A Slice of Bacon

The Miami Heat are two wins away from the NBA Championship in their first season as a powerhouse, something that never looked like it would happen over the course of the regular season. They have won games by eight points and two points against the hottest offense in the game after beating both the Boston Celtics and Chicago Bulls in five games. 

But an outsider without the stats in from of him probably wouldn’t know that. Nope. That’s because with the Heat, and especially LeBron James, the story is somehow, INSANELY, about him. 

On Sunday night, after Chris Bosh hit a tough jumper to put the Heat up two points, and Dirk Nowitzki missed a jumper to send the game into overtime, a reporter had the chutzpah to ask King James about his un-clutchness. James answered perfectly, telling the reporter that after watching the film and seeing how he played defense at the end of the game, he might come back with a smarter question, but it didn’t stop there. Sportscenter ran a graphic on Monday morning about the difference between Dwyane Wade and LeBron in the fourth quarter of the first three games, suggesting that James hasn’t played nearly as well as Wade at those times. 

And offensively, they’re exactly right. And defensively, it might be a wash, but at this point in the season, with four more games left in all of basketball, why does it matter? You know how people say winning is all that matters? Even those that are just reciting something they were told by their publicists believe that now. They want a championship ring. They want to do whatever it takes to win. They want to give it their all, and play as hard as they can to get there.

Now, some facts about LeBron that are being quickly overlooked.

— If not for the way LeBron played in the fourth quarter of all the other series leading up to the championship, the Heat might not have made it, or would have taken a lot longer to get there. LeBron was due for some bad shooting games the way he has played earlier in the postseason.

— Also, and I talked about this with a friend before the series started, one of those two is going to get a good matchups. Dallas just doesn’t have the personel to guard both Wade and James. Maybe if Caron Butler was healthy, that would be different, but right now, either Wade is getting a slower Jason Kidd on him or a smaller Jason Terry on him, and both benefit him. So, when you have one of the top-five best players in the league getting a good matchup, you feed him the ball. Simple as that. 

— Do you remember the first round of the playoffs, when Chris Paul scorched the Lakers and stole game one? And in game two, Kobe Bryant took to defending him? That’s because Bryant realizes that the playoffs are about winning and winning only. Kobe had just 11 points in that game, but the Lakers won, and people praised him for his defense. Shouldn’t that be the same for LeBron? 

If you know anything about me, you know I’m not a big LeBron fan. I never liked his decision to move to Miami or the way he went about it. I don’t like the way he copies some of Wade’s outfits, making him look even less like his own person. But that’s all water under the bridge. LeBron moved to South Beach to win, and that’s what they’re doing right now. 

Why is it so hard for everyone to grasp that?