LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers have a comfortable 2.5-game hold on the Eastern Conference’s top postseason spot, and they’re still favorites to return to the NBA Finals.
That, however, isn’t merely enough.
Not for LeBron.
On the heels of Cleveland’s 107-103 loss at the pleasure of the incredibly shorthanded Memphis Grizzlies on Monday night, LeBron reiterated that his team, a first-place squad, still has much shaping up to do before the NBA playoffs begin, per ESPN.com’s Dave McMenamin:
“I can sit up here and say that we’re a team that’s ready to start the playoffs tomorrow, but we’re not,” LeBron James said after the Cavs trailed by as many as 14 before losing at the buzzer when Kyrie Irving missed a potential game-tying 3. “We’re still learning. We still have things that happen on the court that just, that shouldn’t happen.”
There is plenty of truth to what LeBron is saying. The Cavaliers have played down to the level of their opponents for much of this season. Games they should win single-handedly, like Monday’s tilt, inexplicably become close affairs—contests that remain in doubt until the final buzzer, with the Cavaliers not only failing to pull away, but sometimes failing to win at all.
This is most certainly an issue you want to adjust head of the postseason. The Cavaliers cannot coast through every seven-game series. Maybe that gets them through the first round, but it will give them problems in later matchups against opportunistic opponents like the Boston Celtics, Miami Heat and Toronto Raptors. And it will most certainly give them issues against the West’s best in the NBA Finals.
The talent is there in Cleveland, to be sure. The consistency to which LeBron speaks, however, just isn’t.
