LeBron Brilliance Spoiled In Game One

In big games, a team's best player will step their game to an even higher level. It happens in any sport. That's what happened in game one of the NBA Finals, as  LeBron was, once again, brilliant in the opener of the series. He dropped 51 points to lead all scorers on both sides. Nobody else, on either team, scored more then 30 points. Kevin Love was the only other Cavs player to break 20 points, as he finished with 21. You'd like to think that a performance like the one LeBron put on in this one would be the headline story. Nope. It all went for nothing thanks to one boneheaded play from J.R. Smith. Golden State walked away with a 124-114 victory to open up the NBA finals, and the mistake by Smith cost Cleveland the game.

With the score tied at 107-107 after George Hill made the first of two free throws, Smith grabbed the rebound off a would-be go-ahead shot in the paint when Hill missed the second one. With 4.5 seconds on the clock, Smith immediately put the ball on the floor and dribbled out beyond the 3-point line. This caused LeBron James to change positions from expecting to receive a pass from Smith out beyond the arc, to demonstratively pointing his arm toward the basket and gesturing to Smith to make an offensive move back toward the hoop. After gesturing to Smith, James made the timeout motion toward the scorer's table. Cleveland did have one timeout remaining at the time. With no timeout awarded to Cleveland, Smith made one more dribble toward half court before stopping to pivot and fire a two-handed chest pass to George Hill, who was standing in the corner. Hill caught the pass with 0.5 seconds remaining, and his desperation heave, which was blocked by Draymond Green, would not have counted anyway as it left his hands after the buzzer.

Here's what the play looked like:


In the post game interviews, Smith said he thought the Cleveland Cavaliers were going to call timeout after he corralled an offensive rebound. LeBron even tried to call the timeout when he realized what was going on. That's the reason Smith gave for not taking a potential game winning heave at the end of regulation. He even said he thought that the Cavs were up a point when he corralled the rebound.

Lets not take anything away from what the Warriors managed to do as this game went on. They not only smoked Cleveland in overtime, outscoring the Cavs 17-7 in the extra session, but they also got a balanced attack throughout the entire game. Kevin Durant had 26 points, Draymond Green had 13 points, Stephen Curry finished with 29 points and Klay Thompson finished with 24. it was a balanced attack from the Warriors that helped propel them to the win in the opener, which is something that Cleveland is going to have to try and contend with as this series moves along.

What everybody is going to be talking about is how LeBron dropped 51 freaking points in this game and it was totally wasted because J.R Smith pulled a J.R Smith. It was boneheaded mistakes like this that drew the ire of most Knicks fans when he played here in New York. He's got plenty of talent, but doesn't at times have the mental attitude to match the skills, which drives a lot of basketball people nuts, because Smith is a good player when he's in the right frame of mind. He wasn't in the right frame of mind last night in game one and it showed with that mental mistake.

If Cleveland wants to have ANY hope at all of even making this a close series, meaning one that doesn't result in a sweep, they need to get their game together. Cleveland can't make any mistakes of this magnitude and need to get more offensive help for LeBron if they want to even sniff a possible win in this series.