Yes, Caron Butler stole the heroics from Lebron James. He stole Lebron’s role as game-winning shot-maker in the final seconds. Then he stole Lebron’s role as game-saving defender in the absolute final seconds. The result of stealing Lebron’s role was that Caron and the Bullets ripped out Cleveland’s heart — at least for one day — and made the Cavs fans feel the sort of pain Washington fans have felt for years. The final score was 88-87.
“I was messing with LeBron before the play started,” Butler said. “I told him, ‘Miss this shot, make it interesting and let’s take this thing back to D.C.’”
Seconds later, the Wizards were on their way home — for Game 6.
Butler made a layup with 3.9 seconds left and the Wizards held their breath as James missed a potential series- and season-ending layup at the horn, giving Washington an 88-87 victory Wednesday night and adding at least one more game to this overheated NBA playoff series.
After Butler scored on a tough drive past James, the Cavs had one more chance, but their superstar couldn’t get a banked runner to drop as the Wizards, who have had their past three seasons ended by Cleveland, pulled within 3-2 in the best-of-seven series.
Once off the floor, Butler ran down the hallway toward the Wizards’ locker room. He pulled off his jersey and shouted: “D.C., stand up! D.C., stand up!” before joining his excited teammates.
Yesterday, I wrote that Butler or Antawn Jamison, one of the team’s All Stars, was going to have to play like an All Star for the first time in this series and will his team to victory. Tough Juice answered the call. Butler finished with 32 points to go with his 9 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 steals. The Bullets needed every one of Caron’s points because the team didn’t get much from their bigs last night. Brendan Haywood was awful, fouling out in less than 31 minutes after scoring 4 points [1-6 shooting] and grabbing only 5 rebounds. Antawn Jamison was almost as bad, scoring only 8 points on 3-10 shooting. He did grab 11 rebounds and block 2 shots, but Washington needs a lot more offense from The Captawn than that.
The key to this game was rebounding. After being destroyed on the boards 51-31 in game 4, the Bullets lost the battle of the boards by only 40-39 last night. The Cavs are VERY tall on the front line and they grab a lot of rebounds. It’s not realistic to expect Washington to win the rebounding battle against Cleveland, but they do need to be competitive. In game 4, they were not. Last night, they were. If they can do it again in game 6, they’ll have a great chance to win that game, too.
The series is now 3-2 and heads back to Washington, as Abe Pollin hoped. The Bullets will have to go the rest of the way without Gilbert, who has finally shut it down for the season, but they haven’t had the real Gilbert for over a year so I don’t think that will make much difference. Next time, though, Gil: Let your coach know you’re out before telling the media. Bad superstar. Bad superstar.
And now, enjoy…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GngN_uiAMDc&hl=en]
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