LeBron James Needs More Help as Magic Cramp Style

CLEVELAND -- Suddenly, the LeBron puppet was speechless. So were the mortified fans inside a famously raucous arena in a sports-cursed, economy-blighted town, where THIS was not supposed to be happening. Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals was ticketed as another chapter in a coronation, a poof of resin in the air followed by another romp by the Cavaliers, a prelude to a LeBron James vs. Kobe Bryant matchup that already is being overhyped on vitaminwater commercials as "The Great Debate."

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Maybe a better idea is for everyone to just shut up. And concentrate on the shocking scenes from Wednesday night, where your hero was Rashard Lewis, your winners were the Orlando Magic and your resident superhero was last seen crouched over in pain, blood gushing from his left knee as he rolled up his shorts and clutched his right thigh. Turns out James had cramps and was able to walk off the court on his own, but the symbolism was powerful as midnight approached in Quicken Loans Arena. Here was the most dominant athlete in sports right now -- the unstoppable, 270-pound megaforce, a man-child on a maniacal mission to win an NBA championship -- not only losing his first game of the postseason but looking physically vulnerable and spent.

"I'm not injured. I'm not hurt. It's not an ankle, not a knee," James said after the memorable 107-106 loss, in which he monstrously produced 49 points, eight assists, six rebounds, three blocked shots and two steals in 41 minutes and 14 seconds of spectacular -- but futile -- basketball theater. "If you've ever played sports before, when you catch a cramp, your body tells you when you're ready to move. If it's not ready to move, you don't move."

The ball wasn't moving, either, as the Cavs gradually blew an early 16-point lead and allowed 29 more points than their previous playoff average. Brilliant as LeBron was, the series opener was a reminder that the cast around him is imperfect. The Cavs, benefiting from nine days of rest, started as if prepared to blow up the Magic. With James distributing the ball and getting the entire group involved, the place was rocking, prompting an ESPN columnist to ask me, "Can the Lakers even touch these guys?" There was a LeBron tomahawk dunk over Superman himself, Dwight Howard, who had thrown down an early dunk that broke the 24-second clock and prompted a nine-minute delay while temporary clocks were wheeled in. There was a LeBron rejection of Howard, followed by a fast break that led to a James three-pointer. Forget the Lakers. How would these guys stack up against the greatest teams ever?



Problem was, after Mo Williams hit a magical 75-foot shot to end the first half, the Cavs seemed to believe the same hype. While they were shutting themselves down, the maligned and mouthy Stan Van Gundy was employing motivational tactics in the Orlando locker room. The ongoing Nike campaign surrounding James, of course, involves Cleveland fans being his "Witnesses." T-shirts of several varieties are sold at the concession stands. A nine-story-high mural is on the side of an old building across the street. Van Gundy, a piece of work who spends way too much time reading Magic-related stories on the Internet and was attacked by Shaquille O'Neal as "a master of panic," chose to work the "Witnesses" angle.

"Coach pretty much got into us at halftime," said Howard, the gifted big man and physical specimen who criticized Van Gundy in the Boston series for not getting him enough touches. "He said we've got to cut this lead in half by the end of the third quarter and make it a game in the fourth quarter. He told us, 'We are all Witnesses.' And it really motivated us when he said y'all playing like Witnesses. He has a great way of motivating us. Right there, that brought some fire out of us."

Said James, smirking: "That's called reverse psychology. He was telling his guys to play harder and don't worry about [James'] name -- you guys are in the NBA for a reason. You guys hear Stan all the time in timeouts. You know how he is. He's funny."

Whatever he said, it worked. The Magic dominated the paint, with Howard contributing 30 points and 13 rebounds. They were fueled by their talented shooters, namely Lewis, Hedo Turkoglu and Mickael Pietrus. They scored at will against one of the better defensive teams of recent NBA times, while the Cavs were relying on ... all LeBron, all the time. Williams is expected to deliver consistent performances as his sidekick, but he hit only 6 of 19 shots, including a late three-pointer that maintained a flicker of life. Delonte West, too, struggled on a 4-for-13 shooting night. As the night bled into an inevitable mess, you could feel the energy sucked out of the arena, the familiar "Oh, no" syndrome creeping into northeast Ohio.

In an entertaining barrage of shots and counter-shots in the final minutes, the killer was made by Lewis, he of the $118 million contract. James had given the Cavs the lead with 25.6 seconds left by taking the ball at Howard, who picked up his sixth foul, and completing a three-point play for a 106-104 lead. But when Cavs coach Mike Brown used big men to defend the oncoming three-pointer by the league's best deep-shooting team, Lewis was open long enough to shoot the ball over Anderson Varejao's extended arm and nail the trey with 14.7 seconds left. In the end, James had an apparent chance underneath the basket for the win, but chose to dish the ball to West, who missed. A jump ball with one second left ended up in the hands of Williams, who just missed what would have been a historic buzzer-beater.

"They hit us first. But we hit back," Lewis said. "We kept fighting and we never gave up."

"Rashard gave me three winks on the bench, saying he was going to hit a big three," said Howard, who yelled all night at his teammates to play harder and showed strong leadership. "This team never quits. Everybody is counting us out as a team, and we believe if we play Magic basketball for 48 minutes, we can beat anybody. When we run, defend and rebound, we win a lot of games. That's what we have to do to win this series."

No, the good people of Cleveland won't be chauffeured in stretch limos to their first title in a major sport since 1964, when Jim Brown, sitting courtside, helped the Browns to an NFL crown. For now, anyway, they'll be forced to sweat and freak as usual while wondering if James will have enough help from his supporting cast to avoid another ignominious sports ending for the city. It's much too early to coin a "The" phrase -- in the tradition of The Shot, The Drive and The Fumble -- but to see James play so wonderfully while his teammates mostly struggled jogs visions of Michael and the Jordanaires in the late '80s. Remember how long it took them to win a championship? Remember all the nights when Jordan had to score 45, 50 points and the others were Invisi-Bulls?

"My statistics don't mean anything when it ends in a loss," James said. "What I tried to do was give us an opportunity to win. That's all I can do as an individual. You've got to try and find a way to will games away when they start to get away. We should have lost giving a team 55 percent [shooting] from the field. A team shooting 55 percent on our court, that's unacceptable for all of us. We know that. That's not how we play basketball.

"Offensively, we were stagnant at times. Maybe it was because I got back to the one-on-one play I had in the past. But I felt I had it going individually."

LeBron James, apologizing for a 49-point show? Sitting beside him in the interview room, Williams interrupted. "I don't think him going one-on-one was the factor. I think he had it going," he said. "That's part of our offense, for him to attack his man. I think the key -- the biggest key to the game -- was myself. I have to take pressure off that guy. I'm looking at the stats here, and I'm looking at Dwight, Rashard and Hedo, and those three guys were terrific tonight. And I look at myself -- 6-for-19. LeBron went 20 of 30 from the field. I don't care, he can go one-on-one all he wants. I got 19 shots. It wasn't him."

It's good to see someone own up to a loss. It shows the unique chemistry and unity the Cavs have forged. The bigger questions are whether Williams, West and the bench -- do they have a bench? -- can rise up offensively and whether anyone can slow down Howard defensively. "This is the first major adversity we have faced," said Brown, whose ability to make adjustments will be tested the next two days. "I have great confidence in trust that we'll be able to bounce back. This is good for us. I didn't expect to go undefeated in the playoffs."

"No one said it's gonna be easy," James said. "It's one game. If we look at it as one game, we'll be fine. If we think the world is coming down on our heads, we're gonna get beat pretty bad in Game 2."

Lose Game 2? Then we'll start considering potential "The" phrases in Cleveland town.

Early leader: The Cramp.