Everyone line up.
Cleveland Cavaliers
Oh my goodness. My goodness. Has there ever been a bigger collection of frauds? 64-18 in the regular season. No. 1 seed. Best offensive rating in the league. A deep roster stacked with stars and role players. Down 3-1 to the Indiana Pacers in the second round.
You dropped Game 1 at home and that was fine. Darius Garland was still hurt, and good teams get ambushed all the time early in a series. Such results build Championship Mettle, and just make it all the more impressive when the better team goes on to win the series in five or six games. But then you barfed into your laps in Game 2, and the smell of fraud was in the air.
I didn't watch Game 3. I guess you did pretty well in that one.
But Game 4, my god. A 129–109 blowout that felt like 184–86. You were down 80–39 at halftime, and not even De'Andre Hunter shoving Bennedict Mathurin into an ejection could awaken any pride or fight in your sorry asses. Isn't Evan Mobley supposed to be the second coming of Kevin Garnett? Imagine me staring at his 10 points and five rebounds, dramatically flipping my spectacles on and off my eyes. I'm not seeing any Kevin Garnett here!
A guy named Johnny Furphy played 10 minutes for the Pacers in Game 4.
I've got a big pile of post-it notes with "FRAUD" written on each one. As soon as this series is over, you're each getting one stuck to your forehead.
Donovan Mitchell
Your halftime ankle injury might have saved you, but unfortunately you were 3-of-11 with 12 points at the end of the first half in Game 4. You also shot 13-of-30 and 1-of-11 from three in Game 1, which cancels out the 48 points you put up in Game 2. You were pretty great in Game 3, but like I said before I didn't watch that one.
Nikola Jokic
You idiot, what the hell are you doing? This was all set up for you do your favorite thing in the whole world, which is spend a whole season carrying your crap team much further than it deserves to go, shrug your shoulders and raise your eyebrows and strike a pose of weary humility every time the talent disparity between you and your awful teammates is brought up, and then ride off into the offseason anointed once again as the League's Most Special Guy Who Deserves So Much Better. Deep down, I know you eat that shit up. But now you're the one disappointing all the frauds assembled around you, which makes you King Fraud. Michael Porter Jr. is probably at home right now thinking, I can't believe the front office saddled me with this jackass Nikola Jokic.
You've had more bad games than good ones so far in these playoffs, and you are 21-of-63 with 16 turnovers over your last three games. You dressed up like the actual Joker before Game 3 and then had the worst playoff game of your entire life. You and your men scored eight total points in the first quarter of Game 4 and lost it 92–87, despite being up by eight in the third quarter. Your whole thing is that you are supposed to be the league's greatest problem solver, a one-man breaker of defensive schemes, and yet the Thunder have you flailing around and crying to the refs like you've never seen a loaded-up defense before.
I'm gonna get a big band-aid that says "FRAUD" on it and slap it on one of your arm wounds.
Oklahoma City Thunder
Don't think you can escape judgment for the role you played in the 17–8 quarter that opened Game 4. That was one of the nastiest displays in the history of basketball, and your fingerprints were all over it. You're a 68-win team that currently finds itself in a second-round mud fight with a dysfunctional and poorly constructed roster whose best player is going through every game like he's being attacked by bees. You shouldn't even be awake until the Finals start and yet here you are, desperately trying to answer questions like How does one attack a zone defense? and It's still illegal to set a ball screen in the final five minutes of a game, right? Turns out that becoming an historically great regular-season team doesn't require any athletic prowess or strategic acumen; you just have to be willing to foul all five players on the court throughout every defensive possession and dare the referees to do something about it.
Jamal Murray
When's the last time you actually dribbled past a defender?
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
You thought those 25 measly points in Game 4 would save you from inclusion? Not so fast. It takes a lot more than that to erase the memory of the 7-of-22 stinker you put up in Game 3. Those who try to foul bait on the last possession of regulation in a tie game earn an immediate "FRAUD" stamp across the top of their résumé, which can only be removed on appeal.
Mark Daigneault
We've been over the fouling-while-up-three disaster from Game 1, but let us not forget your big tactical innovation in Game 3, which was to start the overtime period with a weird small-ball lineup that immediately surrendered a 5-0 run and effectively ended the game. You don't look cool when you chew gum like that. Alex Caruso is your best player right now and you keep starting Lu Dort over him.
Chet Holmgren
Too skinny. You look ridiculous.
Boston Celtics
Ooohhh, you think you're so smart, do you? It wasn't until the beautiful and brave Boston Celtics showed up that anyone ever considered that three points are worth more than two. You guys are soooo brave for continuing to shoot an obscene amount of threes even when they aren't falling and you crash into an 0-2 hole against a Knicks team whose best player is built like a part-time bouncer. Your stoicism in the face of humiliating defeat combined with the organizational trust in your process is sooooo impressive. The President should give you all a medal.
I guess you did win Game 3 by a lot. I was doing other things that day and didn't really see what happened.
New York Knicks
You took two games from the Celtics on their home floor and then blew the chance to kill them for good back in New York? Pathetic.
Minnesota Timberwolves
Steph Curry is hurt, Jimmy Butler has a broken ass, and Draymond Green is trying to get ejected from every game. Not impressed.
Indiana Pacers
You guys are doing great. Keep it up.
