In the last Cleveland Cavaliers Flashback Friday of the regular season, we rewind the clock back to when LeBron James hunted the Toronto Raptors for 56 points.
King James and the Cleveland Cavaliers do have a home and home with the Atlanta Hawks their next two games, followed by a meeting with the Miami Heat on Monday. That said, since this is the last Flashback Friday of the regular season, we’re going to look to the very last game. Since that’s with the visiting Toronto Raptors, I’m going to reminisce on their meeting on March 20, 2005 in the Air Canada Centre.
In this rather insignificant matchup, Bron went OFF. He was the youngest player in NBA history to eclipse the 50 point-plateau at the time (that’s been broken a few times since). James did everything in this game with a then career-high 56 points on 50% shooting from the field, to along with ten boards, five assists and two steals.
That included him knocking in six threes on 12 attempts, and 14-of-15 on free throw attempts. He also played the entire 48 minutes. His 56-point performance was a Cavs franchise record until Kyrie Irving had 57 in a thrilling 2015 game against the San Antonio Spurs.
Who knows? Maybe he even flew the team plane to Toronto, too. He was essentially the only Cavs player on the floor, other than Drew Gooden who had 24 points and ten rebounds. The Raptors could do nothing to stop The Chosen One; they had two to three defenders on James much of the game and he was making tough shot after tough shot all over the floor. The amount of “You gotta be kidding me’s” in this video tells the story.
Bron was so locked in and the basket just got bigger and bigger. He led both teams in scoring in each quarter, and his 18 fourth quarter points kept the Cavs in the game. However, Jalen Rose’s 30 points (including 12 in the fourth) paced the team from the Six to a 105-98 victory.
That said, it was truly a magnificent performance from the 20-year old James with basically no help around him. It is still one of the best games of LeBron’s storied career, and I’ll never forget it. There’s plenty more to come, though. That’s for sure.
Something tells me the current Raptors don’t want to see the King this year, either. I wouldn’t.