Over the past few years, LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers have not simply defeated their Eastern Conference rivals, they have obliterated them.
Last night the Cleveland Cavaliers handled the Atlanta Hawks to pick up their 10th consecutive victory. Eight of these wins have come against Eastern Conference opponents and Cleveland has held a double-digit lead in seven of those eight games.
It goes without saying that LeBron James owns the East. It’s not a debatable opinion. We have more than seven years of evidence.
But the wins don’t interest me. Since leaving for Miami, LeBron has never been an underdog in an Eastern Conference playoff series. Simply put, he is supposed to win.
What is interesting is the way LeBron is carrying out this dominance. A lot of these games are hardly competitive and many teams seem to fold at the opening tip.
No one is debating that the Cavaliers should be the favorite on the road in Detroit — and they were, by 2.5 points — but to be up 39 in the second half? That’s ludicrous. Here are some other examples from earlier in the season:
Opponent |
Date
Largest Lead
Celtics
10/17/17
18 (first half)
Bucks
10/20/17
19
Wizards
11/3/17
15
Bucks
11/7/17
13 (first half)
Hornets
11/15/17
13 (first quarter)
Pistons
11/20/17
39
Sixers
11/27/17
29
Heat
11/28/17
34 (27 in first half)
These aren’t wins, these are destructions. The Cavaliers are now 6-1 against current playoff teams in the east. They have blown out the Bucks, Pistons, Heat and Sixers. Again, the Cavaliers are better than these teams, but not that much better.
I have been trying to come up with an explanation for this for a while. These teams should at least be able to compete. They have legitimate mismatches! The Cavaliers have glaring weaknesses! And yet they go unexploited, and the Cavaliers leave unscathed.
The only logical explanation is that LeBron holds a psychological sway over his opponents. For whatever reason, they don’t play at their best when facing him. You can see it from the opening tip, and it is extraordinary.
I noticed it for the first time against the Boston Celtics last year, late in the regular season, (although you can trace the beginnings of this effect to the 2016 playoff run). Boston was playing great basketball — trailing the Cavaliers by just one game in the standings — and had a chance to send a message on their home court. It was a highly anticipated game. It was supposed to be a battle.
But there was no battle. LeBron’s first seven made field goals were at the rim. By the time he made his eighth shot — an eight-footer — the Cavaliers led 41-24. In the third quarter, the Cavaliers held an 81-54 lead. Boston utterly folded under their rival’s boot.
An interesting thing happened in the wake of that particular game. The Cavaliers promptly — and embarrassingly — dropped their final four games, and we all told ourselves that the Celtics game was a fluke.
But then the Cavaliers literally demolished the Toronto Raptors. The same Raptors who had added P.J. Tucker and Serge Ibaka to a team that took Cleveland to six the year before. Four embarrassing blowouts — largest leads of 25, 30, 23 and 16 in the four games.
The Celtics? Even worse, somehow. The Cavaliers led by 28 in Game One, 50 in Game Two, 21 in Game Three, 13 in Game Four and 39 in Game Five.
LeBron took what should have been relatively competitive series — against halfway decent rivals with legitimate advantages — and beat them senseless.
That is the effect of LeBron James.
“I’m not a LeBron, and DeMar’s not a LeBron. We push our team and do what we need to do to get our team wins and we’ve just got to get better. Some how, some way,” Kyle Lowry said, eloquently after the embarrassing sweep.
Confidence is key.
That cliché statement is a reality that any basketball player deals with. Not just with your shot or your handle, but with the way you handle your opponent.
If you don’t think you can win, you’re less likely to chase that loose ball, or make that third rotation to contest a three. You start to play as though the outcome is inevitable.
The Detroit Pistons are the perfect example of this effect. Cleveland comes to town, LeBron scores 16 in the first quarter to send a message and Detroit simply quits. When the Pistons go into Oklahoma City for their next game, they play with confidence and beat a good Thunder team. Then they head to Boston a few nights later. They don’t fear Kyrie Irving – at least not without LeBron beside him. They beat arguably the second-best team in the league, at TD Garden.
This is a quality only possessed by a few players in the history of the league; LeBron’s sheer presence causes the opponent to lose confidence in their ability to win.
The man can already win a basketball game in so many ways. Now you can add “psychological domination” to that list.