Bulls' John Lucas to LeBron: 'That wasn't cool' - Sun-Sentinel (blog)

NEW YORKâ€"

Two weeks ago, LeBron James played pinball with John Lucas III, setting a vicious (perhaps not-so-legal) backcourt screen on the diminutive Chicago Bulls reserve point guard.

Lucas, the former Heat training-camp prospect, got in James' face, each received technicals, and that apparently was the end of it.

That is until Lucas saw James go flailing when New York center Tyson Chandler set a similar backcourt screen in Game 1 of Heat-Knicks.

Chandler wound up called for a flagrant foul, avoiding ejection only upon video review.

That had Lucas doing a double-take and wondering about a double standard.

"I thought he threw his left shoulder into me a little bit, and then I look up and Tyson Chandler set a clean screen on him, and he took it like he just got shot and all that," Lucas said told the Chicago ESPN Radio affiliate. "I mean, you gotta get back up all that like your neck was hurt and stuff, that wasn't cool."

Lucas said seeing what not believing the display James put forward a mere two weeks after setting the same type of rugged screen himself.

"I just watch the game of basketball just like everyone else watches the game of basketball," Lucas told the ESPN Radio hosts. "I feel like when you set a screen like that on somebody, you are taking the risk of hurting that person, you know?

"For him, I felt like he threw his left shoulder, and I just let him know that wasn't gonna fly with me. I'm gonna pick up full court again, and it's going to take way more than that to knock me down, and you just get right back up.

"That’s the whole point of playing basketball. That’s the whole point of being a competitor, and you’re going out there and competing."

Of course, there is more history between James and Lucas this season than that rugged screen. There also was the dunk James landed by jumping over the feisty 5-foot-11 Bulls guard.

The Heat and Bulls are seeded to meet no earlier than the Eastern Conference finals, which would require Chicago, now playing in the absence of All-Star point guard Derrick Rose, to push past the Philadelphia 76ers in their opening-round series that is tied 1-1 and then the winner of the opening-round series between the Boston Celtics and Atlanta Hawks, that also is tied 1-1.

Lucas said his only desire to meet James in the East finals would be to avenge the Bulls' loss to the Heat in that round last season.

"I want to get there, because I feel like we have unfinished business from last year," he said. "Me and LeBron, that's nothing for me, I'm more about winning and getting to the championship."