CLEVELAND -- King James found the Spurs' defense to be a
royal pain.
LeBron James stumbled, not soared, through his first NBA finals,
which ended in a sweep with Cleveland's 83-82 loss to San Antonio
on Thursday night.
For perhaps the first time in his basketball career, James
didn't live up to his considerable hype. He came into the finals
being compared to Michael Jordan, but didn't even play like the
LeBron James of a week earlier.
Only 22, James will likely win a ring someday. But he knows it
won't happen if he plays the way he did in the last four games.
"Me, an as individual, I have to be much better on and off the
court," James said, "and that will carry our team to higher
levels. I think it starts with me first and then it will trickle
down to everybody else."
James had 24 points and 10 assists, but shot just 10-of-30 from
the field and had some costly miscues in the fourth quarter. He had
six turnovers, finishing the series with 23.
Perhaps James was tired Thursday after getting less sleep than
usual. He was at the hospital when his girlfriend, Savannah
Brinson, gave birth to the couple's second son, Bryce Maximus
James, early Thursday morning.
So June 14 will always be a memorable day for James. The rest of
these finals were one to forget.
James shot 36 percent in the series, often struggling to find
open shots against the tough defense of Bruce Bowen.
"I think their defensive intensity and some of the things that
they did definitely kept me off guard," James said. "The
turnovers were definitely uncharacteristic of what happened. It was
a lot of unforced things, me losing the ball or me making bad
passes. All things I can control and I wasn't able to do that."
Still, James seemed on the verge of taking over Game 4, making
consecutive baskets to give the Cavs a 61-60 lead midway through
the final quarter -- their first lead in any second half in the
series. But then quickly, potential victory slipped right through
his hands.
He turned it over with Cleveland down six with under 2½ minutes
remaining, and allowed a rebound to glance off his hands out of
bounds after his 3-pointer had cut it to five with under 2 minutes
to go.
He was even unlucky -- a San Antonio pass with 2 seconds
remaining on the shot clock hit off his foot, giving the Spurs an
additional 12 seconds. The Spurs ended up getting Fabricio Oberto's
three-point play, pushing their lead to six.
James tried to lead a late rally, hitting a 3-pointer that made
it a two-point game in the final seconds. But the Cavs took too
long to foul, and he never had another chance to win or tie it.
"It definitely could have been better," James said of his play
in the finals. "It could have been better in order for us to win.
If I don't play well, our team is not going to have a good chance
to win. I've got a lot of things to work on to get better for next
year."
James looked ready to do something special in the finals after
his dominant showing in the last four games of the Eastern
Conference finals. His 48-point performance in Game 5, when he
scored 29 of Cleveland's final 30 points in a double-overtime
victory over Detroit, was one of the most spectacular individual
performances in NBA history.
But he never had chance to make that kind of mark on the finals.
His poor first-half performances in Games 1 and 2 contributed to
Cleveland's sluggish starts, and the Cavs were never really in
either game in the second half.
Game 3 was close, but James was unable to take over and turn
around the series the way his buddy, Dwyane Wade, did last year for
Miami. He had consecutive shots rattle out with the Cavs trailing
by four, and later didn't get a whistle when he appeared to draw
contact while trying to get off a potential game-tying 3-pointer.
"He had some great looks and they just didn't go in," Cavs
coach Mike Brown said. "And not just his jump shots, but we're
talking about he had a few layups, I think, almost every game that
normally go in but for some reason they didn't."
With their superstar struggling, the Cavaliers never got going.
They had the worst offensive showing ever in the finals, scoring
just 322 points. That wasn't even close to the previous record,
Baltimore's 376 points in the 1971 finals against Milwaukee.
But James, in the playoffs for only the second time and just
completing his fourth season, at least got something out of the
finals, even if it wasn't jewelry.
"He will get better and he will one day get his ring," forward
Drew Gooden said.