Throughout the Eastern Conference Finals, the Indiana Pacers have unleashed Paul George, one of the NBA's premier wing defenders, on LeBron James and forced the MVP to shoot more often than he likes.
On Thursday night, in a pivotal Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals LeBron took more shots than he had all postseason. The problem for Indiana then? "King" James made 13 of those shots, or 50 percent of them, still proving efficient even when hoisting nearly 30 attempts. He also jacked up seven 3-pointers, making three of them.
He contributed across the board as well, playing the role of Mr. Do-It-All once again for the Heat. By the time the final second ticked off the clock, the Heat had rolled 90-79, and James had 30 points, eight rebounds and six assists on his stat line.
James' superior production has covered for lackluster series from his two main cohorts, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Last night, Wade scored just 10 points, while Bosh had only seven. Miami's second-leading scorer was sometimes-starter Udonis Haslem, who poured in 16 points on 8-of-9 shooting.
George did his best LeBron impression, dropping 27 points on the Heat by going 11-of-19 from the field and 5-of-8 from 3-point land, and notching 11 rebounds to boot. He got little help from his supporting cast though; besides David West and Roy Hibbert no other Pacer scored more than four points. The trip of George, West and Hibbert accounted for all but 13 of Indiana's points.
Despite Indiana's Big Three vastly outperforming Miami's trio on the whole, LeBron's facilitating while simultaneously scoring 30 points was too tough for the Pacers to handle.
Frank Vogel, Indiana's head coach, when asked about how difficult playing the Heat is when James is rolling said, "He was pretty special tonight. There's no question about it. This whole team is special. It's one of the best teams that this league's ever seen and we're enjoying competing against them. We know we can beat them, but we've got to play better than we did tonight."
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