INDEPENDENCE: A lack of confidence and LeBron James do not seem to belong in the same sentence.
Not when the four-time league MVP had scored at least 25 points in each of the Cavaliers’ 10 previous playoff games and at least 30 points in eight in a row going into Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals.
But close friend J.R. Smith said that was the crux of James’ disappearing act at Quicken Loans Arena on Sunday night. Favored by 16½ points, the Cavs blew a 21-point third-quarter lead and lost 111-108 as James finished with 11 points on 4-of-13 shooting.
He played the entire fourth quarter and went scoreless for the first time since Feb. 24, 2006, in a regular-season game against the Washington Wizards.
It was the fourth-lowest point total of James’ playoff career and his worst since he had a career-low seven on May 28, 2014, for the Miami Heat at the Indiana Pacers.
“He’s got to be aggressive, get downhill, play like he’s been playing, play confident,” Smith said after practice Monday at Cleveland Clinic Courts. “That’s what I always think, when people of his stature or people like him, you’ve got to play confident the whole night and play aggressive.
“It’s the Eastern Conference finals. It’s not enough for him. For what he does, what he brings, it’s not enough. He knows that. We know that. Just expect him to be better in Game 4.”
Smith figured James watched the loss again when he got home and picked apart his performance, which included a team-high six turnovers.
“He’ll take it hard that night. And then the next day he’ll wake up and be fine with it. Well, not be fine with it, but accept it more,” Smith said.
Smith wants to help James out of his funk. The Cavs lead 2-1 going into Game 4 on Tuesday night at the Q and James has never lost a playoff series when his team led 2-0.
“Confidence is something I never lack,” Smith said. “That’s my job as his teammate and as his friend is making sure he stays confident in what he does, and just trying to get him out of it.”
While James said he “didn’t have it” afterward, Celtics coach Brad Stevens wasn’t critical of James’ performance, either on Sunday or Monday. He said James, who had six assists, was finding the hot shooters — Kevin Love (28 points), Kyrie Irving (29 points) and Smith (13 points).
“As you go back and watch the film, I thought LeBron made a lot of the right plays. When you’ve got guys that are all on fire the way they are, the right basketball play is to find them. He just made it over and over,” Stevens said at practice Monday at Quicken Loans Arena.
“He makes the right play over and over, and he thinks the game, he sees the game. He’s a really good defender. He can read situations. I thought he was pretty darned good. Like I said last night, I’m not going to be critical of the best player in the world.”
James had pounded the Celtics in the paint in the first two games as the Cavs had a 52-50 edge in Game 1 before the Celtics claimed a 42-40 advantage in Game 2. In Game 3, the Celtics had a 36-24 edge as James took only six shots in the paint and made three.
“I thought our pace was bad, especially in that second half,” Cavs coach Tyronn Lue said Monday. “I thought we got stops, but we didn’t play with that speed, that pace and that force that we’ve been playing with. They were able to get back and get their defense set, and we really didn’t attack the way we’re capable of attacking.”
James’ team has lost all six of his lowest-scoring playoff games, but Lue wouldn’t let his star take the blame.
“No blame. We’re all to blame,” Lue said. “We lost. It happens. For a guy who played great for five straight months, he’s got to have a bad game sooner or later. He’s human. He didn’t shoot the ball well. It wasn’t his ordinary game. But Kevin and Kyrie had it going early and they played well, so it kind of got him out of rhythm a little bit in that first half. That’s no excuse. Like I said, they played well, but we’ve just got to play better, be more physical.”
While he called on James to give more, Smith knows he also made a major mistake on Avery Bradley’s game-winning 3-pointer, as the ball hit the rim four times before falling in with 0.1 seconds left. On a switch, Iman Shumpert and Smith both went with Jae Crowder as he curled to the basket, leaving Bradley open. Smith shrugged his shoulders, realizing his gaffe. Al Horford’s screen on Tristan Thompson, deemed legal in the NBA’s last two minute report, held up Thompson long enough to keep Bradley open.
“Shump called switch. I switched, and I looked over to my left, and I seen him standing next to me, so I knew somebody was going to be open,” Smith said. “It really sucks because when he shot it, it could have just went right in and gave us enough time to call timeout and run another play. But the way it danced around, it was just luck of the Irish.”
James said after the game that while the outcome hurt, he was “kind of glad it happened the way it did.”
“I feel some adversity is all part of the postseason. I feel like you have to have some type of adversity in order to be successful,” he said. “If it was going to happen, let it happen now. Let us regroup and all the narrative and everything that was going on, let’s regroup and let’s get back to playing desperate basketball, which they did tonight.”
Lue wasn’t so sure about the adversity part, although he will agree with the “desperate” basketball portion.
“I would rather have adversity and win,” Lue said, chuckling.
But if James meant that the Cavs need to regain their focus and intensity, that they were perhaps too loose, Lue agreed. Lue saw it last season when the Cavs took a 2-0 lead on the Toronto Raptors in the conference finals to open the playoffs 10-0, only to see the Raptors win the next two at Air Canada Centre.
“I mean, it’s natural. You win 10 in a row and you’re feeling good,” Lue said. “Same thing happened last year versus Toronto. We’ve got to be better, but there’s nothing wrong with being confident and feeling good. We wouldn’t be in this position if we weren’t confident.
“We’ve just got to get back to bringing the physicality and having a defensive mindset. I think that’s where it hurt us the most.”
Marla Ridenour can be reached at mridenour@thebeaconjournal.com. Read her blog at www.ohio.com/marla. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MRidenourABJ.