LeBron and the Warriors didn’t so much win as the Celtics and Rockets lost.
Yes, LeBron James is the best player on Earth and the Warriors are the greatest team ever assembled. But they are meeting in the NBA Finals for a fourth straight year because their opponents in game seven of the conference championships had, by far, their worst shooting nights of the 2018 playoffs. Neither upstart could handle the big moment.
James is unstoppable, a 6’8” 270 lbs point guard and power forward rolled into one. But the young Celtics had beaten him three times while he was averaging more than 30 points and had the seventh game on their home court.
The defending champion and talent-loaded Warriors were also down three games to two in the NBA West and had to go to Houston for the decider, and they won with a typical third quarter scoring surge that erased a double-digit deficit.
Yet, neither victory would have happened if the opponent hadn’t turned in its worst shooting performance of the playoffs, one of the worst of the season and, in Houston’s case, a franchise record for futility from the 3-point line.
It might seem trite to say so, but you have to outscore great teams to beat them. Neither the Celtics nor Rockets could do that and failed to give America the championship series it really wanted – instead of another LeBron versus Curry.
After a season of playing without its highly touted free agent Gordon Hayward and the last six weeks without Kyrie Irving, the best point guard in the NBA, the Cinderella Celtics still were still on the brink of the finals by playing great defense and hitting lots of 3-pointers.
The defense wasn’t there against the irrepressible King, who had 35 points, 15 rebounds and 8 assists Sunday night. But the Celtics, who led by 12 in the first half and were still ahead midway through the fourth quarter, went stone cold from outside and finished missing 32 of 39 3-pointers for 18 percent.
Terry Rozier, replacing Irving, second-year star Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart combined to go three for 26 from “3”. So while the credit goes to James for another transcendent game, the victory was there to take for Boston, which did not take it.
Meanwhile, Monday night, the Rockets set a franchise low by missing 27 consecutive 3-pointers and made only 7 of 44 for the game. You can’t beat the Dubs shooting like that, and they didn’t.
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