One Shot to Help Balance History

CLEVELAND -- That would be for Michael Jordan. And for Earnest Byner. And for John Elway. And for Jose Mesa. And for all the years of pain and woe and throbbing heartbreak. A second earlier, all 20,000 fans had been standing in numb horror, feeling the familiar sickness in the stomach as another double-digit lead had drained into something more hideous than Craig Sager's wardrobe.

Why did Sports Illustrated put LeBron James on the cover and jinx the Cavaliers? Why did Charles Barkley describe Cleveland as "the mistake on the lake" and "a dreary ass city" recently? Why were the sporting gods so cruel? Why is the world so mean? Why would the The Shot and The Fumble and The Drive be followed by The Hedo Shuffle, courtesy of Hedo Turkoglu, who just the night before had been out fairly late in a downtown bar?

---

---

Oh, but what they never should forget in this beleaguered town is that they've been blessed by The King, The Chosen One, the true heir to Jordan. In the final seconds Friday night, Turkoglu -- known as the "Turkish Jordan" for reasons I've never quite understood -- had dribbled, stopped, fallen away and popped a 12-foot jumper over Sasha Pavlovic to give the Orlando Magic a 95-93 lead. The Cavs were a tick away from falliing to a 2-0 deficit in the Eastern Conference finals, and in NBA history, 93.5 percent of the teams in such playoff craters have gone on to lose best-of-seven series.

But none of those teams had The LeBronster. Everyone with working brain cells knew the ball was going to James. Yet for some reason, the Magic matched him with Turkoglu instead of, say, the quicker Mickael Pietrus. It gave James just enough time to flash into the clear, take the inbound pass from Mo Williams, step back near the top of the circle and launch a 23-foot prayer above the late-arriving Turkoglu. What followed was a moment that might not offset all of this city's big-moment sports failures yet might be an indication of what's coming in mid-June.

The prayer became a dagger, Cleveland's middle finger to the world, LBJ's answer to The Shot, a 96-95 win that saves a city from despair and the Cavs from likely doom. Nothing is more beautiful in this profession than to watch a city that needs sports -- for its entertainment, its self-esteem, its identity -- finally be able to celebrate something magnificent. As confetti dropped onto the court and the players tackled LeBron in a mob scene, I saw a woman with tears pouring down her face. I saw grown adults dancing in the aisles. I saw a kid pointing at the court and cursing out the Magic. Outside, the police were mobilizing for a downtown party eruption after midnight.

On the court, Williams fell to his knees and took off his headband. "I was stunned. I couldn't move," said James' sidekick, who hasn't played well in the postseason and made just seven of 21 shots. "My reaction was just to fall down. The whole time, I was praying, 'Please, God. Please, God. Something. Something.' "

Maybe there are better places to live in America. Maybe there are a lot better places to live in America. But for now, Cleveland has LeBron James. Even if he ups and leaves for New York next year, the thrill of experiencing his early career improves the quality of life, wouldn't you say?

"Biggest shot I've hit in my career," he said. "That's a shot you'll see for a long time. You watch classic games. Jordan making those shots. Jerry West. Magic Johnson going across the lane against Boston. Even when the game has left you as an individual, you remember those shots. I want to be remembered in that class."



Jordan was on his mind, too. "I was always Jordan making that shot. Because when I was a kid, I wanted to be Michael," he said.

"Clock winding down, take the last shot, the crowd goes nuts. I got my bag of Michael Jordan tricks, I guess. For me, a second is a long time; for others, it's very short. As a kid, you practice those types of moments. You sit in your backyard or in the gym and you go five ... four ... three ... two ... one ... honnnk! You don't have to be in the NBA to know what I'm talking about. To hit a shot at the buzzer at home, in a moment like that ... WOW!

"The reaction from the fans, my teammates ... the loudest it's ever been in this building was when we made the playoffs for the first time. I'd say tonight surpasses that by 10 times. It was unbelievable.

"You couldn't hear anything but the roar. They deserve it. They deserve it."

But James also made it clear that this is HIS time, not Jordan's time. "That guy's not in the league anymore,'' he said, smiling. "The other 23 is on the good side now. That other 23 is gone. We don't have to worry about him anymore."

Said Mike Brown, who has the unique privilege of coaching The King: "LeBron James? Uhhhhh, uh ... Golly. Whoooo. He's an amazing person first and obviously and amazing player. Just to have the wherewithal to have that type of confidence in yourself, to know there's one second on the clock and you're ending this right now -- and if it doesn't end right now, you have big enough shoulders to deal with whatever the outcome is -- not many people can do that. An amazing shot by an amazing player."

His teammates are in awe, too. "I don't know what to say. He was born to do that,'' said Pavlovic, who was inserted into the rotation after not playing in the Game 1 loss and contributed nine big points.

"That's amazing. That is unbelievable."

"I've said all along that we are playing with history in the making,'' Wally Szczerbiak said. "He's going to be the best basketball player ever to touch a ball. Being his teammate and being a part of his growth has been very special for everyone in this locker room. Tonight was just another feather in his cap."

"Option A was LeBron," Williams said. "Option B was LeBron. Option C was LeBron. Option D was Big Game James. And that was Option D that you saw."


As for the opponents, you wonder how the Magic will recover from this emotionally, knowing they can have the game won after 47 minutes and 59 seconds and still lose because James is on the other team. "It was crazy. He threw it up, and it was like watching a real movie," Dwight Howard said. "The ball was spinning and everything. It's going to be rough to go home and watch it over and over again on TV. I know I won't be able to sleep and my teammates won't be able to sleep."

Turkoglu, oddly, suggested afterward that the Magic were in the Cavs' heads. James rejected that premise. "Orlando's not in our head. They're not in our head at all," he said. "It's two really good teams having a really good playoff series."

And to think with 30 seconds left, James had been called for traveling. Yes, traveling -- against a megastar in the final minute of a playoff game. Officials should call traveling in such situations only if they call it in the second quarter of a Kings-Grizzlies game in January. They don't. They rarely do. So why now? To James' credit, he didn't beef about the call, though we'd be hearing about it forever -- The Whistle! -- if the Cavs had lost and not tied the series at 1-1.

"That was the right call," he said.

It was quite refreshing to hear Stan Van Gundy, the piece of work who coaches the Magic, take blame for the loss. Yes, it was his idea to use Turkoglu on James, but he did have his reasons. Correctly, he assumed Brown had called a backdoor lob play for James. Turkoglu took the option away, forcing James to quickly opt for Plan B.

"I'd like to have that last one back from a coaching standpoint," Van Gundy said.

"We did a great job fighting back. Hedo made a great shot. Hedo played the last possession as well as he could play. They were looking for the backdoor lob for LeBron, the same play they ran against Indiana earlier in the regular season. That's what they look for. Hedo took it away, and LeBron popped out. We should have defended it differently. It's crushing enough to lose as a coach, but when you're the guy who could have made a difference, it hurt a lot more."

Why have Hedo on LeBron to begin with?

"I thought he would play the possession solidly. And he did, about as well as he could play it," Van Gundy said. "Second-guess or not, the shot we ended up giving him, nobody is going to get up and block it. Do you really think another guy would have blocked that?"

In victory, Brown defended his coaching counterpart. "Stan was in our huddle. That's what we called, the backdoor lob, and Hedo took it away. That's what created the separation. LeBron is a big, strong guy who had the momentum to create an opening."

If you ever wondered why James always is on TV practicing crazy shots after practice, now you know. "I practice those types of things," he said. "You guys see me. I catch and shoot, do things that may not happen in a game. It happened tonight. When I caught the ball and squared up, I felt great. When the ball was in the air, it looked like it was going in. But the breaks we've been getting so far, there was a chance it wasn't going in."

It did, in a moment even better than his 25-point fourth quarter in Detroit two years ago. "I wouldn't put one ahead of the other," he said.

The biggest shock of the Eastern Conference finals wasn't LeBron's shot or Orlando's theft of Game 1. No, it's Barkley daring to hang out at a nightclub in this city. They hate him here, of course, hardly a shock after he referred to the place as "the mistake by the lake" and a "dreary ass city."

"There's nothing happening in Cleveland, trust me," he said.

Yet there he was the other night, in the VIP section, partying away in the town he can't stand. The fans are obsessed with him, booing him when he's shown on the arena video board and waving signs such as "FALSE WITNESS," which also could be taken as a shot at his recent drunk-driving episode. Not surprisingly, Barkley also is picking the Magic to win the series.

I doubt that now. Count Charles as a witness to the greatest moment of LeBron James' career, with many more miracles ahead.