LeBron James was very depressed that the he had lost his fourth NBA Finals when he came to the podium on Tuesday, and you hurt for LeBron just watching him up there coming off of a game 6 loss to Golden State Warriors. He played an outstanding game where he scored 32 points, grabbed 18 rebounds, and had 9 assists, and he almost won the Finals MVP except he was beat out by Andre Iguodala. He also averaged 35.7 PPG, 8.8 APG, and 13.3 RPG during the championship series. These individual awards and stats do not matter to LeBron though, because his team did not win.
“It just wasn’t our time,”
Is what he had to say about his Cavs team which was undermanned the entire series against Golden State in his post game press conference according to cleveland.com. LeBron did acknowledge that the franchise is where it needs to be to win championships, they just have a little bit more work to do before they get their. He said,
“I think we put ourselves back where this franchise needs to be, being a contender. But we’ve still got a lot of work to do.”
It is looking like the Cavaliers time will be soon though, and LeBron will bring a championship to his hometown. Maybe next year, maybe further into the future, but it will come.
He also said that his team ‘ran out of talent’ due to the injuries of Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving, saying,
“Tonight we had our chances, but, you know, we ran out of talent. We ran out of talent tonight. We gave everything we had. The guys played as hard as they could as long as we could.”
When you play 7 guys, and a few of them go cold such as Matthew Dellavedova and Iman Shumpert did tonight, it can be hard to win. They needed more depth and talent to win, and they didn’t have that due to injuries to Irving, Love, and Anderson Varejao. “That’s a lot of guys in suits,” is what LeBron had to say about the injuries. He also spoke about each of his injured teammates, saying,
“Losing Andy, one of our heartbeats of our team, another playmaker for our team. Then you lose Kev, an All-Star, and then you lose Kyrie, another All-Star.”
“Even what Andy brings to our team as well, that’s another double-double guy.”
James thought about his second Finals loss in a row, after his Miami Heat team lost to the San Antonio Spurs last year, and he spoke about his mental preparation coming off of these finals losses during the Summer, saying,
“Well, of course you question it, especially when you get to this point. I always look at it would I rather not make the playoffs or lose in The Finals? I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ve missed the playoffs twice. I lost in The Finals four times. I’m almost starting to be like I’d rather not even make the playoffs than to lose in The Finals. It would hurt a lot easier if I just didn’t make the playoffs and I didn’t have a shot at it.”
I can definitely see how it is hard for LeBron, or any NBA player to go all the way to the Finals and lose, but to do it four times would be tough. LeBron has to be mentally strong, because if he wasn’t, he would break. After saying this, LeBron thought about how fun it is to go on the journey to the Finals, and going through the Eastern Conference Playoffs. He said that,
“I look back in and I start thinking about how fun it is to compete during the playoffs and the first round, the second round, and Eastern Conference Finals. If I’m lucky enough to get here again, it will be fun to do it.”
With the injuries to Love and Irving, LeBron had to take on a huge amount of Cleveland’s offensive duties. He had the ball in his hands a lot more than normal, and he was taking a lot more shots than he is used to. Due to having the ball and taking so many shots, LeBron was very uneffecient, and he shot under 40 percent in the series. LeBron says that he does not like being so non-efficient.
“I don’t enjoy being as non?efficient as I was. I don’t enjoy that. I don’t enjoy dribbling the ball for countless seconds on the shot clock and the team looking at me to make a play. We had 14 assists tonight. I had nine of them. I did not enjoy that. That’s not winning basketball.”
LeBron played a great series for the Cavaliers, they just fell short at the end. He seems encouraged that they are headed in the right direction, but they need to put a little bit more work in. After getting so close and losing again, LeBron was saddened. He is very strong mentally though, and he will be able to recover and be ready to play great basketball again next season in pursuit of another championship.
