Saturday, May 28, 2011
Associated Press
MIAMI
Whenever he wants to feel humbled, LeBron James pops in the tapes of the 2007 NBA finals.
No matter what, the outcome never changes. He got swept. San Antonio outclassed Cleveland four years ago in the title series, and that still serves as a colossal source of motivation for James — who makes no secret that he’s fueled by slights and disappointments.
Since then, he’s won two MVP awards and earned somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 million. Still, nothing fills the void created by those four losses.
Here comes his chance to change that.
James is heading to the finals for the second time, after he, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh carried the Miami Heat to a series-clinching comeback victory in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference title series in Chicago. The season’s final challenge is the Dallas Mavericks, who visit Miami in Game 1 of the finals Tuesday night.
“I think about it all the time,” James said of that 2007 series. “I even go back and watch some of those games and see how I wasn’t that good of a player. You just try to use those moments. I feel like there’s no way I should be out on the floor and the team that I’m on can’t win a game in a series.”
What’s transpired in the last 12 months — being called a quitter by his former fans in Cleveland, getting knocked for a supposed inability to finish, the continual hits the Heat have taken for the moves they made last summer — have only topped off that tank of motivational fuel for James, and he’s done his part to silence some of those criticisms with an array of sensational finishes in these playoffs.
Among the highlights: The 10 straight points to wrap up Game 5 over Boston in the second round. The nine points in an 11-2 run that decided Game 2 of the East finals against Chicago. The combined 71 feet of three made jump shots in a 97-second span late in Game 5 against the Bulls, including the shot with 30 seconds left that put Miami ahead for good after it had trailed by 12 late in the fourth quarter.
Afterward, he called Thursday’s finish the best few minutes of his life.
“We know what kind of player he is,” Bosh said. “We know how bad he wants to be in this situation. He’s back in the finals. He’s been here before. He has that pain. He carries that pain with him everywhere he goes. It’s going to help him. It’s going to help us as a team.”
He was so good in the East finals that his rank among the game’s greats became a source of debate Friday sparked, somewhat ironically, by a six-time NBA champion and Chicago icon. In an interview with ESPN Radio, Scottie Pippen said his longtime Bulls teammate Michael Jordan may be the game’s best all-time scorer, but James — in his estimation — could be the game’s greatest player.