LeBron James didn’t want this.
You can — and should — be awed at his Game 2 performance. James started the game with the first 13 points before the Indiana Pacers had even scored one. He scored or assisted on 28 of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 33 first quarter points, just a couple days after head coach Tyronn Lue had said he thought James should be more aggressive. He had 35 points, 10 rebounds, and 5 assists — a fine stat line for a full game — when the third quarter ended. He was, in a word, indomitable.
James didn’t take over the fourth quarter, but he did enough, icing the game at the line. He finished with 46 points on 17-of-24 shooting, along with 12 rebounds, five assists, two steals, and just three turnovers. There are only four instances of playoff performances like that — 46 or more points, 12 or more rebounds, and five or more assists — and one of them was James in 2009. Look, there aren’t many more ways to show how ridiculous it was.
But there’s a more pessimistic way you can view James’ performance, one that doesn’t take anything away from his excellence. James did this because he was forced to, not because he wanted to. This rendition of the Cavaliers, the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference that barely cleared 50 wins, is the lowest that a James-led team has finished since 2008. They re-hauled their entire roster at the trade deadline because the team that started the year hadn’t come together quick enough. Yet here is James, during Game 2 of the first round, despite the new-look Cavaliers around him, already dialing up his effort to a 10.
James tried to avoid this in Game 1, perhaps coming into it with a sense of invulnerability after winning 21 straight first round games. He didn’t attempt a field goal until there were two minutes left in the first quarter, desperately trying to activate his teammates. The result was a 33-14 deficit, and then eventually, James’ first loss in the first round since 2012.
These Cavaliers are not invulnerable.
It’s not that the first round can’t be war for LeBron — it has been before. Last year’s first round series against the Indiana Pacers was a four-game sweep but decided by just 16 points combined. (James averaged 33 points, 10 rebounds, and nine assists.) But we know those teams had help, and we know this team is different.
When the Cavaliers rebuilt their roster in early February, they did it while limiting the team’s ceiling. Cleveland is younger and has a few more defensive-minded players than before, but the moves forced them to retool solely around James. The team lives and dies with him. There’s no Kyrie Irving to take the weight off him, and the hope that Isaiah Thomas would be a facsimile tragically perished months ago in a small fire. Cleveland can surround James with shooters, but they don’t have any additional shot creators.
It’s amusing that James is one of the greatest scorers that we’ve ever seen and still insists that it’s not something he loves. He tallies up points in bunches, but for him, it just feels like a byproduct of him being a great player. As he famously said last year: “I’m not a scorer. I don’t want to be labeled as a scorer. ... I’m a playmaker.”
That’s what James tried and failed to be in Game 1. He tallied 24 points and 12 assists, but the rest of his teammates managed just 56 points on 23-of-61 shooting (37.8 percent). This is a first round matchup against a team that was all but left for dead after last summer’s Paul George trade, and even now James can’t coast in his preferred role.
If James has been forced into becoming Scoring LeBron just two games into the postseason, then what does that bode for the rest of it? His teammates aren’t good enough for him to play like he wants. There was going to be a moment these playoffs where that would happen, one that came in the Eastern Conference Finals or the championship. We all remember James being asked to do everything in the 2015 Finals, missing Irving and Kevin Love. James averaged 36 points that series ... and lost in six games.
We can appreciate James’ brilliance, and still recognize that we’re see too much of it too soon. If this is what it takes to beat the Indiana Pacers at home to avoid a 0-2 deficit, then even James won’t be enough to take the Cavaliers to their fourth straight Finals.
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