LeBron James led the Cleveland Cavaliers to victory in Game 6 with a terrific performance, forcing them into seventh place. The King continues to blow all superlatives in these playoffs – and yet the outcome of Game 7 against the Boston Celtics is completely uncertain. SPOX shows the game on the night from Sunday to Monday at 2:30 a.m. in the LIVESTREAM FOR FREE.
Tyronn Lue relied on Rudy Tomjanovich’s legendary statement a few hours before Game 6 against the Celtics: Never underestimate a champion’s heart. Although both his team and the Warriors in the West are only one defeat away, it is still possible that they will meet in the finals next week for the fourth time in a row. It’s not over until it’s really over.
Lue is right for now – the Cavaliers are still alive, the chance for the finals is still there. This squad has nothing to do with a championship squad, all the less so since Kevin Love went down in the first quarter after only five minutes and did not return to court with suspicion of a concussion.
But this squad just got LeBron James. When Lue speaks of the “heart of a champion”, he speaks of his best player. There’s not much you can rely on with the Cavs 2018 – from game to game you have no idea which roleplayer will contribute something positive to the game. The only guarantee in Cleveland is number 23.
Game 6 was a wonderful example of this. Whether fatigue would finally catch up with him was one of the key questions of the last few days, after James seemed unusually human in Game 5. He is certainly tired – how could it be otherwise with the workload. But it did not matter on Saturday morning German time: James was on the court 46:05 minutes, including the complete first half.
“It would be great if I could get a few minutes break in each quarter, but our team isn’t really built on that right now,” James said after the game. Cavs usually fall apart when he’s not on the court. Lue can hardly afford to release James for more than a minute in a row, even if he is flat. “We had to let him play for so long,” Lue explained after the game. “We needed everything from him and he delivered.”
The Cavs coach prefers to sacrifice downtime to let James at least take a short breath. Almost everything depends on him, the whole game. Of the 1,734 points Cleveland has scored so far in this postseason, James has been responsible for 54 percent as a scorer or preparer.
It is almost frightening how he still manages to conserve his energy or to find reserves at the decisive moments. There were always moments in Game 6 when the Celtics could smell the morning air, it wasn’t a blowout like almost all the games in this series before. But James destroyed every comeback attempt, either with his irresistible drives or the almost perfect shooting that day (5/7 3FG).
The fact that not so long ago he wasn’t considered a “clutch” is getting funnier every day in view of his performances in these playoffs. He has already produced several game winners this season, in this match between 02:22 and 00:58 minutes before the end he met two threesomes and a floater with foul to finally decide the game. And these hits came as no surprise – on the contrary, they were expected.
James finished the game with 46 points, 11 rebounds and 9 assists as well as the decisive points. For 99 percent of all NBA players, this statline would be the best game of their career in an elimination game in the conference finals – for the King alone, it was the seventh game in these playoffs with 40+ points. It goes beyond the superlatives that the 33-year-old organises in the current postseason.
“He’s the best player I’ve seen. Ever,” George Hill marveled after the game. Lue described LeBron’s performance as “greatness”, he could and did not have to say much more about it. His opponent Brad Stevens “analysed” the game accordingly: “He is the best player in the world. It was an incredible game from him.”
The Celtics coach nevertheless looked confidently at Game 7 and said that his team would be “ready”. Secretly, however, he may have been at least a bit annoyed – despite LeBron’s outstanding performance, Game 6 was also a missed opportunity for the Celtics.
For the first time in this series Boston actually showed a good performance away. Jaylen Brown and Terry Rozier in particular did not let themselves be intimidated and attacked again and again, Jayson Tatum also made a good game after the break. “I was proud of the way we fought back,” Stevens said. “This group is resistant.”
Indeed, morality could not be denied by the Celtics. Sometimes, however, the cleverness – Boston had phases in which the ball was lost in rows, and at times too many posessions ended with forced, bad finishes at the end of the throw. 9 of 20 free throws were placed next to it.
The biggest problem apart from James was the rebound work, Boston allowed a total of 15 offensive rebounds of the Cavaliers. The Cavs thus had a total of 13 more litters, which meant that the Celtics’ better odds hardly mattered. If Boston had turned off at least a few of these mistakes, the series might have been finished by now.
Had, would, could – everything is irrelevant: Now the seventh game beckons, for both teams already for the second time in these playoffs. The Celtics undoubtedly have a home advantage – Boston is still unbeaten at home in this postseason, the audience has worn them several times in the TD Garden. The Celtics are a different team at home.
Also with the Cavs the differences in this series were drastic. Hill was always a total failure in Boston, in game 6 he was an absolute key player with 20 (mostly self-created) points. Just like Jeff Green (14) and Larry Nance (10, plus 7 rebounds), who brought a lot of energy from the bank and each scored more points than in the previous two games combined.
Can they replicate that in Game 7? And, which could also be crucial: Will Love be available to the Cavs again? The second-best player of the Cavs has often had to struggle with the topic of concussion and has already missed games for this season.
There are few certainties, apart from the fact that it’s going to be a hot dance – already game 6 was a very physical affair in places. “It won’t be nice,” announced Celtics guard Marcus Smart. “We must be ready to have a bloody nose and a bloody mouth. We must be ready to fight. We have to find a way.”
On paper, there is relatively much to be said for Celtics. But on the other hand, there is this one guy who regularly acts in his own galaxy in elimination games. LeBron has won the last five Game 7s of his career. How confident can you really be when you bet against him in a game like this?
There are reasons why James has reached the finals seven times in a row. It’s not over until it’s really over.