Once Again, LeBron James Finds His Playoff Fate Is in His Hands, and His Alone
CHICAGO — LeBron James traveled a great distance last summer in search of companionship and camaraderie, crossing state lines and burning bridges along the way.
The journey was poetically framed as a homecoming, driven by sentiment and obligation. Yet the core mission was much more basic: To prop open a rickety window, the one with the word "Championship" engraved on the frame.
Dwyane Wade was breaking down, the Miami Heat were crumbling and the window was narrowing. And so James set off in search of new friends and allies, with nimble legs and functioning knee cartilage. The quest took him home, to Northeast Ohio, a place he once abandoned over similar concerns.
There, James embraced Kyrie Irving, summoned Kevin Love and set about constructing a younger, fresher Big Three on the banks of Lake Erie. Almost overnight, the Cavaliers became championship favorites.
The poetry and the warm-and-fuzzy sentiments have long since faded, and on Friday night James struck a familiar, weary pose on the postgame dais as he sifted through the messy details of a 99-96 loss to the Chicago Bulls—a defeat that left the Cavaliers with a 2-1 deficit in this second-round series.
The game was lost in a split-second, on Derrick Rose's miraculous, buzzer-beating bank shot, but so much else had gone wrong for the Cavaliers.
James shared the podium—and by implication, the responsibility—with Irving. At times, they stroked their scruffy chins in unison. And yet James never seemed more alone in this quest.
Love is gone, his brawn and his shooting stroke lost to a separated shoulder. Irving is present, but he's suddenly punchless and ineffectual. Cavaliers coach David Blatt revealed that Irving has been playing on a sore right foot since the second game of the first round. Irving also turned his right ankle Friday night and proceeded to go 3-of-13 from the field, finishing with 11 points and zero assists.
This newest Big Three is down to a Chosen One, and he is struggling with the burden.
James put up 27 points, 14 assists and eight rebounds Friday night, but he also missed 17 of his 25 shots and committed seven turnovers, prompting him to say, "Put it on me," and, "I have to be better."
If this were an anomaly, the Cavaliers could shake it off. It is not.
Through seven games, James is posting the worst shooting percentages of his playoff career (.434/.156/.776). He is relying more on isolation play than he has in years. When he does score, it is almost entirely on individual effort. The injury-riddled Cavs are not only failing to lift James' scoring burden; they are also failing to make his scoring chances any easier.
Consider:
- Through seven playoff games, James has been assisted on just 15 of his 72 field goals, about 21 percent. By comparison, James was assisted on 32.8 percent of his baskets during his 2014 playoff run with Miami, and 43.4 percent of his baskets in the 2013 playoffs.
- James' true shooting percentage, which incorporates three-pointers and free throws, is .499, by far the worst mark of his postseason career.
- James is shooting .156 from behind the arc (5-of-32), acknowledging that the shot is "out of whack" and, tellingly, "I'm not getting many catch-and-shoot threes."
- James' usage rate is a staggering 34.7, per NBA.com, the highest mark of his postseason career since posting a 35.9 mark in 2008-09, when he was dragging around Sasha Pavlovic, J.J. Hickson and Boobie Gibson.
- More than 35 percent of James' scoring chances this postseason are coming via isolation—by far the highest mark in the league. (The next-closest player is Houston's James Harden, at 25.9 percent.) James is shooting 38.9 percent on those plays and scoring 0.79 points per possession.
This is not the pace-and-space paradise James enjoyed in Miami.
"The injuries have definitely taken a toll on our team right now," James said Saturday. "But guys have to step up, including myself."
Alluding to Irving's injuries, James acknowledged, "I've gotta do a lot more ball-handling, more than I would like to do, with our team. But it's what I have to do."
Injuries have certainly played a role here. Love not only spaces the floor with his three-point shooting, but he's also a deft passer. Irving is a better playmaker when he's healthy enough to explode and break down a defense. J.R. Smith is a very good passer when he chooses to be, but he was suspended for the first two games of this series.
"Perhaps the fact that our lineup has changed significantly, suddenly, that put him in some different situations," Blatt said of James' struggles, "or took away some of the situations that are more comfortable with him."
But some of these offensive trends took shape in the regular season, when James was assisted on just 34.5 percent of his field goals. That was the lowest mark since 2010-11, his first season in Miami, when the Heat were still learning how to best utilize him.
Perhaps the Cavaliers lack the players with the skills to make James' life easier, or perhaps they lack the offensive scheme or the will to do it.
Irving is a fantastic scorer and a superior athlete, but he is a point guard in name only. He is still underdeveloped as a playmaker—a point underscored by James himself early this season, when he chided Irving for a zero-assist game.
According to NBA.com, Irving is generating just 8.9 points per game via assist in these playoffs, ranking him 30th in the league, behind several centers and power forwards. Even in his diminished state, Wade produced 9.7 points per game via assist in the postseason last year.
James is one of the greatest playmakers the game has ever seen. No one makes the game easier for his teammates. But for the Cavaliers to get back in this series, they need to make the game easier for James.
"Umm, that would help," Blatt said Saturday, with a wry grin. "That would help. But it's not like we're not playing for him. Obviously, we are. Everybody's got to pick it up a notch."
Adding to James' burden is that he's being guarded in this series by one of the game's top perimeter defenders, Jimmy Butler, who held him to 5-of-16 shooting, per NBA.com, when they were matched up in Game 3. Someone in a Cavaliers uniform needs to provide James a relief valve.
The Cavaliers were one of the NBA's most efficient offensive teams in the regular season, but the playoffs are a different animal. Defenses are generally tougher, and opposing coaches have more time to scheme against a team's strengths. A one-man offense can only carry a team so far—even when that man is the world's greatest player—and isn't that why James left Miami for Cleveland in the first place?
Howard Beck covers the NBA for Bleacher Report and is a co-host of NBA Sunday Tip, 9-11 a.m. ET on SiriusXM Bleacher Report Radio. Follow him on Twitter, @HowardBeck
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