Dillon Brooks and LeBron James have been at loggerheads for the past couple of years now. We recently saw a glimpse of the intense physicality that this duo brings to the court every time they face each other when the Suns lost 114-116 to the Lakers in a nail-biting matchup on Sunday night, December 14.
Subsequently, both teams had a few days of break before their next game due to the NBA Cup championship game. Before the Suns’ next game against the Warriors, Dillon Brooks got a chance to unload his true feelings about LeBron James. He spoke to the media after the Suns’ practice for the Warriors game and addressed the Lakers matchup as well.
“He [LeBron James] is a social media junkie. This will be all over social, so he’ll be seeing what I’m saying,” said Brooks when asked about why James was mad at officials during the game.
“When I go out there, and he thinks. Like I told you, he thinks that people should think a certain way about him or see a certain way about him, or play a certain way. I am not going to play that way,” said Brooks while referring to his previous comments on James.
“So I guess in his moods or in his modes, whatever it is, I’m all for that. I wish we let him shoot that shot, that sh*t would’ve been an airball,” Brooks concluded in reference to the controversial call that arguably cost the Suns the game.
Devin Booker was called for a defensive foul on a three-point closeout in the final shot of the game. While Booker argued that there was barely any contact to warrant the foul, Brooks went further to say Booker should not have contested the final shot as he did, simply because James would miss that shot so badly.
Dillon Brooks also pointed towards the officiating. On the one hand, he empathized with the officials due to the rule changes every year; on the other, he called out their bias.
“We made so many rules on this offense and touching and this that. And now it’s so hard for the refs to even call anything or call everything. So, I don’t blame them old guys running around and trying to make calls, cuz shoot, we’re putting in new rules every single year, and they don’t know what to call,” said Brooks initially.
“There’s just a lot of special treatment out there… I wish it were just at a minimum,” he further added.
There was a viral moment in the game where James was seen yelling at the officials and even intentionally coming in contact with one of them. While other players have been ejected from the game for a lot less, James was allowed to stay on the court, and the officials deemed that contact as non-hostile.
Just seconds before the controversial call on Booker for the foul on the three-point shot, Dillon Brooks was ejected from the game for intentionally bumping into LeBron James despite being on a technical foul already in the game.
On account of the second technical foul, Brooks was tossed from the game with 12.2 seconds left on the clock and the Suns having a 114-113 lead at the time.
Had Brooks not bumped into James, he would have been the hero for the Suns as he hit the lead-taking shot just moments before his ejection. But as a result of his foul, the Lakers got a free throw (which they missed), then got a side inbound without using a timeout, and as a result of they subsequently won the game.
Therefore, one can point to a lot of reasons why the Suns choked a 20-point comeback down the stretch. But the only takeaway here is that cooler heads tend to prevail in clutch situations.
The Suns are now set to face the Warriors in their next game tomorrow, who are looking to avoid a three-game losing streak despite the stellar form of Steph Curry. Meanwhile, the Lakers are set to face the Jazz on the road tomorrow as well (December 18).
