MIAMI – Early in the fourth quarter of Sunday's Game 1 win, Heat coach
Erik Spoelstra looked the NBA's MVP in the eye and said, "You cannot get
tired."
Normally, LeBron James starts the final quarter on the bench, but the coach decided the game was too close, Chris Bosh was out with an injury and, as Spoelstra put it, "We needed him."
James did not get tired. He had 16 points in the fourth quarter alone to
help his team run away from the Pacers. The newly minted MVP was
unstoppable down the stretch.
But why did it even come to this?
Game 1 was surprisingly close throughout, and the Heat didn't take
control until the final minutes. James scored only six points in the
first half. He attempted two free throws. It seemed like every play was
James hustling the ball up court, slamming on the brakes, peeling back
and then throwing it to someone else. That's even what happened leading
up to Bosh's injury: James was close enough to the basket to finish or
draw a foul, but he deferred and Bosh got hurt underneath the glass.
This isn't to say James is responsible for a teammate's injury – he
wasn't – but a bull in a china shop shouldn't be so hesitant to, you
know, break some things.
That's what's so maddening about James. He's an MVP who isn't always
MVP-ish. Even Wade said Sunday, "Sometimes he starts out aggressive,
sometimes he don't."
Why?
We
all know the answer: James wants to be the consummate teammate. But
Wade, who is a consummate teammate, is almost always ferocious. "Flash"
bolted for the basket from the beginning of Game 1 like a dad who saw
his infant about to fall down the stairs. He went to the line 14 times
and made 13 of his tries. There's no reason James shouldn't do the same.
The calls that went for Pacers center Roy Hibbert in the first round
went against him Sunday, so it's not like the referees aren't going to
give him the benefit of the doubt. James himself calls the Heat "an
attack team," and it shouldn't take a close playoff game and an injury
to a teammate for him to attack. Go to the rack, go to the stripe, go to
the Finals. Period.
The Pacers deserve credit for hanging so tough. But the Heat had leads
of 35 points or more in their first two games against Indiana this
season. The Pacers were playing in their first ABC game since 2006. In a
home game, after an MVP ceremony which the visitors were forced to
watch, the Pacers should have been bulldozed. James should have had
plenty of time to "get tired" in the fourth quarter. Bosh's injury put
the Heat in a spot, but Miami was losing the entire time the starting
center was in the game.
Hibbert said it best of LeBron: "He's like a freight train coming. You
can't second-guess. You have to get between him and the basket. You're
going to get called for the foul or you're going to get dunked on."
When an All-Star center faces that kind of prisoner's dilemma, the game
should be impossible for him. And in the end, it was. James was
phenomenal in a fourth quarter that traditionally hasn't belonged to
him. He never had to make a clutch shot, which is what everyone is
waiting to see in these playoffs, but he was dominant. His defense was
suffocating. Danny Granger was held to seven points and didn't seem like
he was anywhere on the floor. It just seems strange that James' surge
took so long. Even at the end of the third quarter, with the game going
back and forth, James false-started on a drive, faded away and shot an
airball. The home crowd, all decked out in white MVP headbands to cheer
their superstar like 19,000 John McEnroe worshippers, groaned in
frustration.
Watching James is like watching a Ferrari stuck in traffic. You know
what it can do, and you want to see it happen, but the driver just revs
and moves along. Meanwhile the other guy, Wade in the black Lambo, veers
into the breakdown lane and guns it, well aware that he can pay any
ticket.
Is the bar too high for James? Are the expectations too far-fetched?
Isn't 32 points in a playoff game enough? Sure. But LeBron James has
three MVPs now, and no less than David Stern put his name in the same
sentence on Sunday as three-time winners Magic and Larry. James is that
talented. He's perhaps the most gifted basketball player ever. But
instead of being the gift that keeps on giving, he's the gift that keeps
refusing to take.
No comments:
Post a Comment