Posted on Wed, Jun. 20, 2012

LeBron James suggested Tuesday that it wasn’t smart for Thunder forward Serge Ibaka to assert that James isn’t good defensively.

“I don’t really care what he says,” James said. “He’s stupid. Everyone says something to me every series. Then [the media] keeps trying to get a quote. I don’t care what he says. It’s stupid.”

Ibaka told The Palm Beach on Monday that James “is not a good defender,” adding that he “can play defense for two to three minutes but not 48.” He also said James “can’t play” Kevin Durant one-on-one.

“First of all,” James responded, “I’m not playing 48 minutes, and K.D.’s not playing 48 minutes. I’m not guarding him for 48 minutes. … I’m not sitting here saying I’m a Durant stopper, because there’s no such thing.”

Ibaka did not speak to reporters before Game 4, but ABC was allowed to speak to him and relayed that his comment was not reported the way he intended.

Thunder coach Scott Brooks said he did not discuss the matter with Ibaka. “He’s super smart,” Brooks said.

James received the most votes for the NBA’s All-Defensive team this season.

Scare for Wade

Dwyane Wade fell hard, holding his back, after Ibaka blocked his shot in the second quarter Tuesday. Wade stayed down on the court briefly but remained in the game.

Riley honored

Before Tuesday’s game, Heat president Pat Riley received the Chuck Daly Lifetime Achievement Award in honor of the Hall of Fame coach, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2009.

“I miss him dearly,” Riley said. “He was classy, competitive and dignified.”

Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle, who presented the award to Riley in his role as president of the National Basketball Coaches Association, said, “When it came to great coaching, Chuck Daly always felt Pat Riley was the best of the best.”

Carlisle said Daly once told him: “I always felt I could keep up with [Riley] suit for suit. But can you imagine what it would be like to be that good looking?”

This and that

• Even with the Heat ahead in the series, Chris Bosh insisted Tuesday morning that “we’re more desperate than they are because we know what’s at stake, [and] we’ve been here before. We live with that pain every day” from losing last year’s Finals.

• James entered having scored at least 28 points in 13 consecutive playoff games, tied with Elgin Baylor (1962) for the longest streak in a single postseason. James, Larry Bird and Charles Barkley are the only players with 600-plus points, 200-plus rebounds and 100-plus assists in a postseason.

• ABC’s 9.7 average TV rating through three games is the highest for an NBA Finals since 2004. The first three games produced 30.5, 30.3 and 29.6 local ratings on WPLG-ABC 10. That’s down slightly from last year’s Heat-Mavericks Finals, which were viewed, on average, in 33.7 percent of Miami-Dade/Broward homes.

By comparison, this year’s Super Bowl had a 40.6 rating on NBC 6.

Oklahoma City has generated the highest Finals ratings, followed by Miami, Tulsa, West Palm Beach and Cleveland.