LeBron James, the Silent Killer: Why the Cavaliers Play Better in the Halfcourt

Yup, that guy, for whom the opposing team is always game-planning, prefers to fade into the background most of the game.  Oh yeah, he likes to get his, and he's going to, but he'd rather do it under his opponents nose than in their eyes.

John Krolik at CavsTheBlog has mentioned it a couple times, and you can hear that sometimes the guys on TNT are surprised when they're reading off the box-score and LeBron has about 10 more points and a couple more assists and rebounds than they thought. 

I actually believe Mike Brown when he says he didn't know LeBron had a triple double until he looked at the stat sheet.

Despite being the focal point of almost every game, LeBron does a lot of his work quietly, and that is usually a good sign for the Cavs.

Try to bare with me while I go through the games, or you can just skip through if you've been engaged watching this series.  I've actually got a decent point at the end of this.

• Game One: 49 pts. 20-30 FGA 3-6 3ptFG 6 reb. 8 ast. 2 stl. 3 blk.
  

LeBron was tough to miss in this one, the 26 first-half points in particular.  Everybody was in awe.

But the Cavs fell into the Magic's hands, playing too fast for their own good, nobody else had a remotely good game, and the Cavs lost.

• Game Two: 35 pts. 12-23 FGA 10-12 FTA 6 reb. 6 ast.
  

Aside from the first and fourth quarters of Game Five, the only game that has gone the way Mike Brown wanted.  A slower, lower-scoring, grind-it-out type game more reminiscent of the Cavs' 2006 playoff run.

Obviously a much quieter game all-around for LeBron—lower numbers in every category. However, the Cavs got three other guys scoring in double figures, and LeBron took care of the rest.

This is probably a great example of him being deceptively amazing for 47 minutes, and then reminding everybody that he is, in fact, the best player in the world.

Even though he shot over 50 percent on the game up to the last second and had made his fair share of amazing plays, for some reason, nobody I've talked to can really say they thought he'd hit it.

• Game Three: 41 pts. 11-29 FGA 1-8 3ptFGA 18-24 FTA 7 reb. 9 ast.

That's what you call getting em' the hard way.  I was a little shocked when they showed he was about to score his 38th and 39th points at the line.  Most likely his free-throw attempts got lost on me somewhere along the parade of 86 free-throw attempts throughout the game.

By far the worst game of the series, possibly the playoffs.  And I don't mean for LeBron or the Cavs, I just mean period.

• Game Four: 44 pts. 13-29 FGA 4-10 3ptFGA 14-18 FTA 12 reb. 7 ast.

LeBron was very present for the entire game and he had to be because after the first quarter most of his teammates decided to abandon him.  Then he was uber-present in overtime when he hit the most ridiculous shot of the series to bring the Cavs within two and provide an eerily similar situation to Game Two.

Good luck ignoring that.

• Game Five: 37 pts. 11-24 FGA 0-2 3ptFGA 15-19 FTA 14 reb. 12 ast.

Another one of those games, where LeBron was hardly noticeable in quarters one through three.  Mo Williams actually outscored him through three quarters.  At the same time, while everybody was focusing on Mo's first quarter outburst, LeBron actually had eight and two assists in the first quarter and a 16-6-6 line for the half.

Then everybody probably kind of noticed LeBron in the fourth quarter when the Cavs put him and Michal Pietrus on an island at the top of the key and LeBron absolutely commanded the entire offensive end with 17-4-4. 

He accounted for 32 straight Cavs points until the end-of-game parade to the free-throw line started and fouled Dwight Howard out of the game with over two-minutes left in the game.

Bottom Line

Yes, we all love to see the Cavs out and running and LeBron in transition, but that only works to a certain extent.  LeBron needs easy ones as much as the next guy, but what really makes him the best player in the world is the same thing that has made Kobe the best in the past—he can get the tough ones.

The real key for LeBron is not to get himself the easy ones as much as it is for him to get his teammates easy ones.  When he can do that early in games, the defense has a much tougher time keying in on him.

It forces his opponents to account for other guys as well as him, which allows him to get easy ones in short bursts off second-chance points, transition plays, and cuts to the basket.

If the Cavs are playing defense the way they are supposed to, LeBron's teammates can play off him well enough to keep the game close.

Then he is fresh for the stretch run against a defense that is not quite ready for what he has in the tank because they have been scrambling the entire game to cover shooters and cutters.

At that point, a simple wrinkle like spreading the floor and putting him on an island in the high-post with a guy who has been making headlines as a supposed "LeBron-stopper" puts him in position to close the game.

So, apologies to Charles Barkley, but the Cavs cannot afford to run against the Magic the way they would against the Celtics.  They are just too good in transition to even think about getting into a running game with them.

It is one thing to run off turnovers to get easy ones here and there, but when you have a guy like LeBron and a team full of role players, the game-plan has to revolve around controlling the pace of the game and keeping it close.

Sorry to the casual fans out there.  I know it sounds boring and soooo 90's, but this isn't FIBA.  It's playoff basketball.