If LeBron is indeed The Chosen One, the mythos commenced last night.

Cleveland did all it could to go down 0-2 in its Eastern Conference Finals. It blew a big lead. Then in the last minute, balled like a Not Yet Ready For Prime Time playah, a Beatles cover band from Lichtenstein playing the small stage this afternoon on the Belvedere.

Hedo Turkoglu nailed a trey to tie the deal at 93 in the last minute.

Then LeBron morphed, well, ordinary. He had a shot blocked on a drive to the hoop. Cleveland lucked into keeping the ball when Rafer Alston touched its dismissal on its way out of bounds. Then the unspeakable occurred. LeBron — a Superstar of the Highest Order, if you hadn’t seen his cape on the bench — was actually called for traveling with 30.9 seconds on the clock. (It wasn’t that he traveled that was so surprising. He only took one additional step to his normal 3 1/2. It was that the zebra actually called it. Every once in awhile integrity does creep into these affairs.)

Then Cleveland made another serious gaffe, using its foul to give with 13.6 seconds on the clock, allowing Orlando to take the last shot. Which they did. And that Turkoglu guy did it again, nailing a deuce with, oops, one second to go.

Did they leave too much clock? Uh, yeah, it seems so.

You know the rest. LeBron nailed a straight away trey on the inbounds play.

Let hyperbole reign.

Truth: It was a mighty mighty shot.

And it saved the season for Cleveland. The Chosen One misses and they’re down 0-2, with four possibly to play in Orlando after contesting the first series leg on Lake Erie.

And the Cleveland LeBrons aren’t the only preferati still in T*R*O*U*B*L*E. The LA LA Kobys also forfeited home court advantage in their Western Final series with the Nuggets. And that’s after an escape by the hair on their chinny chin chins in the opener, or they’d be down 0-2 and heading for the Rockies.

So I’m getting sucked in, even though my rooting interest is limited. No preferati pour moi. When it’s not one of my faves, I tend to go for the underdogerati. Let’s go Magic. Let’s go Nuggets.

Actually I didn’t tune into last night’s game until after Detroit fell short in OT against the Black Hawks. Uh, don’t ask. I don’t want to talk about it.

– Seedy K