LeBron James Must Be Huge Factor for Miami Heat in Game 5 of NBA Finals

After the Miami Heat's 88-86 victory over the Dallas Mavericks in Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Sunday night, the infamous "shrinkage" questions began to bombard LeBron James from all angles of the media.

Despite the Heat winning the game and taking a 2-1 series lead, the spotlight of the media focused on the fact that Dwyane Wade—not LeBron—took over the game in the fourth quarter and led Miami to the victory. Living in the "post-Decision" era that we do, anything less than a Mariano Rivera closeout effort from LeBron (which we saw flashes of in the Eastern Conference Finals against Chicago) doesn't seem to be good enough—fairly or unfairly.

The inevitable questions of James' late-game irrelevance led prominent writers such as J.A. Adande and Jason Whitlock to defend LeBron's performance.

Adande pointed out LeBron's "no-win" situation with the media. He acknowledged that LeBron only had two points and committed two turnovers in the fourth quarter, but also pointed out that he dished four assists in the final period—one of which came on Chris Bosh's jumper in the final minute to give Miami the lead for good—and contributed significantly on the defensive end.

Whitlock said that instead of only holding James to Michael Jordan standards (judging him solely on how many points he scores in the fourth quarter), we should be more inclined to compare him to Bill Russell, who did everything for his team except score in late-game situations, and no one seemed to have a problem with it.

Two days ago, both of those arguments seemed very valid. The media was, in fact, focusing too much on James' fourth quarter numbers and not enough on the fact that he still leads the Heat in scoring, rebounding and assists this postseason.

Unfortunately for the sake of Adande and Whitlock's arguments, James' ghostlike performance in Game 4 nullified them and gave the media even more reason to question his superstar intangibles.

James' 3-of-11 shooting night, which included just one shot in the fourth and a career playoff-low eight points, could not be overlooked in a game that came down to the wire once again after a furious fourth quarter rally from Dallas.

After all, if Wade—who scored 32 points and grabbed six boards—had received any help at all from the consensus most talented player on Earth, the Heat could have won comfortably and taken a commanding 3-1 series lead. Instead, the series sits at 2-2, and plans for another pretentious celebration in South Florida are on hold for the time being.

Miami's defense of James following the game was that he simply had an off night, which happens to everyone here and there. That may be true, but LeBron looked downright awful in Game 4 and appeared to "check out" mentally, as Mavs guard DeShawn Stevenson noted. Much like he did in Game 5 of last year's series with the Boston Celtics, James didn't even look like he wanted the ball on Tuesday, deferring not only to Wade, but to Mike Miller and Mario Chalmers too.

Following the Game 3 win, James pointed to his contributions on defense.

"I think you're concentrating on one side of the floor," James said when he was asked if he shrunk in Sunday's fourth quarter. "All you're looking at is the stat sheet. Honestly, I'm a two-way player. [...] You should watch the film again and see what I did defensively. You'll ask me a better question tomorrow."

After watching the film again from Game 4, however, James was nowhere to be found on either end of the floor.

The King let Jason Terry get loose for 17 points on Tuesday night that could have easily been 25 if Terry had been able to convert on several wide-open shots that James gave him late in the game.

Making James' performance more confusing was the fact Terry had challenged him publicly on Monday, insisting that James couldn't keep up his stellar defense for a full seven games. LeBron, the man who was "taking mental notes" of all the people slighting him and his team following The Decision, apparently didn't jot down Terry's challenge on his psychological bulletin board.

But his worst effort of the game came on his least talked-about gaffe of the night: his complete lack of effort (or life) on Dirk Nowitzki's game-winning layup with under 10 seconds remaining in the game.

With the Mavs clinging to a one-point lead in the final 15 seconds and Nowitzki being guarded one-on-one by Udonis Haslem on a drive to the basket, James simply watched the seven-foot German lay the ball in to put Dallas up three.

Even with Wade going all out with a Dwight Howard-like, kamikaze launch from across the paint in an attempt to block Dirk's shot, James simply stood and watched, as he was apparently keeping tabs on Terry in the corner. He could have doubled down on Nowitzki and contested the shot or at the very least faked a swipe at the ball to force Dirk to think about kicking it out to Terry for a more difficult attempt from the corner.

Instead, James stood idle.

After such a lame-duck performance on Tuesday night, James has no choice but to come up big for Miami in Game 5. It has to happen for him to redeem his dismal performance from Game 4.

Sure, the media is too critical of James on a night-to-night basis. We over-analyze every facet of his game as if he were the leader of the free world. Michael Jordan, believe it or not, missed some late-game jumpers in his career. Even Dirk avoided heavy criticism after missing the game-tying shot in Sunday night's final seconds. But LeBron James is held to a different standard, thanks in part to his Decision spectacle.

He is judged by the media the same way a quarterback would be in the NFL: He will get praise when things are going well and blame—justifiably or not—when things go wrong.

After his Game 4 disappearing act (something that has happened too many times in his career to be excused), there is no more defending LeBron. He has to come out tonight with a vengeance and lead the Heat to a win. Whether it be a Jordanesque 45-point performance or a Magic-like 25 and 15 assists, all eyes are squarely on The King in Game 5.

Now, more than ever, is the time for King James to live up to his billing as the Chosen One.