There are times when LeBron James likes to ease into games. He'll spend the first few quarters sizing up the opponent's defensive gameplan and getting his teammates involved into the action. This was not one of those times.
There’s no shame in losing to LeBron James
The best player of his generation added another tour-de-force performance to his resume, and the Cavaliers are now two games from the NBA Finals.
LeBron began Game 2 of the conference finals in attack mode and never eased up. This wasn't quite 2012 when he walked into Boston in Game 6 facing elimination. James not only silenced a building, he effectively ended the Big Four Celtics' era. This wasn't quite so dramatic, but it was almost as good.
James went to work early, getting up five shots in the opening minutes. He went right at DeMarre Carroll, who gamely played 34 minutes despite leaving Game 1 on crutches after a nasty knee injury. Carroll is a pro's pro who's due for the first major contract of his life in free agency this summer. He put all that on the line and gave it what he had, but he was no match for James on this night.
LeBron's aggressiveness set the tone and sent a message that the Cavs were not going to be satisfied with merely gaining a split and homecourt advantage. Even with Kyrie Irving injured and unavailable, James saw no reason to waste time. He scored 13 points in the first quarter, on his way to a 30-9-11 performance that only got better as the night went along.
In the second quarter he dished out four assists with all of them resulting in 3-pointers. There would be no J.R. Smith explosion to satisfy the secondary scoring needs for Cleveland. Instead it was by committee as he, Iman Shumpert and James Jones bombed away from behind the arc. Almost all of their looks came either directly from LeBron passes or because of the attention he received.
The third quarter was a clinic, with James alternating between scoring when he wanted or kicking passes out of the paint for more open looks. His first seven assists resulted in 3-pointers for his teammates. By the fourth quarter it was garbage time.
This was tour-de-force from LeBron. Say what you want about the Hawks and how they don't resemble the team that took the league by storm earlier in the season. They don't, but rarely have they looked this disorganized and disoriented. Most people thought this would be a long series and many thought the Hawks had matchup advantages beyond the obvious LeBron factor. He nullified all that in Game 2 with rather shocking ease.
Once again, he had all the help he needed. Tristan Thompson was all over the boards, racking up 16 rebounds including five on the offensive end. He also took Paul Millsap completely out of the game. Shumpert, Smith and Jones combined for eight 3-pointers, matching J.R.'s total from the opener and totaling 34 points between them.
The Cavs also completely short-circuited Atlanta's pace-and-space attack, dropping defenders into the paint to cut off Jeff Teague's drives and turning him into a jump shooter. Kyle Korver finally got loose early in the game, but it didn't last long. Al Horford didn't even attempt a shot until the second quarter.
Cleveland's defense began to improve the moment Timofey Mozgov and Shumpert joined the team, but in the playoffs it's been even better. They came into the game allowing just over 98 points per 100 possessions, tied with Chicago for the toughest in the postseason. Through two games of this series, they've forced the Hawks to miss 39 of their 49 triples.
Along the way, the Cavs have won 10 of their 12 games, tying them with Golden State for the best playoff record. Most impressively, they’ve gone 6-1 on the road including wins in two elimination games and the first two games of these conference finals. Despite the loss of two key players, the Cavs keep rolling right along. Through all their massive upheaval and personnel shuffling, what’s left of the Cavs’ rotation has become a grimy, workmanlike outfit that rarely hurts itself offensively and takes care of business on the other end.
Atlanta coach Mike Budenholzer tried to keep this team in the game by shortening his rotations and playing his starters together as a unit as much as possible, but they were overrun in the second half as injuries continued to mount. Korver left the game in the third quarter with a right ankle injury and didn't return. Carroll was obviously limited and Horford was gimpy, as well. All the caveats apply, but it's hard to envision them winning four games in this series after dropping the first two at home in this fashion.
If this was it for the Hawks, they gave it a hell of a run. No one had them winning 60 games or reaching the conference finals for the first time in their Atlanta history. All year long they heard that their style wouldn’t work in the postseason, but it did. Arduously at times, but it did work. Right up until the time they met someone like LeBron.
Atlanta's not the first team he's done this to and it won't be the last. He began his postseason career by ending the Pistons' run and after a pair of crushing defeats at the hands of the Celtics, he got them back as well. He's owned the Bulls and the Pacers. One by one they've lined up to the face him in the conference finals and he's taken them all out. There is no shame in losing to LeBron on this stage, merely more confirmation of his place as the best player of his generation.
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