Warriors Tie Series With Cavaliers, World Gets An Eyefull of LeBron James

Image courtesy of Zimbio

On Thursday night the Warriors came roaring back after a Game 3 loss, easily defeating the Cavaliers by 21 points in front of a very disappointed hometown crowd in Cleveland. The series is now tied up 2-2 heading back to the West Coast for Game 5 on Saturday night.

Although the final score indicates a blowout, the game was actually pretty close through three quarters, before Golden State really pulled away in the fourth. But this time the Warriors got off to the hot start and the Cavs were playing catch up all night long.

One reason for their struggles was the play of LeBron James, who didn’t reach anywhere near the mythical, magical, majestic level of play as he did in previous contests—particularly Game 3.

You can’t expect James to put up 40 every night, but he’s gotta do better than 20 points, with 12 rebounds and eight assists, for Cleveland to have a shot in this series. That being said, the Cavs were lucky LeBron was playing at all.

Late in the second quarter he suffered a nasty gash to the dome after colliding with a cameraman. James was driving to the net when he was fouled by Warriors’ center Andrew Bogut, at which point he went careening to the court behind the net.

Image courtesy of Zimbio

A few tense moments ensued, as his teammates and various Cavaliers personnel surrounded James, who wasn’t quick to get up. The game stopped while he was tended to; he was holding a towel to the back of his head when finally got up. Impressively, James immediately returned to the game and hit a free throw.

Although it was clearly visible, the cut didn’t require stitches, apparently, and was instead closed up with “glue.” Because the wound was superficial, and there was no obvious change in his mental status, James wasn’t required to go through the league’s standard concussion protocol.

Going into the locker room before the half, James played down the injury. He said the collision wasn’t too bad and that, aside from a headache he felt fine and was still in “game mode.” As fine as you can feel with your head glued together.

So James was fine, but the viewing audience probably could’ve done without all those close ups of his head wound. Something else the viewing audience could have definitely done without? An apparent sighting of…little LeBron…on the court just before tipoff.

Not pictured: Little LeBron

Deadspin’s Timothy Burke, who obviously has a trained eye, noticed that ABC accidentally caught James in the midst of an…adjustment. If you want to see for yourself, click over to Deadspin to study the screen capture and accompanying video.

I didn’t want to post it here because surprise schlong is rarely a good thing. That, and Burke’s outstanding achievement in schlong spotting should be properly recognized by viewing his original post.