If you have any sympathy in your soul, any compassion for the underdog in your DNA, you were rooting for LeBron James to bring an NBA championship to Cleveland.
Not rooting for King James, per se, but rooting for the City of Cleveland.
But after Tuesday night’s debacle — James shot 3-for-14 and lacked energy and enthusiasm — it appears that Cleveland will have its heart broken again. The Cavaliers lost 120-88 — at home — to the Celtics in Game 5 and are on the doorstep of elimination. The Celtics can close Cleveland out Thursday night in Boston.
So there is a very good chance that James, who becomes a free agent this summer, has played his final home game for the Cavs.
It’s just more salt in the wound, just another kick in the groin to Cleveland. The proud, much-maligned city is home to some of the country’s most loyal and passionate sports fans. And they surely are the most tortured.
The last Cleveland team to win a major pro sports championship was the 1964 Browns. They ran to the NFL title on the broad shoulders of Jim Brown. He is 74 years old now.
Since then, Cleveland fans have witnessed:
Now Cleveland seems destined to lose James, their beloved local hero. That would hurt almost as much as when Modell pulled the Browns out of the city and moved them Baltimore where they won a Super Bowl title as the Ravens.
And here’s the really sad part: If Tuesday night was indeed King James’ last appearance in a Cavaliers uniform, he went out playing, not like the league MVP, but like a man who couldn’t wait to get out of town.
Add LeBron
James is being roundly questioned about his Game 5 performance against the Celtics. Some wonder whether his elbow is hurt worse than he’s letting on. Others, such as TNT analyst
And that impending downfall of the NBA’s No. 1 seed is because the team lacks chemistry.
Trivia time
Name the Browns receiver who caught a 48-yard touchdown pass from Bernie Kosar to put the Browns ahead of the Broncos 20-13 with 5:43 left in regulation in the 1986 AFC Championship Game. (Answer below)
Polling
Tuesday’s “Lunch Special” poll asked readers if Houston Texans linebacker Brian Cushing should be stripped of his 2009 defensive-rookie-of-the-year award because he’s been suspended for violating the NFL’s performance-enhancing drug policy. By a nearly two-to-one margin (62.9 percent), readers said Cushing didn’t deserve the award.
Quotable
“When it comes down to it, games that we lose in the fourth quarter, games that we lose in the second half, or losing on the road like we did, that can be lack of trust, lack of confidence. There are a lot of issues you have when that repeats itself time and time again over the course of the season.” — Patriots quarterback Tom Brady talking to Boston sports radio station WEEI today about the Patriots’ dismal 2-6 road record in the second half of the season.
Blog spot
The Post’s Tom Kensler reports that although CU’s basketball attendance remains the worst in the Big 12, it increased by 1,630 fans a game last season, the sixth-best increase in the nation.
In case you missed it
There is scandal in West Texas.
A student who led Permian High in Odessa to the state basketball playoffs last season was actually a 22-year-old man.
Police say the hoops star was really Guerdwich Montimere, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Haiti. He was recognized last month by Florida coaches as having been a star high school player in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., a few years ago.
According to The Associated Press, Ector County school district officials said the man posed as 16-year-old Jerry Joseph and enrolled at Permian for the 2009-10 academic year. He also presented himself as homeless to the school’s basketball coach, Danny Wright, who took the boy in last summer, the coach said.
Montimere was arrested at Permian High on Tuesday and booked into Ector County jail on a charge of presenting false identification to a police officer.
Officials said Jerry Joseph originally enrolled at the local junior high as a 15-year-old in February 2009, then moved on to high school.
“I feel like I was hit by a ton of bricks,” district athletic director Leon Fuller told the Odessa American. “In my 50 years in education, I’ve never heard of anything like this.”
Yes, that’s the same Leon Fuller who was head coach for seven seasons at Colorado State as well as a short stint as Broncos’ assistant coach.
Wright also told The American that the player was like a family member.
“This affected a lot of people. The whole school of Permian embraced that kid. He deceived us and played on everyone’s emotions,” Wright said.
Montimere was being held on $500 bond Tuesday night, according to jail records.
If Permian High School sounds familiar, it should. The school was the subject of the book “Friday Night Lights,” that was turned into a movie and a TV show.
Trivia answer
Wide receiver Brian Brennan.
Patrick Saunders: 303-954-1720 or psaunders@denverpost.com
