagrant-one, but I don’t think it was anything over the line or malicious. I think we’ll be ready to play on Sunday, and it’s been a pretty clean series. We’ll continue to compete and have an edge, but I don’t think there’s anything of that happening in this series.”
As for James, after getting through the flagrant-one foul and finding out those he crash-landed on were okay, he set his sights squarely on the Cavaliers’ Game 4 matchup with the Hawks, which is a close-out opportunity for Cleveland.
“My main focus right now is on us and that 3:30 game on Sunday,” James said. “Everything else will take care of itself. The Man Above knows what’s going to happen and things of that nature. What I can control, what we can control is how well we prepare in our film session.
“We did some uncharacteristic things for us as a team, and we need to learn from that. As good as we were in the fourth quarter, we’ve got to be great for four quarters on Sunday because they’re going to give us everything they’ve got.
“We had some uncharacteristic turnovers. We had 18 turnovers, 20 turnovers for 27 points, which is not what we’ve been doing in the playoffs so far, but we were still able to get 26 assists. We have some great shooters, but the reason why we have great shooters is because that ball is popping. The ball has energy behind it, and the guys feel confident when the ball gets to them that they just let it go.”
