Lebron stat padding 2014 finals

[Djoker]

A 15 point lead is hardly insurmountable. Scoring points when your team is down 15-20 points with more than 6-7 minutes left in the game isn't garbage time. Lebron didn't have his best series but Miami as a whole just got annihilated by the Spurs. Lebron is the one who did his share (although he didn't go beyond...) and Wade simply disappeared.

Wade averages: 15.8 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 2.6 apg on 43.8 %FG/50.4 %TS with 3.6 topg


Still it's safe to say Miami lost that series on the defensive end. Spurs shot 52.8% from the field, 46.6% from 3pt land, and had fewer turnovers and more free throw attempts. Not team is gonna win a series allowing that kind of efficiency to their opponents.

[LoyalKing]

It's going to be hard to criticize Lebron on realgm after 2016. He pretty much became an untouchable god and a top 3 player of all-time.

But Lebron did absolutely the same thing in the 2013 Finals until game 6. And that's exactly why I don't think that was his peak. He was flawless in 2012 during the entire PS run. He wasn't in 2013. Not only Kawhi locked him down during 6 games (I'll give him the 4th quarter heroics and game 7 no doubt), but he was 1 Ray Allen shot away from having another subpar Finals and another 2nd place.

Just take a deep look at game 4 of the 2013 Finals as an example :

Lebron - 33/11/4 on 25 shots
Wade - 32/6/4 on 25 shots

If you look at the stats, you may think that Lebron was the best player on the court when he actually wasn't. You watch that game again and Wade was the best player on the court and it wasn't even close. Wade was a beast defensively and pretty much took over in the 4th quarter and won that game for the Heat but he barely gets the credit for that 2013 run.

Lebron pretty much padded his stats against the 3rd string scrubs when Pop decided to take the starters out and play Joseph/De Colo/Blair/Bonner etc (5 min mark)

http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/pbp/201306130SAS.html#q1

Until the 4th quarter the game was close. (81-76). If SA wins, they would be up 3-1 in the series.

From the 12 to the 5 minute mark, Lebron goes scoreless and has no assists. Wade scores 10 points with 1 assist. Bosh scores 6 points and Allen scores 3.

Miami is up by 15 at the 5-minute mark and the game is over.

In the final 5 minutes, Lebron scores 9 points (including meaningless a 3-pointer with 20 seconds left when Miami was up by 13) and suddenly the night goes from 24 points on 20 shots to 33 points on 25 shots.

That's exactly why people should re-watch series when they're evaluating the players. Stats give you the numbers, but they don't tell you a player scored in key moments or just padded his stats against scrubs. Game 4 of the 2013 Finals is basically a classic example of that.

[Djoker]

It's going to be hard to criticize Lebron on realgm after 2016. He pretty much became an untouchable god and a top 3 player of all-time.

But Lebron did absolutely the same thing in the 2013 Finals until game 6. And that's exactly why I don't think that was his peak. He was flawless in 2012 during the entire PS run. He wasn't in 2013. Not only Kawhi locked him down during 6 games (I'll give him the 4th quarter heroics and game 7 no doubt), but he was 1 Ray Allen shot away from having another subpar Finals and another 2nd place.

Just take a deep look at game 4 of the 2013 Finals as an example :

Lebron - 33/11/4 on 25 shots
Wade - 32/6/4 on 25 shots

If you look at the stats, you may think that Lebron was the best player on the court when he actually wasn't. You watch that game again and Wade was the best player on the court and it wasn't even close. Wade was a beast defensively and pretty much took over in the 4th quarter and won that game for the Heat but he barely gets the credit for that 2013 run.

Lebron pretty much padded his stats against the 3rd string scrubs when Pop decided to take the starters out and play Joseph/De Colo/Blair/Bonner etc (5 min mark)

http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/pbp/201306130SAS.html#q1

Until the 4th quarter the game was close. (81-76). If SA wins, they would be up 3-1 in the series.

From the 12 to the 5 minute mark, Lebron goes scoreless and has no assists. Wade scores 10 points with 1 assist. Bosh scores 6 points and Allen scores 3.

Miami is up by 15 at the 5-minute mark and the game is over.

In the final 5 minutes, Lebron scores 9 points (including meaningless a 3-pointer with 20 seconds left when Miami was up by 13) and suddenly the night goes from 24 points on 20 shots to 33 points on 25 shots.

That's exactly why people should re-watch series when they're evaluating the players. Stats give you the numbers, but they don't tell you a player scored in key moments or just padded his stats against scrubs. Game 4 of the 2013 Finals is basically a classic example of that.

I agree that people should watch the games but your account of that Game 4 in 2013 doesn't really say everything either.

Lebron was actually subbed out of the game for Battier from the 9:34 mark until 6:04. And during that entire 7-minute stretch he didn't take a single shot. A great player sometimes lets other people take the spotlight. I would have to watch the game to refresh my memory. Stats are definitely not reflective of impact in this case though and he didn't have a great game. However for example in Game 2 of that series, Lebron only had 17 points but he had massive impact leading a huge run that blew the game open and that huge block on Splitter. That was a better performance than what stats suggest! I am confident in saying that for any great player these kind of occurrences are cancelled out by games where they have bad stats but huge impact.

[LoyalKing]

It's going to be hard to criticize Lebron on realgm after 2016. He pretty much became an untouchable god and a top 3 player of all-time.

But Lebron did absolutely the same thing in the 2013 Finals until game 6. And that's exactly why I don't think that was his peak. He was flawless in 2012 during the entire PS run. He wasn't in 2013. Not only Kawhi locked him down during 6 games (I'll give him the 4th quarter heroics and game 7 no doubt), but he was 1 Ray Allen shot away from having another subpar Finals and another 2nd place.

Just take a deep look at game 4 of the 2013 Finals as an example :

Lebron - 33/11/4 on 25 shots
Wade - 32/6/4 on 25 shots

If you look at the stats, you may think that Lebron was the best player on the court when he actually wasn't. You watch that game again and Wade was the best player on the court and it wasn't even close. Wade was a beast defensively and pretty much took over in the 4th quarter and won that game for the Heat but he barely gets the credit for that 2013 run.

Lebron pretty much padded his stats against the 3rd string scrubs when Pop decided to take the starters out and play Joseph/De Colo/Blair/Bonner etc (5 min mark)

http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/pbp/201306130SAS.html#q1

Until the 4th quarter the game was close. (81-76). If SA wins, they would be up 3-1 in the series.

From the 12 to the 5 minute mark, Lebron goes scoreless and has no assists. Wade scores 10 points with 1 assist. Bosh scores 6 points and Allen scores 3.

Miami is up by 15 at the 5-minute mark and the game is over.

In the final 5 minutes, Lebron scores 9 points (including meaningless a 3-pointer with 20 seconds left when Miami was up by 13) and suddenly the night goes from 24 points on 20 shots to 33 points on 25 shots.

That's exactly why people should re-watch series when they're evaluating the players. Stats give you the numbers, but they don't tell you a player scored in key moments or just padded his stats against scrubs. Game 4 of the 2013 Finals is basically a classic example of that.

I agree that people should watch the games but your account of that Game 4 in 2013 doesn't really say everything either.

Lebron was actually subbed out of the game for Battier from the 9:34 mark until 6:04. And during that entire 7-minute stretch he didn't take a single shot. A great player sometimes lets other people take the spotlight. I would have to watch the game to refresh my memory. Stats are definitely not reflective of impact in this case though and he didn't have a great game. However for example in Game 2 of that series, Lebron only had 17 points but he had massive impact leading a huge run that blew the game open and that huge block on Splitter. That was a better performance than what stats suggest! I am confident in saying that for any great player these kind of occurrences are cancelled out by games where they have bad stats but huge impact.

It actually does. it shows that Lebron padded his stats that game and it's pretty clear when you watch the game and take a look at the play by play.

I mean, you're saying that sometimes great players have to defer and I agree. You say that Lebron had games that he didn't score much, but he still had a big impact. Yes, I don't doubt it. I'll watch game 2 again once I get some free time.

But you don't defer to others in order to win games and then proceed to go ham on 3rd string scrubs for 5 minutes taking basically all the shots of the team, including a meaningless 3-point with 20 seconds left when your team is up by 13. I can't name it with anything other than stat padding.

[gaf234]

It's going to be hard to criticize Lebron on realgm after 2016. He pretty much became an untouchable god and a top 3 player of all-time.

But Lebron did absolutely the same thing in the 2013 Finals until game 6. And that's exactly why I don't think that was his peak. He was flawless in 2012 during the entire PS run. He wasn't in 2013. Not only Kawhi locked him down during 6 games (I'll give him the 4th quarter heroics and game 7 no doubt), but he was 1 Ray Allen shot away from having another subpar Finals and another 2nd place.

Just take a deep look at game 4 of the 2013 Finals as an example :

Lebron - 33/11/4 on 25 shots
Wade - 32/6/4 on 25 shots

If you look at the stats, you may think that Lebron was the best player on the court when he actually wasn't. You watch that game again and Wade was the best player on the court and it wasn't even close. Wade was a beast defensively and pretty much took over in the 4th quarter and won that game for the Heat but he barely gets the credit for that 2013 run.

Lebron pretty much padded his stats against the 3rd string scrubs when Pop decided to take the starters out and play Joseph/De Colo/Blair/Bonner etc (5 min mark)

http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/pbp/201306130SAS.html#q1

Until the 4th quarter the game was close. (81-76). If SA wins, they would be up 3-1 in the series.

From the 12 to the 5 minute mark, Lebron goes scoreless and has no assists. Wade scores 10 points with 1 assist. Bosh scores 6 points and Allen scores 3.

Miami is up by 15 at the 5-minute mark and the game is over.

In the final 5 minutes, Lebron scores 9 points (including meaningless a 3-pointer with 20 seconds left when Miami was up by 13) and suddenly the night goes from 24 points on 20 shots to 33 points on 25 shots.

That's exactly why people should re-watch series when they're evaluating the players. Stats give you the numbers, but they don't tell you a player scored in key moments or just padded his stats against scrubs. Game 4 of the 2013 Finals is basically a classic example of that.

Why be dishonest? Two of those points came when Duncan, Leonard, and Parker were all on the floor.

Finally, Spo had all his starters in until the end of the game. So what was Lebron supposed to do, draw a shot clock violation on every possession for the last four minutes?

This 6 minute stretch of great play by Wade is something people with an agenda have bizarrely clung to over the years, as it if it illuminates what they've been saying all along, that Lebron would be nowhere without being bailed out by his teammates, that Lebron's box score production overstates his impact.

[Amare_1_Knicks]

What do those stats in the original post actually mean though? Because his team was down he should've given up and stopped competing ? He should've asked Spoelstra to bench him? I'm not really understanding the line of thinking here. He still managed 28/8/4/2 on 68%TS for the series; needlessly breaking down his stats for the series doesn't change the fact that he performed.

If we're going to compare his series to Leonard's, then I suppose it's fair to say that he had the better series, all things considered -- but not by much at all. Lebron was clearly the focal point of the Spurs defense, and had phenomenal individual defense being played on him by Leoanrd; the Spurs had an excellent game plan coming into the series and were able to execute effectively. Never mind the fact that Leonard had the luxury of playing off the ball the majority of the time, and was the beneficiary of the passes guys like Parker/Diaw/Ginobili/Duncan were swinging his way.

Wade had a terrible series -- 15/2.6 assists to 3.6 turnovers, and shot 50%TS. Bosh was essentially a non factor, particularly in games 3-5. Completely unfair to key in on Lebron that way, but ignore how his teammates performed. It's also kind of irrelevant, in general. Threads like this always seem to have some sort of agenda behind it.

[LoyalKing]

It's going to be hard to criticize Lebron on realgm after 2016. He pretty much became an untouchable god and a top 3 player of all-time.

But Lebron did absolutely the same thing in the 2013 Finals until game 6. And that's exactly why I don't think that was his peak. He was flawless in 2012 during the entire PS run. He wasn't in 2013. Not only Kawhi locked him down during 6 games (I'll give him the 4th quarter heroics and game 7 no doubt), but he was 1 Ray Allen shot away from having another subpar Finals and another 2nd place.

Just take a deep look at game 4 of the 2013 Finals as an example :

Lebron - 33/11/4 on 25 shots
Wade - 32/6/4 on 25 shots

If you look at the stats, you may think that Lebron was the best player on the court when he actually wasn't. You watch that game again and Wade was the best player on the court and it wasn't even close. Wade was a beast defensively and pretty much took over in the 4th quarter and won that game for the Heat but he barely gets the credit for that 2013 run.

Lebron pretty much padded his stats against the 3rd string scrubs when Pop decided to take the starters out and play Joseph/De Colo/Blair/Bonner etc (5 min mark)

http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/pbp/201306130SAS.html#q1

Until the 4th quarter the game was close. (81-76). If SA wins, they would be up 3-1 in the series.

From the 12 to the 5 minute mark, Lebron goes scoreless and has no assists. Wade scores 10 points with 1 assist. Bosh scores 6 points and Allen scores 3.

Miami is up by 15 at the 5-minute mark and the game is over.

In the final 5 minutes, Lebron scores 9 points (including meaningless a 3-pointer with 20 seconds left when Miami was up by 13) and suddenly the night goes from 24 points on 20 shots to 33 points on 25 shots.

That's exactly why people should re-watch series when they're evaluating the players. Stats give you the numbers, but they don't tell you a player scored in key moments or just padded his stats against scrubs. Game 4 of the 2013 Finals is basically a classic example of that.

Why be dishonest? Two of those points came when Duncan, Leonard, and Parker were all on the floor.

Finally, Spo had all his starters in until the end of the game. So what was Lebron supposed to do, draw a shot clock violation on every possession for the last four minutes?

This 6 minute stretch of great play by Wade is something people with an agenda have bizarrely clung to over the years, as it if it illuminates what they've been saying all along, that Lebron would be nowhere without being bailed out by his teammates, that Lebron's box score production overstates his impact.

Oh my bad, so Lebron actually scored 2 points against non-scrubs in the 4th quarter of that game. Yeah, after Wade/Bosh/Allen scored 19 in 7 minutes, Miami was up by 13 and the game was over. And I'm the one with an agenda here.

It wasn't just a 6 minute of great play by Wade. Now I ask : Why be dishonest?

Wade was amazing the whole game, offensively and defensively. 129 ORTG and 89 DRTG. For a SG, that's amazing.

Nobody said anything about his impact or this "bailed out" crap, so don't be so defensive. The point of the thread is : stat padding . And at least in this game, it's pretty clear that he did it in the final 5 minutes of the game. Why is it so hard to admit that Lebron padded his stats ?

If someone like Kobe did the same thing, a bet a lot of fellows would go ham on him. Since it's Lebron and his unselfish reputation, he gets a pass. To me it's pathetic quite honestly.

[PCProductions]

A 15 point lead is hardly insurmountable. Scoring points when your team is down 15-20 points with more than 6-7 minutes left in the game isn't garbage time. Lebron didn't have his best series but Miami as a whole just got annihilated by the Spurs. Lebron is the one who did his share (although he didn't go beyond...) and Wade simply disappeared.

Wade averages: 15.8 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 2.6 apg on 43.8 %FG/50.4 %TS with 3.6 topg


Still it's safe to say Miami lost that series on the defensive end. Spurs shot 52.8% from the field, 46.6% from 3pt land, and had fewer turnovers and more free throw attempts. Not team is gonna win a series allowing that kind of efficiency to their opponents.

This to me is the right answer. Since when is being down by 15 to begin the second half garbage time? Seriously people will find any crevice to slip through to find arguments against Lebron's impact.

This series was simply a team just executing better as a unit on top of white-hot shooting. Lebron played well and was kind of fighting an uphill battle anyway. Battier, who was a key member of the Heat's defensive identity, had been basically retired at this point and Rashard Lewis is hardly someone who was going to fill that void. The Heat at this point needed to retool and they swung and missed on everyone in the previous offseason (Oden and Beasley). The fact that they even competed for a three peat was off the back of Lebron at this point alone and his transcendent offense as well as Bosh's improvement as a stretch 5.

The Finals exposed the issues that many had seen coming, it was just even more uncompetitive as a result of how well San Antonio hit contested shots. Lebron desperately needed rest at this stage of his career to which he proceeded to "do nothing" for a whole month/month and a half after that Finals. He didn't have his best series ever, and he was certainly part of the problem defensively if you ask me, but he was probably the Finals MVP and was on a team that was no match for the opponent despite his best efforts.

[KTM_2813]

LeBron is one of my favorite players and I think he might even be the second best player ever, but I also think it's fair to say that he's only been historically great in two of his seven Finals (2012, 2016). For fun, I'd probably rate his Finals as such:

2007 - A perfectly understandable, justifiable, but unfortunate "C"
2011 - A putrid "D"
2012 - A rock solid "A"
2013 - An inconsistent, but overall "B+"
2014 - Maybe a "B-"
2015 - Due to his inefficiency, only a "B+"
2016 - A slow-starting "A"

[mysticOscar]

It was a good series by Lebron, but if one were to call it a great one then you're putting too much emphasis on his ts%. It neglects to mention that him getting cramps in game 1 cost them a good shot at that game. He failed to get teammates involved and he had little impact on defense. Sometimes i wander how many people watched that full series and just read the box score claiming he couldn't have done better.

This^^ Regardless of how great the Spurs played, i really didnt feel he was consistantly taking it to the Spurs. He was waaaay tooo selective with his shot selection....and i really felt he gave up early in the series...along with the whole team.

Posters keep saying it wouldnt have made a difference to the result....well maybe....but it would have given them some fighting chance. If he rose to the occasion it would have provided the rest of the team some imputus for inspiration.

Lebron had a good series...but those stats of his does not show the full story

[tone wone]

It's going to be hard to criticize Lebron on realgm after 2016. He pretty much became an untouchable god and a top 3 player of all-time.

But Lebron did absolutely the same thing in the 2013 Finals until game 6. And that's exactly why I don't think that was his peak. He was flawless in 2012 during the entire PS run. He wasn't in 2013. Not only Kawhi locked him down during 6 games (I'll give him the 4th quarter heroics and game 7 no doubt), but he was 1 Ray Allen shot away from having another subpar Finals and another 2nd place.

Just take a deep look at game 4 of the 2013 Finals as an example :

Lebron - 33/11/4 on 25 shots
Wade - 32/6/4 on 25 shots

If you look at the stats, you may think that Lebron was the best player on the court when he actually wasn't. You watch that game again and Wade was the best player on the court and it wasn't even close. Wade was a beast defensively and pretty much took over in the 4th quarter and won that game for the Heat but he barely gets the credit for that 2013 run.

Lebron pretty much padded his stats against the 3rd string scrubs when Pop decided to take the starters out and play Joseph/De Colo/Blair/Bonner etc (5 min mark)

http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/pbp/201306130SAS.html#q1

Until the 4th quarter the game was close. (81-76). If SA wins, they would be up 3-1 in the series.

From the 12 to the 5 minute mark, Lebron goes scoreless and has no assists. Wade scores 10 points with 1 assist. Bosh scores 6 points and Allen scores 3.

Miami is up by 15 at the 5-minute mark and the game is over.

In the final 5 minutes, Lebron scores 9 points (including meaningless a 3-pointer with 20 seconds left when Miami was up by 13) and suddenly the night goes from 24 points on 20 shots to 33 points on 25 shots.

That's exactly why people should re-watch series when they're evaluating the players. Stats give you the numbers, but they don't tell you a player scored in key moments or just padded his stats against scrubs. Game 4 of the 2013 Finals is basically a classic example of that.

I agree that people should watch the games but your account of that Game 4 in 2013 doesn't really say everything either.

Lebron was actually subbed out of the game for Battier from the 9:34 mark until 6:04. And during that entire 7-minute stretch he didn't take a single shot. A great player sometimes lets other people take the spotlight. I would have to watch the game to refresh my memory. Stats are definitely not reflective of impact in this case though and he didn't have a great game. However for example in Game 2 of that series, Lebron only had 17 points but he had massive impact leading a huge run that blew the game open and that huge block on Splitter. That was a better performance than what stats suggest! I am confident in saying that for any great player these kind of occurrences are cancelled out by games where they have bad stats but huge impact.

It actually does. it shows that Lebron padded his stats that game and it's pretty clear when you watch the game and take a look at the play by play.

I mean, you're saying that sometimes great players have to defer and I agree. You say that Lebron had games that he didn't score much, but he still had a big impact. Yes, I don't doubt it. I'll watch game 2 again once I get some free time.

But you don't defer to others in order to win games and then proceed to go ham on 3rd string scrubs for 5 minutes taking basically all the shots of the team, including a meaningless 3-point with 20 seconds left when your team is up by 13. I can't name it with anything other than stat padding.

When Lebron sits at 9:34 he's tied with Wade at 24pts. Stat-padding has ZERO relevance to the game James had. It DOES NOT MATTER that Wade may been better, Lebron was fantastic in that game...he could've not scored another point and it was still a fantastic game by him. Seriously, Game 4 of 2013 Finals is the best playoff game the big 3 ever played.

[tone wone]

I was highly critical of Lebron in '14 finals....and it was clear that his stats overstated his impact because he was actually quite passive. I remember getting into massive back and forth on another forum at the time with some of his die hard defenders who keeps pushing there narrative with those empty stats. However, he more than made up for it in the '15 and '16 finals

His numbers weren't empty...unless you consider Durants 2012 finals full of empty scoring. In both cases a player has an excellent scoring series while providing little else. Neither rebounded or defended well. The difference was until game 5, the 2012 series was highly competitive while the 2014 series stopped being so after game 2.

Any scoring thats done while a team is down 15+ is going to be viewed as stat-padding unless its apart of a epic comeback. Essentially, James had 3 poor scoring halves...2nd half of Gm.3, 1st half of Gm.4 and 2nd half of Gm.5. Really, the only one that actually deserves criticism is game 3. He stunk the 2nd half of that game when MIA had real chance at completing a comeback.

Really, this series isn't even in Lebron's top 10 as a Heat...how many Lebron fans are really point to this series and calling it great?

It was a good series by Lebron, but if one were to call it a great one then you're putting too much emphasis on his ts%. It neglects to mention that him getting cramps in game 1 cost them a good shot at that game. He failed to get teammates involved and he had little impact on defense. Sometimes i wander how many people watched that full series and just read the box score claiming he couldn't have done better.

He absolutely could've played better but getting his teammates involved was not gonna happen with how they were being defended. SA just didn't respect MIA other perimeter players off the dribble. They essentially dared Chalmers, Allen, Cole, Battier & Wade to attack their close-outs betting they couldn't make plays...it worked. Allowed them to really pressure Lebron inside the 3pt line.

If you just look at his highlights from that series you'll see a shift in his scoring starting in the 2nd half of game 2. Mostly contested jumpers with a few drives on switches mixed in....very few post-ups and transition attacks. He had to work so hard to score.

[homecourtloss]

Such a neutral, truth seeking blog. "Nobody touches Jordan."

[Jedi32]

dont get me wrong, i like bron as both a player and a person.

Says the Kobe fan who put "stat padding" in the title and started off straight away on a negative note.

The reason the Heat lost the 2014 Finals is because of their pathetic defense. If the defensive leader, who was supposedly 2nd place in DPOY and "guards 1-5" isn't playing defense, how do you expect the rest of the Heat to follow suit?

There is a bunch of strawman in here.
> LeBron was not 2nd place in DPOY and 2014 was one of his weaker defensive seasons
> Being able to guard 1-5 would not have stopped the Spurs' 3 point barrage regardless
> LeBron had a -15.4 defensive on-off and Miami were a pathetic 130.5 DRtg without him

The series is kind of overrated by some because of LeBron's TS% but it's not as bad as that blog would make you think.

Just curious what does him be a so called "kobe" fan have to do with anything? Does him being a kobe fan mean he can't like lebron?

[Blackmill]

I don't think this has already been mentioned but it seems relevant. Bballbreakdown posted a video on this topic a while back. His conclusion seems to be that Lebron did "stat pad" but was also put in a poor position to succeed.

Watch on YouTube

[The Realist]

It's impressive how Lebron is the only guy who is able to statpad in 3 consecutive game in so different ways, it almost feels like the narrative is switched constantly to make him seem as bad as possible.

Game 3: Lebron's scoring in Q1 is the only thing keeping Heat even somewhat at the game, so not sure where the statpadding comes here? Also, weren't Heat down by +15 most of Q2-4, so by his criteria wasn't it correct for Lebron not to score to not statpad?

Game 4: Lebron scoring 19 points in the 3rd on like 100% TS to try to get his team back wasn't the correct way but rather statpadding, because they were down +15?

Game 5: Lebron says "follow me", goes supernova the first 10 minutes of the game, Heat still lead by only 3-5 because no one follows him, and are down 10 midway through 2nd. Lebron has 31 at the beginning of 4th quarter.

Also, one can't help to wonder the AC breaking down would be discussed differently if it wasn't Lebron who suffered for it. After all, the away team's by far the most valuable player cramping up, because his job assignment is clearly bigger than anyone, he extends much more energy than anyone and is 6'8 270 with the most muscle mass of anyone on the court, and with an incredible amount of mileage on his legs the previous years, giving the home team the win would be pretty asterisk inducing stuff if it was anyone else but Lebron. Also, you'd think after a tie game Spurs going on like a 20-5 run to finish the game with Lebron out would give some indication on the quality of the supporting cast Lebron had around him by June 2014, instead of it being his fault they lost.

I'd argue instead of statpadding Lebron's scoring volume actually understates his output this series. He lost around 6 minutes in game 1 and was undoubtedly hindered otherwise as well bc of the AC, didn't play the end of game 4 and 5, and was subbed out with 7 to go in game 5. Add those 15-20 minutes if games are actually close and Lebron averages 33-35 in the 5 games with still excellent efficiency of course.

I guess the problem is that when you disregard 2014 Heat being a very poor finals team outside of Lebron and Spurs playing historically good, and consider that Lebron ALONE should win the title and if HE doesn't it will be a massive failure, it will be difficult for him to come out good in that situation no matter what he does.

[The Realist]

The only finals points I remember Lebron scoring that actually could be considered statpadding since at least 2012 are the last lay up in 2015 G1 in overtime and the last lay up/dunk in 2016 G4, so 4 points. The first 2 lay ups were ok IMO since there was still time to look for steals but at that point it was a time for a 3.