The first half of LeBron James' masterful 35-point, 14-rebound performance against the Boston Celtics was a demonstration of why LeBron came into the league as the most hyped rookie in NBA history, and how he's been able to dominate so many games throughout his eight seasons in the league.
James used his unprecedented combination of size, speed, strength, and court vision to attack the basket with reckless abandon and score at will, overpowering the Celtics over and over again on his way to inside baskets or free throws. James scored 22 points in the first half -- points the Heat desperately needed -- and he only made one jump shot while doing so.
The second half was a different story. The Heat 's offense went stagnant, and LeBron went quiet in the third quarter. The game came down to the wire, the kind of situation that LeBron had struggled in all season long, but he was magnificent in the clutch on Monday night, scoring 11 of the Heat's final 13 points in regulation and scoring or assisting on the first two baskets of overtime.
More important, LeBron's late-game heroics weren't just about his overcoming the late-game struggles that have plagued him all year long. They were a exhibition of all the ways he's evolved as a player since coming into the league eight years ago:
2:00 Remaining: The Three-Point Shot
When LeBron first started gaining national attention as a high-schooler because of his shocking athletic gifts and court sense, the first question people had about him was simple:
Can he shoot the ball?
The answer was that he really couldn't. LeBron's perimeter shot selection was questionable, his form was atrocious, and he had no idea how to use footwork to set up his jumper.
During his Rookie of the Year season, LeBron shot 29 percent from beyond the arc, and his effective field goal percentage on jumpers was just 35.6 percent. To give you some context on just how abysmal that is, Rajon Rondo's effective field goal percentage on jumpers this season was 38.2 percent.
That off-season, LeBron set out to fix his biggest weakness, and the results were immediate. LeBron may have been better served working on his in-between game or his post-up game early, but he has so much strength in his wrists that he can shoot 3s with the same ease that most players shoot 15-footers.
LeBron shot a career-high 35 percent from 3-point range his sophomore year, and while he's no Ray Allen, he's always hit a decent proportion of his 3-pointers since his rookie year, especially considering how many of them he takes off the dribble.
On Monday, with two minutes remaining in the game, the Heat down three, and the Boston faithful smelling blood after two quick Celtic 3s, LeBron stared down Paul Pierce in the corner, rose up for a flat-footed 3, and drained it. If he missed the shot, the series would be tied, and it's not a shot that LeBron could have made his rookie season.
0:48 Remaining: The Up-and-Under
With the score tied and only a few possessions remaining, LeBron dribbled the ball at the top of the 3-point arc until there were eight seconds remaining on the shot clock, then drove directly into the teeth of a Boston defense that was waiting for him.
It was like watching a clip from a movie we've all seen far too many times, especially this season: On a crucial possession, LeBron decides not to trust his teammates or his jump shot, drives recklessly to the rim, and gets easily turned away by the defense.
LeBron crossed over, drove hard to the right, and found both Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett waiting to swat his shot away with three seconds remaining on the shot clock. This time, however, was different. LeBron gathered the ball, took two big steps, up-faked Pierce in the air while keeping his pivot foot down, and softly laid the ball in with his left hand to give the Heat a two-point lead.
While it wasn't a traditional post move, it was exactly the kind of thing that LeBron has been working on with Heat assistant coach David Fitzdale:
The eventual next step is a countermove, the drop-step, which James has been seen working on in the weeks before the playoffs.
That "eventual next step" came on Monday night, when the Heat needed LeBron to take it most. LeBron is already better at scoring at the rim than anyone in the league, and now he's learning that footwork and patience can be just as valuable around the rim as size and strength can be.
Overtime, 4:19 Remaining: The Mid-Range Shot
Brace yourself for this next statement:
LeBron James quietly turned himself into one of the best mid-range shooters in the NBA this season.
According to NBA.com's StatsCube, LeBron made 45 percent of his midrange jumpers last year, which is an incredibly efficient mark for a high-usage perimeter player. Paul Pierce made 44 percent of his mid-range jumpers. Kobe Bryant made 42 percent of his. Derrick Rose made 40 percent of his. Dwyane Wade, 40 percent. Kevin Durant, 42 percent. Carmelo Anthony, 42 percent.
Ray Allen shot 46 percent, barely edging out LeBron. Statistically speaking, out of all the high-usage perimeter players in the league, LeBron was the best midrange shooter not named Dirk Nowitzki. (Dirk shot 53 percent -- he's a freak.)
With the score tied in overtime, LeBron put his improved midrange jumper to work. With the shot clock winding down after the Celtics perfectly defended a Wade-James pick-and-roll, James posted up Paul Pierce 20 feet away from the hoop, took two dribbles, and swished a turnaround jumper. The bucket gave the Heat the all-important first basket of the final period.
Overtime, 3:42 Remaining: Working Without The Ball
In the first half, James and Wade opened up driving lanes for each other by attacking aggressively, and put constant pressure on Boston's defense. In the second half, the offense stagnated, and devolved into the "taking turns" approach that has been so painful to watch for all those who know what James and Wade can do when they play off of each other. But with a 2-point lead and roughly four minutes to play, Erik Spoelstra changed all that by calling for the Heat's nuclear option in crunch time -- the Wade-James pick-and-roll.
James got an off-ball screen from Chris Bosh, set a ball-screen for Wade, and found himself with space at the free-throw line when Delonte West and Paul Pierce went to trap Wade. Wade slithered through the trap and found James, forcing Kevin Garnett to rotate over to James and leave Bosh wide open at the rim, whom James found with a pass for a dunk that put the Heat up for good.
It's been a process for Erik Spoelestra to get LeBron to realize just how unstoppable he can be if he sets screens and makes himself useful when he doesn't have the ball in his hands, but James stepped up and did what fans have been begging him to do all season at just the right time.
James' clutch performance in Game 4 wasn't James getting through some mental block, or finally paying off some kind of karmic debt -- it was the products of the hundreds, if not thousands, of hours James has put into honing his skills since arriving in the NBA, both on an individual and team level.
Overtime, 3:42 On: Getting Help From Your Friends
As spectacular as James was near the end of Game 4, he wasn't the one to put the nails in Boston's coffin. That happened when Dwyane Wade hit an impossible, flat-footed 23-foot jumper while James stood watching under the basket (Mo Williams isn't doing that any time soon, folks), and Chris Bosh tipped in a missed LeBron "hero shot" that could've potentially given Ray Allen or Paul Pierce an opportunity to hit a game-tying transition three.
There's a reason why LeBron came to Miami. As well as LeBron fit with his teammates in Cleveland (and I should mention that Anderson Varejao could absolutely have made the same tip-in that Bosh did), it's nice to have teammates who can be relied upon to finish things up after a great performance.