lebron baits kirk hinrich

the king of the chase-down block

a 2012-13 miami heat highlight video popped up in my youtube recommendations a few days ago and it got me reminiscing about that team's incredible season.

that of course reminded me of their game on march 27th, 2013, when the chicago bulls snapped their 27-game win streak. so i re-watched it.

with about four minutes left in the fourth quarter, the bulls led by 8 points. then this happened:

i rewound that play like five times. great defense by shane battier to deny the high screen-and-roll... hold up, did lebron james just let kirk hinrich drive past him to purposefully set up the block from behind? because that's just... dirty.

sure looks like it. bron was measuring kirk the whole way, step by step.

then i watched the very next heat defensive possession of the game and chuckled out loud:

in this one it's not even debatable. lebron literally let another nba player, one of the 400 best basketball players on the planet, drive past him just to block his shot.

i can also recall a similar play where bron baited ian clark into attempting a layup off of a turnover on christmas day:

wild.

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