LeBron James appeared to lose his cool a bit toward the end of Cleveland’s Game 4 loss to Golden State in the NBA Finals, and now we know why.
ESPN’s Chris Broussard spoke with James immediately after the game, and he said the Cavs star was irritated by Green’s groin shot, but the more significant issue is that Green called him a b—-.
“Well, I walked out of the arena with him, and he he’s had time to cool down,” Broussard told SportsCenter, as transcribed by CBS Sports’s James Herbert. “I saw him in the locker room before he spoke to the press. He was very upset, and then he went on about a seven-minute tirade about, you know, just things he was complaining about. I mean, how he only got to the foul line four times and things. He just felt like some of the officiating was a bit, you know, lopsided in his mind. He was just going off about that. And then he calmed down. Even said that he would have calmed down by the time he got to the press. And you saw him, he was calm.
“I walked out with him, talked to him about the Draymond Green situation,” Broussard added. “He said Draymond Green called him the b-word and that’s what got him going. And also, as many people have seen on the replays, Draymond tried to hit him in the private parts. And so those two things really upset LeBron James. He told me he can’t remember being that upset on an NBA court. He said he’s sure it’s probably happened before, but he can’t remember the last time he was that upset. And mainly it was because of the name Draymond called him. He said where he’s from, they don’t play that. And you call somebody that name and that sets you off. That’s really why he was so upset.”
Green, it seems, was set off by James stepping over him. It is unclear if that particular incident happened before or after Green’s remark. Whatever the case, you can make an argument that Green and the Warriors have gotten in James’s head a bit. Obviously, the circumstances weren’t great for him. He’s put a lot of pressure on himself and his team, and in that moment, the Cavaliers were about to lose at home and be pushed to the brink of elimination by the same Warriors team that denied him and the Cavs the year before. In that context, it’s telling that James felt he’d never been more upset on the court than he was in that moment.
