May 30, 2013; Miami, FL, USA; Miami Heat power forward Udonis Haslem (40) goes face to face with Indiana Pacers power forward David West (21) in the third quarter of game five of the Eastern Conference finals of the 2013 NBA Playoffs at American Airlines Arena. Mandatory Credit: Robert Mayer-USA TODAY Sports
Tonight is Game 6 (and an elimination game for the Pacers, to boot!) which means that I’ll be
A. Recapping all the cheap shots from the previous five games in this series.
B. Trying to make as much fun of Tyler Hansbrough as humanly possible.
1. Chris Andersen Shoves Tyler Hansbrough
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVHPj5J-Jv4
Rumor has it that Tyler Hansbrough cried to his mother about this on the plane ride back.
2. Dwyane Wade “Accidentally” Clips Lance Stephenson
Lance Stephenson’s a punk (which means that when he was punking the New York Knicks, I was rooting for him. Now? Not so much). Also, Dwyane Wade is probably the best player in the NBA at “accidentally” hurting somebody. I don’t know how he does it, but man, he makes that elbow to Lance Stephenson’s temple look like a complete coincidence (alright, can we all agree that Saint Dwyane Wade is not the second coming of Mother Teresa and that he 100% met to clock Lance Stephenson with a ‘bow?). Also, LOLZ at Reggie Miller for saying that there “wasn’t anything malicious in that” and that it was “inadvertent”. Reggie, that would be like me saying your patented New York Knicks “choke sign” (see 0:46) was inadvertent and not malicious in the least — which, to say the least is a bunch of b .
3. Shane Battier Knees Roy Hibbert and David West Gives Mario Chalmers a Love Tap
I put these two together because they’re not really “cheap shots”.
A true cheap shot is where you see a play and you’re like “Damn! Yeah, that guy definitely went out of his way to injure that dude.” (Exhibit A: Dexter Pittman from last year’s Miami — Pacers series.)
These two plays are more like semi-cheap shots.
In the first video, you can make a legit case that Shane Battier is just protecting himself with his knee. I think if somebody made that case to me, I could absolutely buy that Shane Battier was going up against an eminent shot blocker in Roy Hibbert, and that he had jumped off of one foot, and in his natural jumping motion, brought his knee nearly level with his chest. Roy Hibbert was simply in the right place at the wrong time, and took a groin to the knee. However, you could also make the case that Battier exaggerated his jumping motion and deliberately brought his knee to just about the right height to knee a seven-footer in the balls — and I could buy that as well. In the end, I don’t think Shane Battier was trying to cheap shot Hibbert, but I don’t think Battier minded that he hit Hibbert in the “mid-section” (as Reggie put it).
Same thing with the David West play. Obviously, David West throwing elbows around is no trivial thing (David West is on my top three list of “Players I Would Not Want To Meet In A Dark Alley” along with Jerry Stackhouse, and Ron Artest) and there is no question that Mario Chalmers got hit by a deliberate elbow from David West on a screen. However, was it really as bad as Chalmers made it seem? Probably not. Most likely it was a glancing blow that was a stinger, at most.
Then again, David West could probably make me piss my pants just by staring at me, so what do I know?
Nothing says “BAMF” quite like this