15 years after Allen Iverson stepped over him, Tyronn Lue's nightmare continues
Cleveland Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue woke up Monday morning with his team in a 2-0 NBA Finals hole. The Cavs were whooped by a combined 48 points in those two games, and they've now lost to Golden State seven straight times going back to last season's NBA Finals.
That's a rough Monday morning for Lue -- but only half the story for the rest of us fans.
Fifteen years ago to the day, Lue was on the receiving end of one the most iconic -- and most humiliating -- moments in modern NBA Finals history. Let's take a walk down memory lane.
You May Also Like
It was the 2001 NBA Finals -- Game 1, to be precise, on June 6. Lue was a role player for the Los Angeles Lakers, led by Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant. The Lakers were matched up against Allen Iverson's Philadelphia 76ers. Poor Lue was frequently given the thankless task of guarding Iverson -- and that's where we begin.
Los Angeles handled Philadelphia easily in that series, winning four games to one. But Philly stole the first game; Iverson led the upset in L.A. with 48 points. Two of those points have reverberated in the popular NBA imagination like few shots before or since.
Iverson, on a hot streak already, had the ball in the right corner. Lue was on him. Iverson started driving right, like he was going for the baseline. Lue slid with him -- good effort! -- but then Iverson crossed the ball over between his legs and hopped back for a jumpshot from the corner.
Lue leapt to contest the shot -- again, good effort! -- but then he stumbled backward. He landed at Iverson's feet as the ball slunk through the bottom of the net. Then it got really ugly.
Iverson, exaggerating his movements like an ogre, looked down at Lue then took two stomping steps right over his prone body before jogging back downcourt.
Now, Iverson is a paragon of both basketball and culture, a star whose style and philosophy of play meshed perfectly with his era in the NBA and the American mindset. You could easily argue that this play -- the crossover, the step-back and especially the step-over -- is the iconic Iverson moment.
And it all came at Lue's expense. If you were a basketball-loving kid in the mid-2000s, you definitely knew Tyronn Lue's name -- and this play was probably why.
Iverson's step-over of Lue has since been featured on the front of myriad T-shirts, and commemorated in other ways, too. It's a central pillar of Iverson lore -- which is to say, of NBA lore.
But Iverson says he's not too comfortable with Lue's status as a laughingstock.
Iverson: 'I don't like it'
"I don't like it, because I love him." Iverson told ESPN's Rachel Nichols in April. "I don't like people joking on him and all that, because that's my man."
Iverson and Lue have traveled different paths since the step-over. Iverson tasted more glory in his Hall of Fame career, but struggled with alcohol and personal problems after retiring in 2013.
Lue, meanwhile, continued his own journeyman career. He played for six teams in nine years after the 2001 Finals, then transitioned smoothly into a coaching career. This January, the Cavaliers fired coach David Blatt and promoted Lue to take his place.
And that's how Lue found his way back to the NBA Finals. That's how he woke up on Monday morning having lost two Finals games by a combined 48 points to a lethal Warriors squad.
But our story's not over yet.
Game 1 of this year's series against Golden State -- in which the Warriors beat Lue's Cavs by fifteen -- drew the league's highest NBA Finals Game 1 rating in years.
In fact, this year's Game 1 was the highest-rated Game 1 since the 2001 NBA Finals -- 15 years ago Monday, when Americans from coast to coast watched Iverson step over Lue on national TV.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.
Sam Laird is Mashable's Senior Sports Reporter. He covers the wide, weird world of sports from all angles -- as well as occasional other topics -- from Mashable's San Francisco bureau. Before joining Mashable in November 2011, his freelance work appeared in publications including the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Slam, and East Bay Express. Sam is a graduate of UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, and basketball and burritos take up most of his spare time. Follow him on Twitter @samcmlaird.
