LeBron James is 13-0 in his NBA career in the first round of the playoffs. In that time, he's gone to Game 6 twice, Game 5 three times and has notched seven sweeps. Now, he has one Game 7 under his first-round belt, and he is exhausted. James and the Cavaliers (but really just James) beat the Indiana Pacers in a do-or-die Game 7 behind a 45-point James performance, ending a Round 1 series that felt like an eternity.
James started 7 for 7 from the field, and wound up with nine rebounds and seven assists to go along with his 45 points. It was a game in which it felt like he was doing everything on his own, and when the Cavaliers ended up winning with a score of 105-101, it still felt at times like it wouldn't be enough. The bench stepped up at times, but the bottom line is that without James, this Cavaliers' team doesn't play five games against the Pacers.
After the game, an exhausted LeBron James was asked to compare the Indiana big men to the upcoming series against the Raptors' Jonas Valanciunas and Serge Ibaka, Cleveland's next-round opponent. LeBron's response? "Man I don't know I ... I'm burnt right now. I'm not thinking about Toronto right now until tomorrow. I'm ready to go home, can we? I mean, I'm tired, I wanna go home. So ..."
It's reminiscent of the end of an action movie. After the larger-than-life hero saves the day, and someone asks him what he wants to do. "I wanna go home." It's a human response from someone that we can easily forget is human. James in the second round feels like an inevitability, but this is the worst Cavaliers team he's had since he left for Miami in 2010. Sure, it isn't Mo Williams, JJ Hickson and Anthony Parker being dragged kicking and screaming to the 2010 conference semifinals, but we're so used to LeBron playing on superteams that when he isn't, we wonder what's wrong with him.
In reality, James is fine. But he's 33 years old and 15 years into an NBA career that has had deep postseason run in every season outside of the first two. The Pacers made him bleed, both literally and figuratively, and it took a Herculean Game 7 to get the Cavaliers out of the toughest first round he's had since 2007, and arguably the toughest of his career. The Cavs needed this Game 7, but more than that they needed every ounce of LeBron's talent this series, and every game started the same way. The Cavaliers would jump out to a huge lead, and the Pacers would drag themselves back in like the monster from "It Follows," slowly cutting in on that lead. In Game 2 it was 12 points, and the Pacers lost by three. Game 3 saw the Pacers win after trailing 17 at the half.
It just went on and on. In every game that the Cavs won, they had sporadic bursts of heroics like players like Kyle Korver or Tristan Thompson. But they were inconsistent at best and unreliable at worst. James is the only mainstay on this Cleveland roster.
James played 41.2 minutes per game, a number skewed by a Game 6 in which he played just over 31 minutes due to the Pacers routing the Cavaliers. That's an exhausting workload. Combine that with Lance Stephenson being obnoxious and you can see why James started getting testy throughout the series. However, he did what he needed to in Game 7. He got the Cavaliers a win, and he did it in emphatic fashion. James finished the game 16 of 25 from the field, and this Game 7 didn't have a first-round vibe when you look at his energy throughout it.
Now, however, James will go up against the Raptors, the No. 1 seed and perhaps the deepest team in the East. It's a huge challenge, made even more difficult by the fact that the Cavaliers are definitely exposed to some degree. How deep will James and the Cavaliers have to dig to beat Toronto? Who knows. Even James just started thinking about it Monday.
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