LeBron faces huge challenge in Finals
BOSTON (AP) — LeBron James will get a couple days to catch his breath, then make his annual June journey to Golden State.
His eighth straight NBA Finals — and fourth in a row against Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors — sets up as one of James’ most difficult, flanked by a largely unheralded set of teammates who force him to do much more at 33 than most other players are ever asked.
But James keeps showing he can do it, and he can’t wait for his chance to win another ring. Dare count him out? “At the end of the day, the game is won in between the lines, and we have an opportunity to play for a championship,” he said after Sunday’s 87-79 victory over Boston. “That’s all that matters.”
James dragged an injured and inconsistent Cavaliers team out of the Eastern Conference and back to the NBA Finals, where they will be an underdog heading into Thursday’s series opener in Oakland.
But after playing all 48 minutes in his 100th game of the season, punctuating one of the greatest series a player has ever had with 35 points, 15 rebounds and nine assists, LeBron sure looks capable of more.
And the Cavaliers will need every bit of it. They had to play seven games just to get out of the first round, and seven more to finish a climb out of 2-0 deficit against a younger, more athletic Celtics team.
The Cavs have to be tired, and that’s no way to go into a series against Curry, Kevin Durant and the Warriors, who blew Cleveland away in five games last year.
The only way it would appear Cleveland would have a chance would be if James can summon his highest level, the kind that perhaps no other player can reach — and then do it three more times.
The Celtics have seen him do it, after James averaged 33.6 points, 9.0 rebounds and 8.4 assists to eliminate them in the East final for the second straight year.
This was the year James’ finals streak looked over. Kyrie Irving had been traded to Boston in the off-season, Isaiah Thomas, Dwyane Wade and Derrick Rose weren’t the answers as his replacement, and Kevin Love missed significant time with injuries.
And even after the Cavaliers re-made their team at the February trade deadline, it didn’t look good enough.
Cleveland had finished just fourth in the East, never developing the cohesiveness required to be even a mediocre defensive team, let alone a championship-calibre one. They still tend to surrender open shots everywhere — a flaw that seems fatal against the 3-point happy Warriors, but James could be the great equalizer.