The camera doesn't lie in the NBA playoffs. Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James found that out the hard way in his team's 4-1 first-round series elimination by the Minnesota Timberwolves last month.
During one controversial moment in the hyped-up series, James appeared to strip Anthony Edwards of the ball late in Game 4, but after a coach's challenge the refs deemed that James had fouled Edwards on the play. They came to this conclusion after watching an overhead angle of the play that clearly showed James making contact with Edwards's hand before knocking the ball away.
That angle was provided by one of the NBA's "eye in the sky" cameras, which has seldom been used in the postseason but still been incredibly valuable, as it helped the refs make the right call on a pivotal play in the Lakers-Timberwolves series (Minnesota would win Game 4 and take a commanding 3-1 lead).
James isn't fully convinced by the league's new technology, though, and he had more questions about the existence of the overhead camera in a recent episode of the Mind the Game podcast.
"There was a piece of camerawork in the postseason of our game in Minnesota that I have never seen in my f---ing life," James said.
"The 'eye in the sky' cam," podcast co-host Steve Nash said.
"The strip on Ant. I've never seen that computer work in my life," continued James. "Where the f--- did that camera come from?... It was like some forensic files type s---. It was like a forensic files camera. I was like, 'What the f--- is this?'"
A new episode of Mind the Game drops tomorrow morning on our YouTube channel. pic.twitter.com/6zGALzwCCX
— Mind the Game (@mindthegamepod) May 26, 2025
Yet, had the tables been turned, and the overhead camera had actually helped the Lakers in the playoff series, James surely wouldn't be complaining about it now.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as LeBron James Has Questions About Camera That Caught Him Fouling Anthony Edwards.
