Chapter 678: Chapter 480 Damn Good Person (Combined)_2 Chapter 678: Chapter 480 Damn Good Person (Combined)_2 And James took pleasure in the malice from the crowd.

Far from having weak knees from dread as the outside world had anticipated, he even smiled at the camera.

This was an atypical game.

Like in a sports movie, the Lakers were the villains, the Cavaliers the wounded side of justice, who should prevail despite being the underdogs.

TNT’s Kenny Smith said he had never felt so much hatred in an NBA game before.

Kobe wanted to tell him, that meant you haven’t really been watching my games.

And as the country singer invited to perform “The Star-Spangled Banner” took the stage, Yu Fei felt displeased that they hadn’t invited Jay Chou to sing “What Kind of Man Are You.” Okay, that song wasn’t out yet, so lowering the bar to “You Oughta Know” would’ve been acceptable.

Then the game began, each side scoring alternately, with the fans incessantly booing and shouting barely intelligible slogans.

It wasn’t until James stepped onto the free-throw line with four minutes left in the first quarter, with the Cavaliers leading by 2 points, that piercing jeers of “Akron hates you!!!!!” filled the air.

At that moment, the commentators couldn’t help discussing.

“You just can’t be prepared for something like this, ever since you made ‘the decision,’ all eyes have been on you… Standing there, as time keeps ticking, standing at the free-throw line, everyone watching you. You can’t know what’s going through the mind of that 25-year-old young man.”

Those were Mark Jackson’s words.

Even LeBron critic Jeff Van Gundy felt that the malice toward James was too much.

“I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.”

That’s how Van Gundy assessed the moment.

If Cavaliers fans heard him say that, Van Gundy might have a hard time leaving the arena intact tonight.

Because they would grab him by the throat and ask, “So, are we supposed to go through all this?”

This was James’ first time at the free-throw line tonight, and it was Yu Fei’s first time watching his game this season, and for a long time, his first chance to get a close look at his expression. James had finally realized the extent of the fans’ hatred for him, but was he supposed to shrink away as Kwame Brown would have hoped, displaying self-reproach like a wimp?

The noise in the arena began to swell. TNT cut to the spectator seats, where everyone was booing James.

A bearded man angrily shouted, “Coward!”

The wide-angle shot showed fans waving banners labeled “Traitor” and “Choker.”

Then James made the first free throw, and high-fived Kobe with a smile as if to say, “Wow, this is crazy!”

Next, James hit the second free throw, and from there, the Lakers launched a 20-0 run, fully demonstrating the disparity in strength between the two teams. The storyline of a hero overcoming the dragon didn’t unfold; James’ confidence soared, and he began to dominate the game.

The intensity of the fans’ voices lessened, and they fell into the self-pitying dilemma of “God hates Cleveland.” Some hoped for a Cavalier player to step up and punch James, but that wasn’t going to happen. James wasn’t a disliked teammate, and no one within the Cavaliers would stand up to do this.

Still, the Lakers’ lead continued to grow.

They encountered no resistance, and the fans’ pride was shattered there, no moment sadder than this.

The Cavaliers owner, Dan Gilbert, who once firmly believed “LeBron’s emergence was heaven-sent for Cleveland,” sat courtside with an ashen face, watching his team being slaughtered. The team this season, missing only James and Big Z from last, had become the worst in the Eastern Conference. Wasn’t this indirect evidence that James’ decision was the right one?

It was disrespectful to the fans, but it was right. It insulted Cleveland, but it was right. It hurt all the locals who loved James, but as long as he could secure the championship, these factors would be defined as trivialities by someone destined for greater things. It was right.

The Lakers showed a James tonight who had been missing for a long time.

It was James with his offensive desire maxed out, James who was a giant presence, James who always had the ball in his hands, James the unstoppable, who on this night controlled the game, devastatingly scoring 40 points in 28 minutes, then sat out the entire fourth quarter.

Dressed in his warm-up clothes, he chewed gum boredly, and by the time the camera focused on him again, he was nearly asleep.

The Cavaliers didn’t earn any respect tonight; they merely proved that James’ departure was justified.

Yu Fei only managed a few bites of his pork cutlet rice because James’ performance tonight was a little nauseating, too stellar.

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The highest praise on some forums was: Nothing to criticize.

“He can only bully teams this bad,” Brown stubbornly said.

And Yu Fei didn’t make any comment, just subconsciously glanced at the date. There was more than half a month to go until the Christmas showdown. How he wished time would move faster.

That night, James’ performance won back some appreciation.

Bill Simmons, who had harshly criticized “the decision,” wrote in his column, “To be frank: I no longer care about ‘the decision.’ He handled it wrong. He got bad advice. He can’t take it back. Anyway, anyone who claims they could handle everything flawlessly in their twenties is lying. As a basketball fan, I am glad to see LeBron not continuing to waste his talent in Cleveland. He will never be like Frye. Frye can make everyone around him better, but it comes at the cost of stealing the limelight that should belong to them. LeBron’s willingness to come under Kobe’s command and be his Scottie Pippen is something I always believed. The KJ dynasty of 24 and 23 will eventually bury the empire of 44.”