LeBron James Must Repeat Career-Best Performance for Miami Heat to Win Game 7

LeBron James picked a good time to have the best performance of his career. For Miami to advance to the NBA Finals, he'll have to do it again Saturday night.

The story of Thursday's Game 6 is simple: LeBron came to play, and the Celtics did not. After four games of dominance, the Celtics were flat and uninspired, and Paul Pierce couldn't make a shot or stop LeBron from making virtually every one of his.

After Game 6, no one was talking about LeBron's lack of clutch-ness. From the outset on Thursday, the Celtics had no chance—LeBron made that very clear with his unbelievable 30-point performance in the first half. It's rare that one player can completely decimate the opponent so quickly, but people have always expected those kinds of performances out of LeBron. He's that kind of player.

Until now, he hasn't been built for decisive Game 6s, but it's a whole new ballgame after Thursday.

Before Thursday, there had been four instances (h/t Ernest Tolden of ESPN.com) in which LeBron's teams trailed 3-2 in a series. Before Thursday, none of his teams had ever won. Before Thursday, LeBron's playoff shooting percentage dropped from 47.6 to 42.8 when his team trailed. After he shot 73 percent—73 percent—from the field on Thursday night, we can stop talking about that statistic, too.

As Celtics head coach Doc Rivers told the Associated Press after the game, "I hope now you guys can stop talking about LeBron and (how) he doesn't play in big games. He was pretty good tonight."

LeBron's an MVP, so he's always good. In Game 5, he managed to register 30 points, and his team still lost. In Game 6, he needed to play out of his mind to do two things: single-handedly give his team an insurmountable halftime lead and bury the Celtics emotionally. You could see the frustration in the Celtics' body language and in their offensive performance.

They were defeated from the beginning, and that's a credit to LeBron.

Boston knew they had no hope of stopping LeBron on Thursday night because his game was just that on; as Rajon Rondo told the Associated Press, the C's "didn't get into his air space."

But there's a reason 45-point playoff performances don't come around too often, and to take down Boston once and for all in Game 7 on Saturday night, LeBron is going to have to do that again. Can he?

Can anybody?

Given the way LeBron played on Thursday night, no one else on the Heat really needed to have that much of an impact. That won't fly on Saturday. Dwyane Wade needs to shoot better than 35 percent from the field, and the Heat bench can't get away with scoring a combined 13 points.

Boston—a team that tends to excel with its back against the wall—will not roll over and die again. LeBron may have been able to do it all on Thursday, but odds are LeBron can't do that two games in a row.  

Then again, the odds were that he couldn't do it in a Game 6, so I guess you never know what could happen.