Something lit a fire under LeBron James in the fourth quarter of Monday’s game. In turns out, someone from his old team poked the bear.
The Los Angeles Lakers carried a seven-point lead into halftime against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday night. But in the third quarter, things began to unravel, the momentum began to slip in the other direction as Cedi Osman caught fire from the outside and both LeBron James and Anthony Davis went cold from the field, combining to shoot 2-of-10 in the period.
The Cavaliers took the lead and LeBron had a chance at the end of the quarter to re-tie the game, but his fallaway jumper bounced out. In the video below you can’t hear what is said, but someone appears to say something to LeBron as he walks back towards the bench after the miss.
Once he threw that “okay, we’ll see” smile on, you know something special was about to happen.
LeBron came out in the fourth and made his point. He single-handedly outscored the Cavaliers 21-19, shooting 9-of-10 from the field and 3-of-4 from beyond the arc. For good measure, he chipped in a rebound, two assists, two steals and two blocks. Final score? 115-108, Lakers win.
Who was heckling LeBron James?
LeBron addressed the heckling in his post-game comments, not outing the guilty party but noting that it was someone from the Cavs’ front office who “was a little bit too excited about seeing me miss.”
It sounds like the heckling may have more of an enthusiastic reaction than any specific comment directed at LeBron but it certainly got him fired up and obviously changed the momentum of the game. You would think anyone in the Cavaliers would know better than to poke this particular bear in this particular way. We still don’t know who this Cavs’ employee was but James was happy to point out that his face and his reaction should be on camera somewhere.