OT: Theoretically Tonight Could be LeBron's Last Game in a Cavalier Uniform

Think about it.

 

Boston has to feel a bit concerned that they let CLE steal game 1 from them.

I called Boston in 6 and I'm sticking with it. They are just the better team.

 

Shape, you're not that good.



HOME


AWAY

Clever. But not clever enough.

 

Damn I butchered the title of this thread.

 

Hollinger breaks done LeBacle


Actions speak louder than words.



And although the words coming out of Cleveland in the wake of Tuesday night's crushing 120-88 Cavaliers loss to the Boston Celtics in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals haven't been terribly revealing, a rewatch of the game tape shows what might have caused what my editor, Royce Webb, calls the "LeBacle."



Let me start by saying that the Cavs have several problems right now other than LeBron James. They gave up 70 points in the second half Tuesday, for crying out loud. The frontcourt pairing of Shaquille O'Neal and Antawn Jamison is defensively suspect, a problem exacerbated by their limited playing time together (just four games before the playoffs.)



The fact that Mo Williams is getting lit up like a Christmas tree in front of them isn't helping, either. I'm also wondering whether Anderson Varejao's back is hurting more than he has let on. And Mike Brown is flailing right now -- that Boobie Gibson cameo Tuesday night was a cry for help.



With all that said, if James had gone off for his usual 34-8-7 in Game 5, we'd be having a very different conversation this morning. The primary reason the Cavs looked so awful is that the man who dominated the league in the regular season did virtually nothing of note Tuesday night. (In a testament to how dominant he'd been coming into the game, he still ranks first in playoff player efficiency rating.)



The obvious question is: Why? Was his elbow bothering him that much? Was he sick? Did he just check out of this one?



We haven't been given many answers, so instead of words, let's look at actions. And what the actions scream from the hilltops is that both LeBron and his opponents knew something was wrong right from the opening tip.



When I rewatched the game this morning, several things stood out to me.



First, James couldn't make a jump shot. He tried 11 jumpers and made only one of them. Every miss was short -- most of them well short -- and a couple drifted off to the right. I suppose this could have happened just by chance, but a far more likely cause is that his elbow was bothering his shot.



Two other data points buttress that conclusion. First, James passed up several other opportunities to shoot open jumpers. Most notable was an isolation against Paul Pierce in the second quarter. James jabbed, and Pierce flinched backward a step and a half, leaving a clear opening to rise up for the uncontested J from 18 feet. Instead, James froze. He reset; Pierce got back into position; and James eventually drove into traffic and nearly threw away a pass.


That was just one play, but I counted several others in which James had a clear opening for the jumper and turned it down. One could argue this was a reaction to his cold shooting, but that has never stopped him before. Instead, I would surmise that he knew his elbow limited his effectiveness as a jump shooter.



It appears the Celtics knew this, too. What stood out while watching LeBron's screen-and-roll possessions, particularly in the second half, was how far under the screen Pierce was playing. It was far enough that he was just meeting James at the other side near the foul line to cut off his driving lane. This should have led to a profusion of wide-open J's that even an average outside shooter like James could have easily exploited. Instead, he went 1-for-11 on jumpers.



James didn't shoot, but he didn't drive, either. Rather, he passed up a lot of opportunities to make plays. What really stood out in the rewatch was how many pick-and-roll plays ended with James creating no advantage and ultimately passing the ball to a teammate who wasn't open. By my count, this happened a whopping 13 times.



This, to me, was the most disturbing part about James' Game 5 performance. The pick-and-roll should be able to create some kind of opportunity for James to either score or pass to a wide-open teammate, but when the Celtics offered him jumpers, he reacted by giving up on the play entirely. Cleveland's supporting cast members aren't good enough to create plays on their own without LeBron first creating an advantage for them -- everybody knows this. But too often Tuesday night, a play ended with somebody such as Anthony Parker or Delonte West trying to score one-on-one against a set defense.



As a result, a funny thing happened, something I doubt has happened many times in Cleveland: The Cavs' offense was dramatically more effective when James wasn't involved in the play.



Throughout the first quarter, the Cavs ran plays for Williams and O'Neal to get them involved. This is standard operating procedure for Cleveland, and it produced a respectable 23 points and a three-point first-quarter lead.



It's hard to remember, but Cleveland actually led by eight at one point early in the second quarter. The Cavs pulled James for a two-minute rest and couldn't score. When he came back, they ran nearly every play through him until the middle of the fourth quarter … and still couldn't score. Cleveland scored only 51 points in 2½quarters, with nearly every play going through James in the form of a screen-and-roll.



Even at that, the scoring plays tended to be the rare exceptions that weren't for James: post-ups for Shaq, screen-and-rolls for Williams, even an open-court basket-and-1 for Zydrunas Ilgauskas when the Celtics botched a trap at the end of the first half.



Thus, the most logical conclusion is that the elbow was a major factor and that it affected LeBron mentally as much as physically. We have one other data point to support us: his track record in this series. Since Game 5 of the Chicago series, James' effectiveness has correlated directly with how much rest he had between games.



Witness: Games 2, 4 and 5 came with just one day of rest; in those three, he shot 0-for-13 on 3s and 17-for-47 overall. Games 1 and 3, on the other hand, had an extra day of rest beforehand, which seemed to allow his elbow to feel much better: In those two contests, he was a one-man wrecking crew, making 26 of 46 shots from the floor and scoring 73 points. Needless to say, those were the two Cleveland wins in this series.



What it all means for the Cavs is rather worrisome because Thursday's must-win Game 6 (8 p.m. ET, ESPN) comes on one day's rest again. The silver lining is that Cleveland would have two days off before Game 7, which means it probably would have something closer to a 100 percent LeBron for a potential rubber match. Unfortunately, the Cavs won't get past Game 6 unless James either attacks the basket with much more conviction or finds a way to sink a few jumpers despite the balky elbow.