King vs. Kings

It's no secret that LeBron is known as the King, and it's no secret that he is routinely found torching the Sacramento Kings. But Friday, the 13th of March, 2009, was something different.

You may have seen the boxscore (if not, click here), and it's a ho-hum 51 points, 9 assists, 4 rebounds, 2 steals, 3 blocked shots.

But the box score doesn't show timeliness, nor does it show momentum.

With the Cavaliers trailing by 14 going into the fourth quarter, LeBron had one of his signature I'm-going-to-throw-this-down-so-hard-that-the-opposing-crowd-will-give-me-a-standing-ovation-while-they-cover-their-mouts-in-awe dunks. That was all it took. The Cavs got a little momentum from the thunderous right arm of Bron, and slowly dragged themselves back into it.

One play can change the outcome of the game, and that dunk was the biggest shift toward the Cavaliers that could have happened. No - he didn't get fouled for a 3-point play, or hit a deep 3...it was just two points. But after those two points cut the lead to about 10, Sacramento suddenly looked confused and shaken.

Fast forward to the final few minutes and the Kings are scrambling all over the floor, hemming LeBron in with at least 5 defenders under the basket, when he finds wide open Sasha Pavlovic for the long-ball. He was 0-4 from deep before that hit. A minute later? Another bomb, same spot from Sasha, same assist-man in LeBron.

If there were a "clutch assist" category on that box score, LeBron would have had at least 2 on the game, whereas no one on the Kings would have had any.

Of course, the box score also leaves out "ridiculously convenient steals." As in; Cavs down 1 with 27 seconds left, Bobby Jackson throws a lazy pass toward Kevin Martin, LeBron steals, gets fouled under the basket and goes to the line for two.

Yeah, he split the pair, but I'm willing to look past that on a night he went 15-17 from the stripe.

He's pretty good at basketball.

And, oh yeah, he carried the team through overtime too. Big shoulders come in handy when the only other player on the team with more than 12 points was Anderson Varejao. Gotta love Andy's back-taps at the end of the game. That's another stat that doesn't exist, but it damn well should.

My point is that the Cavaliers won this game for three reasons. First was the not-giving-up. Credit there is largely due to the coaching staff; Brown getting kicked out provided a nice spark. Second was luck - because the Kings were shooting the ball insanely well for most of the game and simply lost their luck in the fourth quarter (good defense, sure, but how good could the D have played while giving up 98 points to Sacto in 3 quarters?). And lastly, was LeBron James.

Not sure how he does it, but he does it.

LBJ4MVP