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| LeBron James. Photo credit: NBA |
Day 5 of my blog covering the 2014 NBA Finals. As the cool air returns to the building, the "coolest" player returns to the building also.
by +Rodney FisherThe Game
Everyone that has listened to any of my podcasts or read some of my previous work knows my thoughts on who is the best player in the NBA. I am, to a fault at times, a huge Kobe Bryant fan. At times I have ranked MJ #1 and Kobe #1.5...
However, after covering the NBA Finals the last four years I have been forced to deal with the truth about LeBron James. Physically, he is built like no other player that has every played the game, but mentally I have watched him grow into one of the greats. Tonight was more proof that in a game between 5 players taking on 5 players the best player can win the game.
How does one prepare to come back from public ridicule from their own peers in athletics? As players from the NBA to other sports chimed in with their own "lebroning" comments LeBron spent the morning in a yoga class hosted at the team hotel. He grimaced from time to time from the soreness of this legs during the game, but in the third quarter when he went on a 8-points in 52 seconds run. Watching it reminded me of watching Kobe or MJ take over a game. It's that one thing that elite athletes have that other athletes can't seem to reproduce...Focus
James is a totally different player from his Cleveland days or even his early Heat days. I can remember watching him shrink in critical moments on the Dallas Mavericks series, pass it away in the OKC Thunder series, and even shoot poorly in the first 5 games last Finals series. Once he came back in Game 6 from the edge of losing a championship, his demeanor in big games has changed. Now when you poke the big bear in the woods, your get 35 points and 10 rebounds in 37-minutes.
To win a best-of-seven series you have to make adjustments. We have not seen any in the first two games. The Heat only had LeBron available without leg cramps, and the Spurs could not adjust to Kawhi Leonard being in foul trouble guarding him. To me that will be the biggest adjustment Pop will look to make for Game 3. It was interesting to see James cover Tony Parker in the fourth quarter, a dangerous strategy for Spoelstra to roll with and one that the Spurs will expose if they try it again.
