About that mask — a black carbon fiber one to protect his broken nose — impacting LeBron James’ shot… not so much.
Call him Bane. Or Batman. Or the Phantom of the Opera. Or Hannibal Lector. To me LeBron looked like LeBron — he dropped 31 points (his fifth straight game over 30) on 13-of-19 shooting powering Miami to an easy 108-82 win over the reeling New York Knicks Thursday night in Miami, and also on national television.
LeBron didn’t look so much like a guy worried about his nose as much as he looked rested, like a guy who just had a week off. He was in attack mode from the second he stepped on the court and went 10-of-11 at the rim on the night — something aided by just lazy, sad transition defense by the Knicks. If you miss shots and don’t get back in transition against the Heat… well, it looks a lot like this game. The Heat had a transition lay-up line at points.
LeBron also got help. Dwyane Wade had 23 points on 10-of-13 shooting and reminded everyone that when Wade and LeBron are both clicking there may not be another team in the NBA that stands a chance. Ray Allen Norris Cole and Mario Chalmers each had 11.
Carmelo Anthony would have loved some help.
Once again he played well — 24 first-half points on his way to 29 on the game on 20 shots. He carried the Knicks offense for stretches, including a 21-10 Knicks run to close out the half that cut lead to five at the break. You can’t really ask more of the man.
But he was alone on an island. Whether Raymond Felton was distracted or just terrible is up for debate, but he was 1-of-7 shooting. Tim Hardaway Jr. was 2-of-15. Pablo Prigioni was scoreless. Amar’e Stoudemire was -30. The Knicks as a team were 4-of-23 from three. Thing is for much of the game the Knicks really did give a good effort, they were just outclassed.
The Heat are starting to round into the championship form we expect, the Knicks are coming apart at the seams. All that’s really left is for Knicks fans to start riding the “what will Carmelo Anthony do this summer?” roller coaster, which will have a lot of ups and downs, twists and turns before we get to July.
If he keeps playing like this, LeBron can wear that mask as long as he would like.
