LBJ wont top Tim

First off, let me clear up something I wrote a week ago. In my May 27 post, I said, “…it’s been the LeBron show. Or make that the lack of LeBron show. In the first two games, both played in Detroit, they completely shut down the Cavs star forward. In game one, LBJ finished one point assist away from a triple-double. That would be a line of ten points, ten rebounds, nine dimes. That might sound good to the average fan, but the most talented player in the league (Note: Not the best player, but the most talented) should have ten points after the first quarter, not at the end of the contest.”

Was I saying that James didn’t try to win games one and two? No, of course not. There’s no player that can get to the conference finals and then just decide to not try his best to win. I was saying he was trying too hard to get his teammates involved in the scoring and by doing that, hurt his teams chances of winning because he failed to score himself. If you watched games three, four and five of the Pistons-Cavs series, you would have seen LBJ trying less to put the other Cleveland players in position to score and more of him attempting to get to the basket and draw contact. And by doing that, it actually lead to more open shots for the other Cavs, making it difficult for Detroit to double team. Just take a look at the averages for LeBron:

Games 1 & 2
14.5 points, 8 assists, 3.5 free throw attempts

Games 3, 4 and 5
35 points, 9 assists, 10.6 free throw attempts

Of course Cleveland lost the first two and won the next four, (I didn’t add game six because LBJ had a sub-par performance, but it didn’t matter because the Pistons didn’t even try) proving that #23 has to try to score more if his team is going to continue winning. Going to the basket more also made Piston defenders Tayshaun Prince and Rip Hamilton work much more than they normally do on the defensive end, taking away the energy that they usually have stored up for offense. In game five, he put it all together and that was LeBron at his best, the closest thing basketball fans have seen to Jordan since the real #23. (I rank that as the third best individual performance I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, after Jordan’s ’97 flu game versus Utah and ’92 Game 1 versus Portland were he dropped 35 in the first half. Both edge LeBron because they were in the NBA Finals, not East Finals.) Scoring 29 of his teams final 30 points, including everything the Cavs put on the scoreboard in two overtime periods, was an amazing sight to behold, an instant classic in every sense of the word. (Here is a video of all of James' points during that run. I especially enjoyed the dunk he has (at the :30 mark of the video) where he crosses Jason Maxiel and then dunks so hard on Prince that Tayshaun has to cover his face in order to not get LeBron's knee lodged in it.)

But will King James’ new, aggressive approach work as well in the Finals versus San Antonio as it did against Detroit? The Spurs have tough perimeter defenders Manu Ginobili, Michael Finley and Bruce Bowen, similar to what the Pistons had. James can and will have some big games, but he won’t be able to completely take over fourth quarters like he did last week. San Antonio is too strong and has too much depth to get beaten by a one man team.

The biggest difference in the series is Tim Duncan. Nobody in the East has the combination of skill, size and smarts that the Big Fundamental possesses, and Cleveland will have no way of stopping him. Drew Gooden is going to get absolutely abused, and unless Anderson Varejo can flop his way toward Duncan foul trouble, TD should be able to have about 25 points, 13 rebounds, six assists and four blocks a game. The rest of the Spurs offense should have trouble, because Cleveland’s D is very good. But I think that Duncan’s performance will be too much for the Cavaliers to handle.


Prediction: San Antonio in 6 games