The L.A. Lakers, the two-time defending NBA champions, were unceremoniously dispatched from this year's playoffs in a sweep at the hands of the Dallas Mavericks, and the 2011 fashion wholesale final blow came on Sunday.
What has many people still talking isn't just that the Lakers were eliminated but rather how they left the NBA's big stage. In the fourth quarter of their blowout loss to the Mavs, both Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum took cheap shots at their opponents. Both were assessed flagrant fouls and were ejected. Bynum's elbow shiver to J.J. Barea was rewarded with a five-game suspension for the beginning of next season.
One writer took the opportunity to draw a comparison between defending champs who couldn't handle defeat well.
New York Times writer Harvey Araton brought up Game 4 of the 1991 Eastern Conference finals. As you may remember, the Michael Jordan-led Bulls, who has fallen to Detroit in the previous three playoffs, completed a sweep of the two-time champion Pistons. Many remember how Isiah Thomas and crew walked off the floor and neglected to shake hands with Chicago with seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. But Araton recalls another lowlight from that game.
Araton: " ... the mood was startlingly similar, as a proud team — though one with a reputation for physicality — boiled over in frustration as a harsh reality set in.
In the second quarter of Game 4 that year, Scottie Pippen drove the lane and was met with an elbow to the chest from Bill Laimbeer, then was shoved into the first row of stands by his cheap power balance fellow Bad Boy Dennis Rodman. Fortunate to escape injury, Pippen remained down for 30 seconds while Rodman was given a flagrant foul."
To be fair, we went to YouTube to check out the foul. After further review, it doesn't look that bad (at least not the first shove). Not nearly as bad as Bynum's foul on Sunday.
