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A Desperate Attempt To Discredit The Heat After Game 4, Or: An Exercise In Sounding Dumb

With the pressure on, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade produced a game – or at least a second half – beyond reproach. Faced with the prospect of going down 3-1 against the Pacers in the Eastern Conference semifinals, facing a halftime deficit on the road without Chris Bosh, the duo produced about as good a game as two teammates can possibly have. Wade, after an extremely slow start, finished with 30 points, nine rebounds and six assists. And that was the worse of the two performances.

Because: that LeBron performance. Oh, that LeBron performance. LeBron absolutely exploded for one of the best games of one of the best careers (sorry, it’s true) in NBA history, posting 40 points, 18 rebounds, nine assists, two blocks, and two steals. He and Wade scored 28 of the Heat’s 30 third-quarter points. Again, that stat line: 40/18/9/2/2. Care to guess the other time in the past half-century anyone’s put up a 40/18/9 playoff stat line? Because it’s never. Elgin Baylor was the last to do it, in 1961. And by reading The Hunger Games before the game (also pictured above), he even did a likable thing off the court.

Yes, this was one Heat performance it’s hard to talk badly about. But you know someone will try. They’ll try – but they’ll be wrong. And as a demonstration of how wrong, witness this series of Gchats between me and James Plafke, editor of our sibling site Geekosystem. We at SportsGrid have been corresponding with James a lot this offseason, and last night, we tried to find flaws with the performances of both Wade and LeBron. It sounded ridiculous:

James: Chalmers: 8pts, 3, rebs, 3 assists, 3-9 fg, let Collison do whatever he wants
+17
LeBron, 40-18-9-2-2, had a game that no one has had in 50 something years, +4
Wade, 30pts, 9 rebs, 6 assists, 13-23fg, -19.
me: crazy that wade’s is that bad
James: Obviously Chalmers won us that game, despite Wade sucking.
me: that’s how it looked to me
so if wade finished 13-23, that means he went like 12-15 after the horrible start?
James: Yeah he hit 11 straight at one point
me: oh, so really, he was 1-4 besides those 11 straight makes
he choked, is what it sounds like to me
just like lebron, didn’t he have 33 after three quarters? so only 7 in the fourth?
guy tried to give the game away, basically
James: lol
Haslem got going
It was great
I miss him
But yeah, LeBron choked, he deferred to Haslem
He couldn’t handle the pressure

So just remember: if you’re downplaying what either Wade or LeBron – and especially LeBron (ahem) – did yesterday, that is what you sound like. If this doesn’t convince you that maybe this guy was awesome yesterday, and is an awesome basketball player in general:

…then there’s really no point in trying anymore.

[Ball is Life]