LeBron James is still unstoppable when he wants to be

It used to be that when LeBron James had his headband knocked off by a distressing opponent, he would become enraged and transform into a basketball deity that opponents ultimately had to play around rather than against.

You could see the rage build up in his eyes while he’d shoot the ensuing free throws. The smile gone, the teeth clenched, the eyebrows scrunched up. Silent and focused. It was The King’s way of saying play time was over and it was now time to show mere mortals their inadequacies in the most painful ways possible.

But though the headband has been off during these playoffs, we haven’t seen any of LeBron’s patented cataclysmic games. By his lofty standards, he’s struggled. The Chicago Bulls, and Jimmy Butler in particular, have made him less efficient and more grounded. Their efforts, combined with the handiwork of father time, brought us to a point where LeBron, even when he succeeds, looks painfully mortal.

That is, until Tuesday night.

In a must-win Game 5, King James stepped off his comfortable throne and back into the ranks of the warriors. It was a carryover from the end of Game 4, when he answered Derrick Rose’s Game 3 buzzer beater with one of his own after discarding the initial play call of coach David Blatt.

There was no need for such dramatics this time because he went to work on the Bulls early. Cleveland’s first two points of the contest came off an isolation against Butler. LeBron’s efficiency on ISO situations had been horrid in the first four games, and he’s been rightfully criticized by the media for that. He was over thinking situations, which made him vulnerable.

For those first points, he went back to doing what he does best. He posted up Butler, backed into him once to create space and then drove right past him for an easy lefty layup that seemed so effortless. It’s no secret that LeBron has an asinine combination of size, speed and basketball intelligence, but it feels like it’s been a while since we’ve seen those attributes in harmony like this.

The next play? The same isolation. This time, James drove his shoulder into Butler three times before Butler had to foul him. Butler knew the inevitable was coming. The unstoppable force was exerting every watt of power into his body and the least Butler could do was try to slow it down. Butler is a great defender in his own right, but this exercise was futile.

James’ next two points came when he read Rose’s eyes to intercept a pass intended for Mike Dunleavy, sprinted all on his lonesome on the break and hammered it down with his signature tomahawk dunk. Then, Tony Snell was tasked with guarding James. No dice, just a routine catch and turnaround jumper from the elbow. Then, James did it again, as if to drive home the hard truth that all of it was ordinary to him.

The avalanche was tumbling. Butler came back in, but James responded with another turnaround jumper. It didn’t matter which defender was asking the questions, because the answer was the same. Bang. Another jumper. Then, a slip past a defender, a bit of daylight and a reverse layup around Joakim Noah in a fashion that the hobbled Kyrie Irving would love. Another fast break, and now it’s freight train time. Nikola Mirotic could only foul and even that couldn’t stop LeBron. Purposely fouling James hard at the rim only seemed to invigorate him.

In the end, James abused the Bulls to the tune of 38 points, 12 rebounds, six assists, three steals and three blocks. Those points came on the back of a staggering 14-24 shooting performance considering it was against the Bulls’ ferocious defense. Every statistic was a game-high except for the assists, where he lost out to Rose by one. The most striking and comforting stat, though -- and the one that LeBron himself noted first -- was the zero turnovers in almost 41 minutes. It’s a far cry from the 15 combined in the previous two games.

Everything James did seemed quicker, more powerful. He slowed down a bit as the game wore on because he’s old for an NBA player now and those minutes catch up to even the best of human beings. But for most of the game, he attacked instantly. It caught the isolated defenders off guard, as they barely had time to set their feet. It made it almost impossible for help to slide over.

These type of games are unfortunately going to be fewer and far between as the endless trudge of time continues. You can already see the effects on James’ body -- he’s been clearly gassed on multiple occasions after doing what would have been routine for him in his younger days. He went out early in this game as well, but his teammates surprisingly managed to build a lead in the first half.

James will need their help going forward, because no one man is a team. But when The King has these dominating games -- where the defenders can only throw up their hands in frustration as they foul him, where he’s so efficient that it feels as if every shot is a foregone conclusion, where he’s so focused and cerebral with his actions -- you start to reconsider that notion.

Maybe LeBron can still do it all.