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Showing results for tags 'LeBron James'.
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The first time I saw LeBron James play was on the nationally televised high school game against Oak Hill Academy. Before the game, then-announcer Bill Walton came right out and said that James was 'the best high school player he had ever seen.' In that game, James scored 31, with 13 rebounds and 6 assists; yet, only went 12-25 from the field. There were moments of greatness, but the incredible pressure of national TV had clearly compromised his performance. No longer. "History! LeBron Nets 61, Heat Top Bobcats, 124-107" by Tim Reynolds on abcnews.com In a career-high scoring effort, James shot 22-33 from the field, including his first *eight* 3-point attempts. He scored 25 points in the 3rd quarter alone. James makes greatness look easy - he dominates without looking like he's dominating. Who do you go with right now, James or Durant? It's so nice having both to see, to witness. Career stats
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12/25/15 I watched the game at Virtue Feed & Grain on Christmas, and I had a very unique perspective on the Cavs-Warriors game: I watched it on silent TV at the bar, but I studiously went against the grain by *not* watching the ball, which nearly everybody always does, including me; instead, each time the Cavs had the ball, I would watch #23, James, and each time the Warriors had the ball, I would watch #30, Curry - even if they were off the ball, I watched them both, exclusively, for the entire game, and what I saw was something of a revelation. (Note that, because of the way I watched this game, I was only able to see what they were doing on offense - it's possible, for example, that James was working hard on defense, and that's why he looked so tired.) LeBron James is out of shape, plain and simple - either that, or he's just getting older. On offense, when he didn't have the ball, he was just standing around - not *at* the 3-point line, but a few feet in *back* of the 3-point line. He wasn't running around, trying to get free - he *was* free, but he was standing so far back, that nobody cared. He scored a very quiet 4 points in the 1st quarter - a few times, when they passed him the ball, he'd drive towards the hoop, but he only made two field goals in the first quarter, and he didn't even start the second quarter - how could he have been tired after not having done anything? James was saving his energy until the later part of the game, but it was too little, too late - he was simply unable to carry the team in this game, and I was not impressed at all by his conditioning. He led the game with 25 points, but it was an ugly 25 points on 10-26 shooting. Stephen Curry arguably had a better game, but not by much: He scored 19 points on 6-15 shooting. However, there's one thing I saw that viewers watching the ball wouldn't have noticed: Off the ball, Curry was getting the *shit* beaten out of him by Matthew Dellavedova. This happened from the very beginning of the game, and the physical punishment was equivalent to body-blows from a boxer - they take their toll on you later in the match. Anyone who thinks the NBA is no longer physical only needed to watch what was happening to Curry. He was being held, pushed, and just plain brutalized - he had a poor game, but the refs were consistently missing off-the-ball fouls against him - this was a deliberate and clever strategy by the Cavaliers to wear down Curry, and it worked. I'd rate this one as a push, with both players underperforming.