LeBron James: Could he survive Dennis Rodman and the Bad Boys?

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(Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images) /

LeBron James can, and has, put the team on his back

On May 31st, 2007, LeBron James started his reign as the best player in the NBA and held the undisputed title for 12 years. His legacy started when 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. After the Pistons ran over the Cavaliers the previous year, it looked like after the first two games, the Pistons were going to run Cleveland out the series.

Detroit won the first two games of the series while LeBron was struggling mightily. Let’s keep it real, he was garbage.

In Game 1, he only scored 10 points and in Game 2, late-game mistakes cost his team a chance at winning. If you thought the chatter of LeBron James’ choke jobs are bad now, think of how bad it was then?

After the Cavaliers evened the series, Game 5 happened. Not the entire game but the last six minutes of the 4th quarter and two overtimes.

On this day in 2007, LeBron took matters into his own hands in Game 5 of ECF

■ 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
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) May 31, 2019

With the Cavaliers up 79-78, LeBron James was having a subpar game scoring an inefficient 19 points, which was below his season average. From that moment on, he was basically as perfect as a player can be on a basketball court. He destroyed every Piston defender that was put in front of him. Let someone who saw everything up close and personal speak on it i Chauncey Billups.

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. 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.

Now against strong defenses, yes, LeBron James can hold up. This is better than the 51 point NBA Finals performance. The Warriors weren’t as good a defensive team as they just outscored everybody.

But this is the Bad Boy Pistons, who came up with a defense that turned into a New York Best Selling book.