After telling media members that he was turning on the switch, LeBron James went to work dominating the Milwaukee Bucks
With all the hype around Steph Curry this season, it’s easy to forget about LeBron James and his Cleveland Cavaliers. With the season rapidly coming to a close, the attention has once again swung around to James and his quest for an elusive third ring, and boy has it been obnoxious.
We’ve discussed who LeBron is, or isn’t, following on Twitter, who he’d take a pay cut to play with, whether of not he’ll join Snapchat, and so much more pointless crap. In fact, his basketball play has been somewhat covered up by his cryptic tweets and comments to the media. Well, The King apparently wanted to remind us that believe it or not, he is indeed still a basketball player and perhaps the best one on the planet.
After saying that he was “turning on the switch” yesterday, James went off for 26 points, 8 assists, and 6 rebounds in the Cavs 113-104 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks. While that’s a nice stat-line, we’ve grown accustomed to LeBron dropping those numbers on a nightly basis for years now. What’s really impressive here was the purpose with which James played.
While the major narrative this NBA season has been far away from James, The King has still faced plenty of criticism for his play. His shooting percentages have sharply declined and he’s often seemed uninterested on the defensive end, both of which are sharp contrasts to what fans and analysts had been spoiled with during his time in Miami. While he didn’t shoot the ball particularly well Wednesday night (just 9-22 from the field), LeBron showed us the energy we had gotten so used to against the Bucks.
Beautiful pass from @KingJames! #tipdrill https://t.co/ryqb9lk7hO
— Alex Kennedy (@AlexKennedyNBA) March 24, 2016
WATCH: Cavs' LeBron James' crazy 2-handed reverse dunkhttps://t.co/DUniujg20Ahttps://t.co/2S2SwcJmPr
— CBS Sports NBA (@CBSSportsNBA) March 24, 2016
Oh my, @KingJames.
The Wine & Gold lead 35-25 after 1 on @FoxSportsOH.#CavsBucks BOX: https://t.co/9Z2sf3sm6ehttps://t.co/mrZx7zT00I
— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) March 23, 2016
It’s been awhile since we saw that sort of pop from LeBron and with the Cavs publicly having plenty of issues over the past few weeks, seems to be the exact thing to fix Cleveland’s problems. The team has now had back to back victories against quality opponents in the Bucks and Denver Nuggets, as well as winning four of their last five.
If this is LeBron turning on the switch, the rest of the Eastern Conference — particularly the Toronto Raptors — will need to take notice. With James going, the entire Cavs roster seemed energized and willing to move the ball around, dropping 29 assists in Wednesday nights win (up from their season average of 22 coming into the game).
Cleveland has the talent and depth to be a team that doesn’t have to rely on iso-dominant play calling that focuses solely on the talents of LeBron, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love. With only eleven games left until playoff time, now’s the time to try that out.
