There are times in which people equate basketball to some type of art form. Be it ballet or jazz music, the NBA and basketball in general have a certain elegance, rhythm and fluidity to them that doesn't seem to be matched by other sports.
When Jamal Crawford has the ball in his possession, you're witnessing one of the better interpretive dances you can ever see. There's a melody to his movement, matched by the percussion of the ball slapping the floor.
Much like in a ballet, Crawford's dribbling tells a story. There's drama to it and a love story. There's comedy and great triumph. And it usually ends in Ray Allen dying at the end.
In the fourth quarter of the Clippers" data-canon="Los Angeles Lakers" data-type="SPORTS_OBJECT_TEAM" id="shortcode0">' 107-100 victory over the Miami Heat, JCrossover had Allen at his mercy. He went behind the back to free himself from Allen's tracking. When Allen recovered, Crawford crossed back over to his left, went around a Ryan Hollins screen right before Hollins hilariously and inexplicably fell to the ground, and the drove toward the right elbow before pulling up for a jumper over Joel Anthony. I would say that he broke Hollins' ankles, too, on the play, but Hollins just falls down at weird times.
It was graceful and dastardly at the same time. Crawford finished the game with 22 points on 7-of-11 shooting in just 24 minutes of action. He did also have six turnovers in the game. Three of them came on passes, one came when he stepped on the baseline while receiving a pass, one was a travel call on a split-step jump-stop, and one was him losing the ball against Ray Allen on an attempted shot.
Clearly, Crawford just shouldn't be passing. Also, Allen shouldn't be forced to defend Crawford because this isn't the first time it has gone badly for him.
