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efore this season, which seems long ago
now, LeBron James called a meeting with his new teammates in Cleveland. He
spoke with each of them, one after the other, about their strengths and what
they needed to do for the team.
"We did it collectively as a
group,'' said Tristan Thompson, the Cavaliers' fourth-year big man. "He
pointed everyone out and talked to them. It's great for you to hear that, and
also to know what you're expecting from the other guy. So maybe if [Matthew Dellavedova]
is not doing his job or Kyrie is not
doing his job, it can be, 'hey man, this
is what we need from you.' Because we know what everyone's role is.''
It was not that Thompson was picking on
Dellavedova or Irving in particular: He was simply buying into James's message
that everyone would need to hold up his end. Each of LeBron's teammates was
like a spoke supporting the wheel. LeBron was the hub of the wheel. Their
responsibilities would feed out from him.
When LeBron James announced his return to Cleveland, a new sense of hope took over the city and the team as the Cavs prepared for the upcoming season.
"Just play hard,'' said Thompson
of the assignment he received from James in preseason. "Just to do what
I've been doing since I've been in the NBA. Play hard, rebound and defend, and
then when you get the ball, finish around the rim.''
The assignments were updated by James
entering the playoffs. By then everything had changed. His teammates had
listened to him and coach David Blatt more attentively than James would have
imagined last summer, when he decided to return to the Cavaliers and take
leadership of their young roster.
Then the rotation was reshaped steadily
by GM David Griffin, and as the playoffs approached, LeBron could see that his
teammates were becoming more valuable than role players. They were turning into
his partners -- sharing the responsibility with him, as opposed to waiting for
him to bail them out.
Losing their season opener was an omen
for the new-look Cleveland Cavaliers -- building chemistry wouldn't happen
overnight. By mid-January, the team was hovering around .500 and preaching
patience as it fought through tough times.
"The way I have played throughout
my career has been sporadic,'' said Iman Shumpert, the 24-year-old shooting
guard who had played four seasons with the Knicks. In New York he had been
asked to score at times, to focus on defending at other times, to adapt himself
to the ever-changing demands of a team that was always in flux. Then, four
months ago, he was traded to Cleveland.
"I had never really gotten a role:
To just do this and this for the whole game,'' Shumpert said. "You do this
and this, and we will do the rest.''
He was describing the big-picture view
of the team as laid out for the Cavaliers by their greatest teammate. For the
first time in his NBA career, Shumpert was able to trust in the messages he was
receiving from his fellow players and coaches. He could see the larger goal of
the team and where he fit in.
"It is simplifying things for me,'' Shumpert said of
his role with the Cavaliers, who have asked him to be focused defensively.
"This has been the easiest for me
mentally as far as what I have to prepare for. There are times where they're
going to need me to do a little bit more scoring or a little bit more
rebounding, with the injuries or fouls that happen throughout the game; or
maybe they'll need me to handle the ball. But on a day-to-day, I know what my
job is on the team. And I think simplifying that in my mind, and not having me
think about so much other stuff, it really has helped my game evolve.''
Less is more.
After a difficult regular season,
All-Star power forward Kevin Love appeared to be finding his role in the
opening round of the playoffs. He had averaged 18.3 points and 9 rebounds in
three full games against the Celtics when his left shoulder was separated in an
awkward lockup with Kelly Olynyk. Even so, without one of the NBA's most
talented power forwards, the Cavaliers went onto snuff Chicago in six games.
By then All-Star point guard Kyrie
Irving was being slowed by foot and knee injuries. His production waned; he
missed two games in the conference finals against the top-seeded Hawks. And
still the Cavaliers swept Atlanta in the absence of James's two most talented
scorers.
They've also been lacking Anderson
Varejao, the starting center who suffered an Achilles injury in December. And
yet they have improved steadily, while reinventing themselves to become the
most intimidating defensive team in the playoffs. It's next man up,' said
James.
It is more than that, actually.
The reason James left Cleveland in 2010
was because he had never been surrounded by teammates who could help him win
the championship. During his final two years with the Cavaliers, when they were
earning the No. 1 seed in the East, his only teammate to join him in the
All-Star Game was Mo Williams, the point guard whose value dropped after
LeBron's departure to Miami: Williams has played for a half-dozen teams over
the last five years while coming off the bench more often than he has started.
Consider the others who played large
roles alongside James in the old days: Daniel Gibson, Sasha Pavlovic, Delonte
West and Jamario Moon were all out of the NBA within three years of losing
their association with James.
But that was only part of the issue.
James was lacking in complementary talent, for sure; but then he also wasn't
the leader that he has become now, after four years of winning experiences in
Miami.
"I never felt that I had to do it
by myself, even in the past,'' James said. "Mentally, I just wasn't who I
am today. My hard drive wasn't as big as it is today. I'm able to handle a lot
of situations that I wasn't able to handle at 24 and 25 and 23 years old. The
mental side is way more important than the physical, so that's where it comes
from.''
At age 30, James has learned to apply
his people skills more profoundly. Imagine how intimidating it might be to have
the world's most imposing player as your teammate. Then imagine how liberating
it must feel to realize that he is showing confidence in you.
"It's not like he's asking us to
shoulder the burden of the entire thing,'' said Cavaliers backup forward James
Jones, who played with James in Miami. "He's just asking us to do our
piece. To do a little bit. So that's the least we can do, and it's vice-versa.
Because you know that the reason he competes at the highest level is because he
doesn't want to let us down. He knows that he has a tremendous amount of
responsibility for us.''
Jones has averaged 14.1 minutes per
game in the playoffs. As a 3-point specialist, he is expected to make the most
difficult shots instantly. It is a hard job -- more like a pinch-hitter than a
field-goal kicker -- because he is expected to score cold off the bench, as if
he is all warmed up and in rhythm.
"I just have to step on the floor
and perform,'' said Jones. "So that's how I train; that's how I practice.
I come into the arena every day and the first thing I do is take the shot that
I'm expected to make when I'm ice cold on the bench. As practice goes on, it
becomes a situation where it's more and more unlike my game situation. I know
I'm not playing 30 minutes in a game, so if I'm feeling good 30 minutes into
practice, that really doesn't translate. For me it's always the first five to
10 minutes of practice, and my first 10 to 15 shots are what I'm focused on.
Because that's my game.''
As he prepares himself to heat up fast
at practice, Jones is aware that LeBron is taking account of his preparations.
In the weight room, in the video sessions, during the defensive drills -- he is
watching to see which of his teammates are zeroing in. In whom can he trust?
"Spacing, toughness plays, winning
plays, sacrifice -- the little things are what the best players need,'' Jones
said. "We ask them to do the big things, and a lot of times there's just
too much. The things they need help with are the little things -- it's a
charge, it's a block, it's being in the right position. It's making a huge shot
so that during the next possession they can have an extra foot or two of space,
which is all they need.''
Over the course of three days in
January, Griffin essentially surrendered Dion Waiters and a first-round pick in
exchange for Nuggets center Timofey Mozgov, as well as for Shumpert and his
Knicks teammate J.R. Smith. All kinds of behind-the-scenes conversations were
held in Cleveland before those deals were made, with the focus centering on
Smith, who had earned his reputation as an explosive and altogether unreliable
scorer.
Irving knew him well and assured the
Cavaliers that Smith would try to fit in. Mike Miller communicated with friends
around the league and provided helpful intelligence on the Knicks and Smith to
the Cavaliers, even though the acquisition would lessen Miller's own role.
The most important counselor was James,
obviously, who signed off on the trade and who has since convinced Smith to
play the best team defense of his career. The message has been simple enough:
He has told Smith that he is capable of helping defensively, he has held Smith
accountable to their defensive schemes, and along the way he has provided Smith
with positive feedback for his role in helping the Cavaliers reach the NBA
Finals.
There have been all kinds of
transformations over the last year in Cleveland. Dellavedova, an undrafted
guard who in other circumstances might have bounced around the league, now
looks indispensable. Shumpert has joined with LeBron to provide the Cavaliers
with two lockdown perimeter defenders.
"In Game 3 I felt like I played
terrible, defensively,'' said Shumpert of the recent conference finals.
"But I had my guys with me. It was a lot of times that I got blown by, I
didn't get the coverage right on the switch, or maybe I got out there late and
the guys drove past. But then I got the stunts from the corner or help from
somebody. Everybody is going to need help at some point. I am just glad that
I've got a team that supports me.''
No one feels alone, although the
support is shared in some unusual ways. Mozgov, who two seasons ago was a DNP
for half of the Nuggets' schedule, instantly provided the Cavaliers with a
massive presence around both baskets.
But was he ready for a two-month run at
the championship? Kendrick Perkins, the backup center signed by the Cavaliers
in February, insisted on making certain. During their second practice of the
playoffs, he clobbered Mozgov in the paint relentlessly until his teammate
wheeled around to complain. That was when Perkins announced for the entire team
to hear, in language not to be reprinted, that the postseason was going to
demand an entirely new level of intensity from all of them.
They could either be the victims of
that intensity, or its instigators. Were they going to provide LeBron with the
support he needed?
"The guys that thrive around
LeBron are the guys that are internally motivated,'' said Jones. "Our
internal motivation leads us to build a confidence that we can do the things
that he needs us to do, and to gain his trust. I think that permeates
everyone's psyche. So when you gain his trust, you gain the coaches' trust, you
gain your other teammates' trust, and that's how you build chemistry.''
This is what the Warriors are up
against. MVP Stephen Curry and his teammates have never played in an NBA
Finals. They have been unstoppable for much of this season. But they also have
none of the experiences that LeBron has earned the hard way, and which he has
spent the last year sharing with his teammates.
"At the beginning of the season he
lets guys kind of understand and feel themselves out,'' said Thompson of
LeBron. "But after All-Star break, that's when he really locks in. I saw
the change in him. I saw a different approach. He wants perfection from his
teammates, and you are glad that's what your leader wants.''
Can a rotation of role players join
with an injured Kyrie Irving to help James upset the top-seeded team in the
NBA? James believes they can. And that is all they need to hear
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