LeBron haunts Raptors with yet another legendary moment

CLEVELAND - Before the start of Game 3 against the Cavaliers, Dwane Casey was asked about the ghosts of Toronto’s previous playoff failures at Quicken Loans Arena, where they had lost all five road playoff games over the previous two postseasons. “I don’t subscribe to ghosts,” Casey said. “A lot of teams have struggled here. We’ve got to come through the gauntlet and break down barriers just like everyone else.”

Casey didn’t see any ghosts on Saturday, but he did watch the best player in the game dribble the ball the length of the court with 8.8 seconds left in a tie game, and bank in a one-handed fadeaway floater at the buzzer to send the Cavaliers to a 3-0 series lead.

“You know he’s going left,” a dejected Kyle Lowry said afterwards. “He got to his spot, not much is going through your mind, you just test. OG [Anunoby] got a contest… I didn’t want it to be real. I wanted to get a chance to get a heave in.”

“Give him credit,” Fred VanVleet added. “He made a tough shot.”

The difficulty of the shot was up for debate after the game. “He practices those shots all the time,” Kevin Love said. “He makes them all the time.” And it’s not just the one-legged, fadeaway bank shot that James practices.

A year ago in a regular season game in Washington, trailing by three with 3.4 seconds left, James caught a full-court pass from Love, and had the awareness to take one dribble, step behind the 3-point line, and hit a fadeaway three to send the game into overtime. In the first round against the Pacers in these playoffs, James curled off an inbounds pass, dribbled left to the top of the key, and hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to send Cleveland to a Game 5 victory.

These are all shots Love has watched James make over and over again. Saturday’s game-winner was no different. “You see him shoot that all the time with one hand in practice,” Love said. “He practices that one all the time. He’s hit that a million times.”

James has turned this series against the Raptors into a shot-making exhibition. In his 15th season, with already one of the most impressive resumes in league history, James continues to add to his mythology. In Game 2, it was predicting at morning shootaround he was going to make a series of fadeaway jumpers during the game, and then doing so in the fourth quarter even as the game was out of reach.

James offered another precursor of what was to come prior to Game 3 and then elaborated after his game-winner. “I told you (reporters) this morning the ability to have different things in my toolbox, in the repertoire that I have, throughout the game I can go through those,” James said.

So, in these situations, how does James -- with such a wide-array of shots -- decide which was is the best? “Sometimes I really don’t know,” James said. “But I trust every shot that I’m going to take because I work on every shot.”

The fact James even needed to find a game-winning shot was credit to the Raptors putting together their most impressive and sustained stretch of effort and execution in the series, resulting in a 38-point fourth quarter and a game-tying three from Anunoby before James’ game-winner.

But every time the Raptors made a push in the fourth, James had a response. When Toronto cut the lead to five points with eight minutes left, James went left baseline and hit a jumper over Anunoby. He followed it up with a step-back 3-pointer on C.J. Miles and then got two more points at the free throw line on the next possession to push the lead back to 10.

Every time the Raptors pushed, James pushed back. And when Toronto appeared to have given itself a chance to get back into the series and potentially force overtime, James ended that conversation with a shot he practices frequently.

“I’ve seen Jordan, I’ve seen Kobe, I’ve seen Bird,” Casey said. “And he’s playing at that level right now.”

After the game, Tyronn Lue was asked if he was surprised teams don’t double-team James more often in those situations. After a long pause, the Cavaliers head coach answered facetiously: “No, I’m not surprised. They shouldn’t. They should make him score the basketball. If you double-team him, it opens up shots for the other guys. Just play him one-on-one.”

At morning shootaround, James reflected on the fadeaway jumpers he took in Game 2, and hinted that not every made basket carries the same value, especially when it comes to demoralizing an opponent. “Two points is not two points,” James said. "I’ll explain it to you later. Coaches have said that for years, but two points is not two points.”

James’ game-winner on Saturday? That wasn’t two points. That was another chapter in his legendary career, and an exclamation point on this series, where he’s once again snuffed out an Eastern Conference contender with aspirations of getting by the best player in the game.

“Tie game or down one, I live for those moments,” James said. “[There’s a] mental clock of being a kid, and telling myself, three, two, one, making the noise of the net, that [swoosh] sound. I’ve been doing that since I was six, seven, eight years old.”

A lot of kids dream of making these jumpers. James is the only person who is doing them at the highest level and with regularity.

So, what was the degree of difficulty his game-winner on Saturday?

“It’s very difficult,” James said. “Don’t try it at home.”

Alex Wong is an NBA freelance writer whose work has appeared in GQ, The New Yorker, Vice Sports, and Complex, among other publications.