CLEVELAND – LeBron James’ line in the boxscore looks good: 25 points on 11-of-21 shooting, 13 rebounds, nine assists and three blocked shots.
But his statistics were empty calories, especially when you include his seven turnovers. There wasn’t enough nourishment in those numbers.
The Cavaliers needed more from James, they didn’t get it, and Golden State won Game 4 of the NBA Finals 108-97 on Friday.
James and the Cavaliers are down 3-1 to the Warriors, and Game 5 is Monday (9 p.m. ET, ABC) in Oakland where Golden State can win its second consecutive championship.
James wants to force Game 6 back in Cleveland and is downplaying the enormity of the task.
“If you want to look to that side, then you put too much pressure on yourself,” James said. “For me as the leader of this team, we've just got to get one. Let's get one. We've already got to take a flight home back anyways, so we might as well come home with a win and play on our home floor again.”
The Cavs needed a great performance from James in Game 3, and he delivered. A similar performance was required in Game 4, and it didn’t happen.
He had seven points in the first half and scored seven points in the final 72 seconds when the Cavs scrambled to eliminate an eight-point deficit.
“He’s a freight train out there,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “We have certain rules, and we're trying to follow our rules and just stay in front of him as best we can. But no matter what you do, he's going to have a huge stat line. He's going to impact the game in a thousand different ways, and you just try to make his field-goal attempts as difficult as possible. But it's a lot easier said than done."
It might not be easy, but Golden State is getting it done.
Inside the restricted area at the rim, James made 9-of-13 shots. Outside of it, he was just 2-of-8. When he’s not making threes and mid-range shots, it makes it easier on Golden State’s defense.
“You've got a guy like that, physically gifted, high IQ, one of the best passers I've ever seen, he gets it going, there's nothing you can do,” Warriors forward Andre Iguodala said. “It doesn't take one guy to come in and cut off the water or shut him down. It takes five guys.
“The best mentality to have is at any moment the guy can just turn into an uncontainable player, and you've got to have the appropriate fear. Even if you do see a little doubt, you still take the approach that he can hurt you at any given moment, and he's done that.”
There is a difference between the 2016 Finals and 2015 Finals. The Warriors have made sure this season James isn’t single-handedly winning games or keeping Cleveland in games.
The Cavs are at their best not only when James and Kyrie Irving are scoring but other players, too. In the second half – when the game got away from Cleveland – it was all James and Irving. They scored 36 of the Cavs’ 42 points and took 33 of their 38 shots in the second half.
James will likely put up nice numbers in Game 5, but his impact must be bigger than what it was in Game 4 if the Cavs want to play another game in Cleveland this season.
