Leading Game 3 by 17 points with one quarter remaining, the Cleveland Cavaliers sought to buy LeBron James a respite. He got 63 seconds before R&R yielded to reality. In two possessions without LeBron, the Cavs didn’t hoist a shot that hit the rim. They were outscored only 2-0, but coach David Blatt rightly sensed a turning tide. Back came LeBron.
Think about that. A team playing for the championship of the best basketball league in the world is so reliant on one man that, if he leaves even for 63 seconds, it cannot compete.
Think also about this: That team leads these finals 2-1.
The Cavs are missing three starters — Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, both hurt in the playoffs, and center Anderson Varejao, lost in December — and count among their seven-man rotation three guys who weren’t on the roster as of New Year’s Day and two more who weren’t starters when the postseason commenced. Without LeBron, the Cavs as currently constituted would be a lottery team. With LeBron and not much else, Cleveland is two games from a title.
Over three games, LeBron has worked 142 minutes and six seconds. Over the 11:54 he hasn’t played, the Cavs have managed 12 points, and even that meager number is skewed: Half those 12 came in Game 1 and were functions of Irving baskets or assists. (He suffered a fractured kneecap later that night.) LeBron has made only 40.2 percent of his shots in this series — missing at least 20 in every game — but he has to keep shooting if his team is to have a chance.
Of the Cavs’ 291 points in these three games, LeBron has scored or assisted on 187. (Fourteen of his 25 assists have led to 3-pointers.) He has accounted for 64.3 percent of the points scored by the Eastern Conference champions in the NBA Finals. He’s averaging 41 points, 12 rebounds and 8.3 assists.
To underscore how astonishing this is, note that Michael Jordan’s greatest finals performance, at least statistically, came in 1993 against Phoenix: He averaged 41 points, 8.5 rebounds and 6.3 assists. There’s no easy way to check how many of his 38 assists led to 3-pointers, but let’s assume 56 percent — that’s LeBron’s rate — did. At best, Jordan would have scored 246 points and assisted on 97, making him responsible for 53.4 percent of Chicago’s 640 points.
So: Even Michael Jordan at the peak of his power — he was 30 then, same as LeBron is now — didn’t quite do what LeBron is doing. Jordan did shoot much better in those finals, making 50.8 percent, but he wasn’t nearly a solo act. He had the Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen (who averaged 21.2 points, 9.2 rebounds and 7.7 assists and might have been MVP some other year) and the excellent Horace Grant alongside.
Take away those two worthies and you’d have the equivalent of the post-Irving/Love Cavaliers. Jordan never dragged a team this flimsy so deep into the playoffs: Five of his six championship teams won 60 or more games; the worst was 57-25, four games better than these Cavs. Neither did Jordan’s Bulls ever face a finals opponent that won 67, as Golden State did.
What LeBron is doing would be incredible against the Timberwolves, but to do it against the 67-win Warriors, who led the NBA in defensive efficiency, beggars all belief. The most pointed criticism levied against him was that that he had to leave Cleveland and team with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh to take his precious title. But he’s back in Ohio with nary a Super Friend in sight, and such is his brilliance that even the undrafted Aussie Matthew Dellavedova is basking in reflected glory.
I’m still not sure Golden State won’t win this series in six games, and I say that because the Warriors have twice the talent as Cleveland — twice the talent but no LeBron, who seems capable of anything. Heck, he has even shaken this true believer’s rock-ribbed faith that Michael Jordan was the greatest player ever.
The famous statue outside Chicago’s United Center bears these words: “The best there ever was. The best there ever will be.” I’d never had cause to doubt that sentiment. I have cause now.
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