Even LeBron’s best might not be enough
Basketball historians will right that fully tell you digging his team out of a 3-1 NBA Finals ditch, winning a Game 7 on Golden State’s floor and lifting the so-called Cleveland Curse to deliver title glory to a long-suffering city adds up to peak LeBron James. Two short years later, in the 2018 NBA playoffs, James realistically has to be better now than he was then just to get back to the finals. That’s how deep the hole suddenly is for James and his Cleveland Cavaliers entering Saturday night’s Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals against the relentless Boston Celtics. Dragging this raggedy collection out of a 2-0 deficit to clinch the eighth straight finals appearance of James’ career, with no Kyrie Irving at his side to share the burden, would have to rank as the second-shiniest entry on his résumé.
Some league observers are bound to contest that view. Drew Gooden, who was a key member of Cleveland’s 2006-07 squad that James unexpectedly hauled to the finals in just his fourth pro season, did contest it loudly on the phone this week, insisting that those Cavaliers were an even longer shot to get zto the title round because of their collective lack of experience.
“You can’t compare this group to ours,” Gooden said. “This group has already won a championship. We were like a deer in headlights.”
Good points from Gooden, but I’m not budging. For all it supposedly lacked in terms of know-how, that Cleveland team ranked fifth in the league in defensive efficiency. It muscled past the second-ranked Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference finals when James, not yet 23, scored the Cavaliers’ final 25 points in an unforgettable series-turning classic in Game 5.
The current Cavaliers finished 29th out of 30 teams in defensive efficiency and were outscored by 40 points over the course of seven games in a first-round series against
Indiana that the math says they should have never escaped. And they’ve been shredded twice in Boston by a club that lost Gordon Hayward just 5 minutes and 15 seconds into its season opener and hasn’t had Irving in uniform since March 11.
James, as a result, finds himself in an 0-2 deficit in an Eastern Conference playoff series for the first time since (gulp) 2008 — even though he’s coming off a 42-point, 10-rebound, 12-assist performance.
The results of Tuesday night’s draft lottery, on top of the February trade spree that exiled Isaiah Thomas and Jae Crowder, means Cleveland has replaced Irving with Jordan Clarkson, George Hill, Rodney Hood, Larry Nance Jr. and Ante Zizic, as well as the No. 8 overall pick (via Brooklyn) in the NBA draft next month. That fivesome combined to score 5 points in the Cavaliers’ 107-94 defeat in Game 2.
And then there’s this distressing bit of history unearthed by my longtime ESPN colleague Brian Windhorst: The last No. 8 pick to achieve All-Star status was Vin Baker — who was selected eighth by Milwaukee in 1993.
The jewel of the Irving trade return, in other words, turned out to be far less sparkly than expected, thanks to the plucky Nets posting only the league’s eighth-worst record.
The Other Cavaliers, as they were mockingly dubbed in a recent Saturday Night Live sketch, figure to play better in the next two games at home.
But when Boston is 8-0 at home in these playoffs and 37-0 as a franchise after seizing a 2-0 lead in any series, it’s becoming a serious strain to imagine James leading Cleveland on a comeback.
James’ rampages were barely sufficient against the Pacers and appear to be in vain against the Celtics when Al Horford is playing the most forceful two-way ball of his career.
And when the irrationally confident Marcus Morris has helped limit James to 11 points on 4-for14 shooting in their 56 head-tohead minutes.
And when Boston’s savant of a coach, Brad Stevens, is getting so much out of relative neophytes Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum while James is plagued with such intermittent help.
My personal rule when it comes to playoff prognostication is simple: You don’t pick against LeBron James when he’s facing a fellow East resident.
Even when he’s halfway to elimination.
But I can’t muster the gumption to claim that James is about to lead the broken Cavaliers to four wins in his next five games. Not even after three full off days to regroup and refuel.
Maybe he’s faced more dire predicaments, but never before with a cast that’s doing so little supporting.