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Message: [QUOTE="champs99and04, post: 2732677, member: 488"] The [I]way [/I]Cleveland approached that game, LeBron in particular, was unlike anything I've ever seen. It wasn't just that he played all 48 minutes at the age of 33; it was the way he paced himself so that he'd be able to deliver for his team in the fourth quarter. He's been doing it all season, and all great players do it to a point (there is a reason no one player can take all the shots), but this was taking it to an extreme, in a winning cause, that I'm not sure has an equivalent in the modern era. That Cavs team, minus Love, was [I]so [/I]limited on offense that everything needed to be spoon fed for them. Brad Stevens acknowledged in his postgame presser that their strategy was to make LeBron exert as much energy as humanly possible on both ends. It makes a lot of sense because no player is capable of being [I]that [/I]high usage for a full 48 minutes. It has no precedent. But that's what makes his performance tonight so fascinating. He knew he had to break the sports cardinal if his team was going to have any chance. He needed to conserve energy, and if you were watching this game from an objective point of view, that hurt the team at times. They conceded a couple offensive rebounds that LeBron didn't fully invest in, they gave up clean looks that LeBron could have contested, and they wasted a hell of a lot of clock with empty dribbling when they could have been getting into something sooner. None of that mentions the 8 turnovers or the 8 threes, a couple of which were ill-advised. The team and the player were both knee-deep in bad habits that would have come back to bite them if Boston could throw the ball in the ocean. The sequence late in the fourth quarter where LeBron surrendered a rebound to Smart off a free throw, then another rebound, then coughed up a wide open Rozier three, was especially egregious. That team doesn't play the right way and if you were new to the league you'd think 23 was part of the problem. On the other hand, he needed to play that way and they needed to play that way. Maximizing your lifespan from a state of vulnerability is a skill. It's a skill he may not have had at 23 but sure as hell has now. He needed to shut it down at times on defense just like he needed to pound the ball and throw reckless passes on offense. LeBron is not dumb. In fact, he is a genius, which is why every seemingly ill-advised perimeter launch represents a calculation, an analysis of his own body's preservation in relation to the arch of game. Every one of his careless micro transgressions is justified in the big picture by an unconscionable muscle memory that instantly converts every detail of intel into an algorithm. Everyone knows that if you can get multiple defenders to commit to stopping a drive, you can eventually get an open three. Only he knows how much battery it takes to make that move, if its expected outcome makes it worthwhile, and whether he can bait a young player with his eyes for just long enough to flick a high risk pass across the court that he knows is less profitable on average but must be made in an attempt to save some charge for later. And so to me, it was obvious that LeBron could do whatever the hell he wanted on that court. The gap between him and everyone else is actually understated because of the fact that it looked like he did do whatever he wanted. Oh no. LeBron has a gear that we haven't even seen. He essentially just beat a team single-handedly at half-speed. After all, he could get to the rim whenever he wanted when he was a kid playing grown men. Now that he is a grown man playing children, it is safe to say he's capable of dominating segments of games in a way we haven't seen since, I don't know, Wilt? I'm sure so and so held LeBron to 40% shooting as the primary defender. Forget it. He took a 40% shot because he wanted to. The prevailing narrative will be that he is a physical freak, but what this is really indicative of is his mental dominance and his will to win. He could have thrown three hitless innings but instead he gave you a scoreless nine. It was a game of cat and mouse you may never see again. The only other athlete I have seen in my lifetime like this - dudes who can find a way to beat you from their deathbed - is Tom Brady. [/QUOTE]

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