LeBron James: Two playoff anniversaries bookmarks era as No. 1 player
By Ronald Agers
LeBron James overcomes the Pistons, questions if he can lead a championship team
Before the Golden State Warriors was the famous nemesis of LeBron James, the Detroit Pistons were the gatekeepers to James thinking about championship rings. Back in 2006, LeBron had his first taste of playoff action in his career. He led the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Eastern Conference semifinals before falling to Detroit in seven games.
After losing the first two games of that series, the Cavaliers had the Pistons on the ropes winning three straight. After fans started thinking about an upset, the Pistons won the last two games and won the series.
In 2007, the Cavs and the Pistons had a playoff rematch. The two teams had the best records in the Eastern Conference and met in the Eastern Conference Finals for higher stakes. At least for the first two games, the Pistons played like it.
Detroit won the first two games of the series while LeBron was struggling mightily. Let’s keep it real, he was terrible.
In Game 1, he only scored 10 points and in Game 2, late-game mistakes cost his team a chance at winning. By this time, the voices of a LeBron James choke job was getting louder and louder. After the Cavaliers righted the ship and evened the series, Game 5 happened.
Not the entire game but the last six minutes of the 4th quarter and two overtimes happened.
On this day in 2007, LeBron took matters into his own hands in Game 5 of ECF
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) May 31, 2019
■ Scored the last 25 points for Cleveland
■ 48 points and the go-ahead basket in double OT
■ Would lead Cavs to first Finals appearance at 22 years oldpic.twitter.com/7W07yXsyAA
With six minutes left in the final frame with the Cavaliers up 79-78, LeBron James had only 19 points, which was below his season average. From that moment on, he proceeded to destroy every Piston defender that was put in front of him.
Richard Hamilton was discarded, Jason Maxiell got the business, Tayshaun Prince was ducking, looking for help and Ben Wallace was served up a facial. On this night, one of the top defenses in the NBA could do nothing to stop this dude.
Don’t believe me? Let’s get the up close and personal take from Chauncey Billups, who got some of the juice, too.
https://twitter.com/uninterrupted/status/1134527345446932487
The man scored 29 of the last 30 points of the game for the Cleveland Cavaliers, on the road in a playoff game. It’s a very rare occurrence that I see something that left me speechless but this night was one of them.
The only other player that scored was Drew Gooden with a free throw. He finished with 25 straight on an absurd 11-of-13 shooting. Oh by the way, he hit the game winner in double overtime, too, in a 109-107 marathon.
The one thing that I remembered that night was the Inside the NBA crew spent almost an hour barking at each other over what the Detroit Pistons should have done to stop LeBron that night. Reggie Miller, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley were screaming so loud, I know Ernie Johnson was shocked.
Not as much as the fans in the Palace that night.
LeBron James ended the night with 48 points, nine rebounds, seven assists, and two steals.
The Cleveland Cavaliers rode that momentum and won the next game to punch their ticket to the NBA Finals. The San Antonio Spurs were waiting and dismissed LeBron’s squad with a clean sweep.
After the series, Tim Duncan met with LeBron and told him that the league would be his in a little while. It was already his, the performance in Detroit cemented that fact.