LeBron James and Company Get Embarrassed

Photo via NBA.com

It wasn’t pretty last night in Cleveland.  We all knew the setup going into last night’s Game 5.  The heavily favored Cavaliers were involved in a 2-2 series against the older Boston Celtics.  Game 5 was the night we all expected the Cavs to come through with a big time effort and wrestle away control of the series.  Being at home, where they were so great all year, the Cavs surely wouldn’t drop a second home game this series to a team that most would consider that they are better than.

The night was a disaster though for Cleveland.  Not only did they lose Game 5 and fall into a 3-2 series hole, but they were embarrassed, as they were thumped by the Celtics 120-88.  LeBron James will take most of the hits for this kind of lousy performance, as that is the kind of responsibility that comes with being the star player.  James had a terrible night as he shot just 3-for-14 while totaling just 15 points.  He wasn’t all that aggressive either and it was probably one of the worst games I remember seeing King James have.  All the LeBron haters/Kobe lovers will be out in full force for the next 24 hours.  That’s for sure.

What Charles Barkley said on Inside the NBA last night echoed what a lot of us felt after watching Game 5.  Like Chuck, most of us were left extremely disappointed.  Here is what Charles had to say:

As a fan, and I’ve said all year that I think LeBron James is the best basketball player in the world, but I am 100% disappointed.  Not the fact that he did not have a good game, but his mentality.  Like, I go back.  I played against a Michael Jordan, a Karl Malone, a Patrick Ewing.  Listen, their gun was going to be empty by the end of the game.  And I did not see that tonight.  Clearly it happened in Game 2 but tonight, in the biggest game of the season, I did not see the aggressiveness that I needed from an MVP at all.

LeBron does need to take a hit for last night’s effort.  He is the start and he was inexcusably terrible.  His teammates were equally bad, however, as this was an example of complete ineptitude by a team.  It would be nice to see Mo Williams step up and hit some shots, or at least not get destroyed by Rajon Rondo.  It would also be great if Antawn Jamison could figure out a way to avoid having Kevin Garnett look like the KG of 2004.  But in Game 6, a huge challenge, it will all be up to the King.  On the road, they will need a big time performance from the MVP.  It has to be tough to bounce back from this big of a drubbing in a big game of the series, but if anyone can do it, I would think it would be LeBron James.

I also urge you to check out the post that Kevin Arnovitz did over at TrueHoop, which includes a very nice video breakdown of LeBron’s struggles in Game 5.

Finally Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports brings up an excellent point after a troublesome postgame quote from James: no more excuses from LeBron.  It’s time to get it done.

No more excuses. Not now, not after this biblical bottoming out that pushes the Cleveland Cavaliers to the brink of an unthinkable collapse. And yet, after Tuesday’s ferocious failure of his professional career, the encompassing embarrassment of a 120-88 Game 5 loss to the Boston Celtics, James dismissed his unthinkably poor performance with this colossal cop-out: “I spoil a lot of people with my play. When you have three bad games in seven years, it’s easy to point them out.”

Who is he to be indignant after he gave a playoff game away? What’s he ever won to be so smug to the masses? That’s what drives the Celtics crazy about James. Eventually, he will understand his greatness isn’t measured on the hit-and-runs through NBA cities across a long season. It’s measured now, in the teeth of the battle, when a tiny guard, Rajon Rondo(notes), has stolen his stage and nearly a series.