Everything
He’s done it again. With the series tied at 3-3, and the win-or-go-home game 7 being held at the hostile Boston Garden, LeBron pulled off the seemingly impossible – again – stealing the series, and the Eastern Conference Title, after coming back from trailing 0-2.
With his team, the whole city of Cleveland and Marcus Morris on his shoulders, LeBron played every minute of the grinding 87-79 win, finishing with a dominant stat line of 35 points, 15 rebounds and 9 assists – adding yet another signature playoff performance to his resume.
The Celtics, in the absence of injured stars Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward, had placed an unprecedented reliance on 21 year old Jaylen Brown and rookie Jayson Tatum to lead them through the playoffs – a strategy that had (amazingly) worked until this point. But in the final minutes of today’s game, when the stakes were at their highest, the moment seemed all too big for the young, undermanned Celtics team, as they struggled to find a basket to close out the game. Although a Game 7 loss on their home court hurts, the Celtics can hold their heads high and look forward to what next season may bring with their returning stars, young core and mastermind coach in Brad Stevens.
As for the Cavs, a fourth successive trip to finals is on the cards, and even though they will most likely enter Finals as underdogs, against either the Golden State Warriors or Houston Rockets, we learnt today what we should have already known by now. Never write off LeBron.
