LeBron James is arguably the best player on the planet and he's doing the unthinkable for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
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He's taken an injury-riddled team without two All-Stars and a handful of roster acquisitions to a 2-1 series lead over the 67-win Golden State Warriors.
But when given the opportunity to give James some credit, Stephen Curry opted to focus on himself and his Warriors teammates.
Via Cleveland.com
"I mean, we all know the accolades he has," Curry began. "He's a great player. He's shooting an OK percentage (shaking his hand for effect) in our eyes. He's getting up a lot of attempts, and anybody that's that much of a volume shooter, which he needs to be for his team, he's going to have points. But the timely ones are the ones that killed us.
"The three late in the fourth quarter, certain easy buckets that you allow him to get. But that's not the issue why we're down 2-1 right now. It's the way we're playing on the offensive end, especially to start games. We'll fix that as we try to even the series."
Curry is right, but it's gamesmanship to not give him credit. Anybody other than the guys in the Warriors locker room should be impressed by what James has been able to do.
James has taken 38, 34 and 35 shots over the past three games respectively. He's scored 44, 40 and 39 points in each of the three contests, which isn't exactly efficient.
Yet he's doing ridiculous things on the court, and no one is 'allowing' him to score — he's doing it himself.
But that last section of Curry's quote it telling. The Warriors guard has struggled shooting the ball. As has Klay Thompson for the most part.
Thompson snapped out of it, hitting 14 of his 28 attempts in Game 3 after knocking down just 11 of 30 over the first two games. Curry had his worst game of the series though, hitting just five of his 23 attempts after shooting 20 of 40 over the first two contests.
For the series, the Warriors are shooting just 31 percent from range, down a full eight percent from the regular season. While the Cavaliers defense is stout and Matthew Dellavedova is surely playing out of his mind, Golden State is missing a handful of open shots.
If the Warriors can open things up, and start knocking shots, expect the momentum of this series to shift.
