King LeBron continues turning heads
Now in its 13th year of operation, the LeBron James Show is still about as good as it gets. If you think of the stars of other sports who pass through on a regular basis, they mostly pale by comparison.
The Alex Ovechkin Show is a solid one but the NHL’s latest addition to the 500 Goal Club doesn’t put the puck in the back of the net every night. If you give the Mike Trout Show an entire weekend, he’s going to give you something memorable. The Odell Beckham Show? New and explosive but … maybe too explosive.
The only real competition comes from within James’ own sport, and Dallas fans missed the Steph Curry Show two weeks ago when he was sidelined. So they willingly settled for the Mavs’ runaway victory in that game, one that made Dallas just the second team to defeat Golden State all season.
On Tuesday, James was very much in the building, alive and well and facing a team he had not lost to since the 2011 Finals when, of course, he lost four times out of six and the Mavs made some surprising history.
Consider the LeBron streak intact after he took over in overtime for a 110-107 victory. And consider James highly uninterested in the current streak over the Mavs.
“I’d rather be 0-100 against Dallas and have a trophy,” he said. “I don’t like the alternative.”
James finished with 27 points, 10 rebounds and 7 assists to extend his personal winning streak against Dallas to eight games — same as Cleveland’s current winning streak as the Cavs begin to pull away in the Eastern Conference.
“We’re pretty good with everyone back,” said Kyrie Irving, who had 22 points and nine assists and hit the killer three in overtime.
The funny thing is that back in 2011 the Mavs were essentially (and briefly) the nation’s team, thanks to James. He had rendered himself so unpopular with the ill-fated “Decision” to take his talents to South Beach, the underdog Mavs were practically everyone’s darlings. And their championship at least stalled what we imagined would become a never-ending stretch of Heat titles that turned out to be merely a twoyear run.
Today, James has completely reshaped his image, courtesy of his second decision that sent him back to his Ohio home. And he hasn’t stopped going to the Finals, making five consecutive trips with a sixth more than just slightly possible this spring.
As James goes, so goes his enormous fan base. I have a hunch some of those thousand or so fans in Cavs jerseys at American Airlines Center on Tuesday couldn’t find Ohio without GPS and they were all sporting Heat gear here two years ago.
James also brought out the likes of Jordan Spieth and Drew Pearson, to mention a couple of local icons. And while they were surely cheering Dallas, they wanted to pay respects to the King as well.
“He’s strong,” said Spieth, making it sound more like stronnnngggg.
On this particular night — the first of three in Texas for Cleveland — James was in a facilitating mood. You couldn’t tell it from his assist total because of some mostly awful shooting from his teammates, especially Kevin Love. There’s a reason the Cavs made it to the NBA Finals last year with Love sidelined. And it was on display with his 5-for-19, 0-assist performance Tuesday.
James delivered one memorable moment on a first-half steal, passing to J.R. Smith for a 2-on-0 fast break, getting the inevitable return pass on the wing and throwing home a close-your-eyes dunk that brought much of the crowd to its feet.
He was passive for fairly long stretches, but never long enough for the Cavs to lose sight of Dallas. Cleveland was never at its shooting best Tuesday but a 17-7 edge on the offensive boards (Love did have six of those and James had another three) kept the visitors hanging around.
James was still sitting on 18 points going into the final minute of a tight game when some good defense in the corner from Williams forced him to miss an off-balanced jumper. But after James rebounded at the defensive end, he drew two free throws to tie the game 93-93 with 39 seconds to play.