All Hail the King!

Man, last night's game was incredible. Whether you are a Spurs fan, Heat hater, or Heat fan, you have to appreciate the great basketball shown last night; actually, throughout the whole series. The whole game was close as hell, and in the fourth quarter, whenever it looked like the Heat were going to break away, the Spurs would answer. There was the Kawhi Leonard reverse layup and-one. There was the Duncan hook shot and-one (although that was a phantom call). There was the Leonard three-pointer. Both teams just answered the opposition with big shots. Ultimately, the game came down to a uncharacteristic miss by Duncan (easy lay-up and put-back) that led to the Lebron James dagger (just go on NBA.com if you want to see the Lebron jump shot. YouTube still doesn't have it yet).

*Above is the Duncan miss.

Lebron was awesome during the whole game. He finished with 37 pts, 12 rebs, 4 ass, and 2 stls. Easily the Finals MVP with series averages of 25.3 ppg, 10.9 rpg, 7.0 apg, 2.3 spg, and 0.9 bpg. Lebron was huge in last night's game, hitting 5 of 10 three-pointers. The Spurs played the whole series daring him to shoot, and Lebron made them pay by hitting threes and mid-range jumpers. Ultimately, the work in the summer time paid off. Lebron even admitted in the press conference that after "watching the first 2 and a half games on film", he realized that the Spurs were going to give him the shot at all times. Lebron said "I told myself to trust what I've been doing all season [shooting jumpers] and not to abandon what worked for me. I looked at the percentages and realized that I was a top-five mid-range jump shooter in the league last season". Once again, I'm not quoting directly but it's pretty much what he said. Don't believe me? Go look at last night's press conference. Anyways, the King now holds 4 MVPs, 2 Finals MVPs, and 2 NBA Championships. Not bad for only age 28.

What was the biggest change in Lebron's game? While many people will say "he decided to shoot more", it was a little bit more complicated than that. Lebron still tried to play a Magic-type game. Even in Game 7, he would spend the first 18 seconds of the clock looking for easy shots for his teammates. At that point, there was no change in strategy in Lebron's game. So, what did change? Well, if Lebron didn't manage to find a great shot for his teammates in the first 18 seconds, he wasted no time pulling up for his own jump shot. Instead of dribbling around aimlessly and trying to find a path to the rim (which is what he did in previous games), James simply took a few rhythm dribbles, squared up, and shot. So basically, instead of using the last few seconds on the clock to try and bully his way into the rim (and end up settling for a tough shot over several Spurs defenders), James just calmly shot easy jumpers. In this manner, James was still able to get his teammates good shots while looking for his own offense. James probably played one of the most unselfish 37 point games in the Finals. It never looked like he was hogging the ball. Many of his shots came late in the clock.