Just get over hating LeBron ... seriously

I wouldn't know Patrick Muldowney if I fell over him, but he wrote something genius on the Twitter machine.

@patmuldowney "Oh my god, Michael Jordan did it again!" - Everyone in 1998"LeBron won the game? Fire the other coach!" - Everyone in 2013

Of course, Patrick was referring to LeBron James' game-winning layup against the Indiana Pacers in the first game of the Eastern Conference Finals last night, and the criticism Pacers' coach Frank Vogel got for not having 7-foot, 2-inch center Roy Hibbert in the game.

Mike Prada of SB Nation breaks down the play to explain why Hibbert's presence may not have made a difference, and we'll obviously never know. Hell, for all we know, James might have dunked on Hibbert to win it.

Muldowney also fired off a series of tweets about the play, but it's the first one, combined with the one I cited above, that really sums up both the player and the reaction to the play.

@patmuldowney LeBron James. The greatest basketball player in the world.

What's sad is that even now, there are still people who haven't gotten over "The Decision," and don't fool yourself, that's what this is all about ... the residual, wrongheaded-outside-of-Cleveland bitterness (and it wouldn't be the worst thing ever for Cleveland to give it up, either) that LeBron ruined their fantasies of taking the hometown team to a championship by going elsewhere to play with better players and win one and doing a dumb TV show to announce he was going to do it.

(To speak of where I live for a second, all the people in Boston who hate LeBron and speak lovingly of Paul Pierce for having green blood running through his veins must forget that Pierce was going to demand a trade if the Celtics didn't get him acceptable teammates after they lost out on Kevin Durant and Greg Oden in the lottery. Then Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett arrived, the Celtics won a title and all was right with the world. Granted, none of them are LeBron James, but they're all surefire NBA Hall-of-Famers.)

So let me spell it out for all of you LeBron haters who are still out there:

1. He is the best player in the world. Let me say that one more time. He. Is. The. Best. Player. In. The. World.

2. He has four MVP awards in five years. He will probably win more, and by the way, one more catches Saint Michael, two more catch Kareem and three more mean everyone else has to try and catch him.

3. He has a championship. He has a decent chance to win more.

All this, and he doesn't even turn 29 until December. Barring his body breaking down (certainly possible, given all the miles he has put on it after coming out of high school), he could ... possibly ... if lots of things go right ... end up ...

... better than Jordan (shudder!)

So just deal with it.