On any given NBA night there are a number of highlight moves, often dunks, that can easily fit in the ‘best of the season’ highlight reel. This time it’s LeBron James and DeAndre Jordan who stood out.
James did it for the Cleveland Cavaliers in a 113-104 win over the Milwaukee Bucks. He finished the game with 26 points on a rough shooting performance (9-of-22 from the field), but managed to make people forget about his comments earlier which came out in a Bleacher Report story regarding how he’d like to play with Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade on the same team someday. The same Wade he left when he went back to the Cavaliers to team up with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love.
Jordan, who is playing with Chris Paul right now, looked good as the Clippers didn’t really bother the Golden State Warriors too much. Jordan was the most effective player on his team with 19 points and 20 rebounds, but a 16 points loss nowadays by the Clippers against the Warriors doesn’t raise a single eyebrow. Things have changed in one year, when the Clippers were pegged as the team in the West capable of bouncing the Warriors out of the playoffs.
James’ dunk came as he was moving through traffic. He began the play with a pass, resulting in a series of passes and nice ball movement for the Cavaliers. Jr. Smith moved to the basket, got the attention of the Bucks defense, which cleared a path for James, finishing on a reverse double clutch dunk, showing once in awhile he still has the hops to pull off this stuff.
Jordan is younger and lives on dunks, even if he’s trying to become more than that. His jam came on an alley-oop pass from Chris Paul, rising high up in the air with Andrew Bogut just looking, not trying to interfere, while slowly moving away so he doesn’t show up on the poster.