Cavs, James shouldn't downplay late game walkoff

Lebron James, 'The Chosen one', chose to leave the

floor before the game was over Tuesday night.

As a minor sprinkle of negative press flew towards LeBron James on Wednesday for allegedely walking off the court in the final seconds of overtime of the Cavaliers overtime loss to the Atlanta Hawks Tuesday night, it seemed all that LeBron, his coach and the rest of the Cavaliers wanted to do is downplay the incident.

"It's not like I walked off the court and came to the locker room while there was still time left on the clock," James said before Thursday's game against Chicago. "I stood on the court the whole time, until the buzzer's end, I even said something to [Hawks guard] Joe Johnson on his way out.

"It was kind of frustrating for us to lose that game, but as far as quitting on my team or anything like that, it's crazy. If we would have won the game, it would have never been mentioned. Say if we was winning the game and I did the same thing. Would it have been mentioned? I don't think so."

Cavaliers coach Mike Brown backed his star, claiming he wasn't even aware of the incident until his son told him about the amount of press it was getting.

"We both understand there is a right way to do things," Brown said. "This business is the perception business and the right way to do it is to finish the game out on the court. It won't happen again."

Even LeBron's teammates claimed they weren't aware of the walkoff and defended their teammate by claiming he's not the only one who's ever left the floor of a game early.

"It's no big deal," forward Drew Gooden said. "LeBron is under such a microscope that every little thing he does gets noticed. I don't care what anybody says, at some point I'm sure Michael Jordan and Larry Bird walked off the floor with 13 seconds left."

The Cavs players and coaches can downplay this all they want, but it won't change the fact LeBron got off easy. If Rasheed Wallace or Ron Artest did this, we'd be talking about it for weeks.

All I can say is that I want Drew Gooden to provide me with the video of Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Reggie Miller, or any other NBA great leaving the floor of any lopsided game that he wasn't ejected from. Drew, if you can find it, I'll give LeBron a pass.

The bottom line is that you won't find it. You can't find it. If Reggie Miller was the type of player to leave an NBA floor of an "already-decided", yet unfinished contest, one of his career's defining moments never would've taken place.

Miller scoring eight points in the final nine seconds against the Knicks in 1995, leaving the home crowd at Madison Square Garden utterly stunned is one of the great moments in NBA history. It never would've occurred if Miller had pulled what LeBron pulled on Tuesday night.