You Come At The King, You Best Not Miss
A recap of the most dominant regular season performance I have ever seen
In the midst of a pathetic 4-game losing streak, the Cavs needed a win in the absolute worst way as they traveled to the nation’s capital for a primetime matchup against the brash Washington Wizards. This was a statement game for the Wizards — a game to show the world that they were a legitimate challenger to LeBron James’ 7-year reign over the Eastern Conference. Adding fuel to the fire, earlier in the day, Bradley Beal called-out the Cavs for supposedly avoiding them in the playoffs last year on The Jump:
Fortunately for the Cavs, LeBron James, unequivocally the best player on the planet, delivered one of, if not the most impressive regular season performances in NBA history Friday night to lead the Cavs to a 130–122 victory in the Chocolate City.
Truth be told, the Cavs had been so pathetic the past 2 weeks that I almost decided against even watching this game — I was on a cross-country flight and had plenty of Stranger Things binge-watching to do. I had also wrote and tweeted about how everyone should bet the bank on the Wizards to win and cover the spread (that take aged well 😳). Plus, the Wizards have had the Cavs’ number recently, they were at home, and they were clearly treating this like a playoff game. Unbeknownst to the Wizards, a certain #23 was also treating this game as a playoff game.
By now, you’ve seen the box score and watched the highlights. LeBron’s stats were beyond comprehension — 57p/11r/7a/3s/2b. In fact, he’s the first player to ever have that stat line in a game. Did I mention he was 23–34 from the field and perfect from the line? Stats and highlights aside, the most impressive part of this game was his complete and omniscient control over everything on both ends of the floor. He was literally better at every basketball skill than every other player on the court. When he capped off his masterpiece with an and-one with about a minute left, I thought to myself, which basketball superlatives does LeBron currently own? Here’s what I came up with:
- Best passer (definitely)
- Best court vision (same)
- Highest basketball IQ (maybe ever)
- Best post-game (which is ironic because he’s a perimeter player and only really plays in the post during the playoffs)
- Best athlete (maybe ever)
- Best chase down block artist (no question)
- Best scorer? (Durant, Kyrie and others could make a case)
- Fastest player? (Wall and Westbrook could make a case)
There aren’t many other superlatives left, folks. Oh, and by the way, he’s also a very good ball handler and defender (when it counts) and an above average shooter and rebounder — not too shabby, eh?
Here’s a couple of other cool factoids about King James’ historic night:
- He had 14 field goals in the restricted area (career high)
- He had the most field goals in a game in Cavs’ history (23)
- He was 7/10 shooting on post-ups
- It was his 11th career 50-point game (tying Allen Iverson for 6th all-time)
- This was the 6th time a player has had a 55–10–5 stat line — LeBron is the only player to accomplish this feat twice and is both the youngest (age 20) and oldest (32) to ever do so
- It was his 600th straight game scoring double figures (2nd behind MJ)
- He became the youngest player to reach 29,000 points
All that being said, the most important thing we learned last night — and let this be a lesson to the Wizards, Celtics, Bucks and all other wannabe contenders:
