Coming soon to an ABC station near you

As a response to my post yesterday where I linked to TrueHoop's breakdown of the Cavs-Spurs series, or more specifically, the LeBron James-Spurs matchup, here is a link to Bill Simmons' column yesterday where he takes more pro-Spurs stance.

Witness protection program

I was at the AT&T Center for game 5 of the Spurs-Jazz series on Wednesday night, but unfortunately, there's nothing more to say except the Spurs took that game. They jumped out early and never looked back, something they don't do enough. The real story during the conference finals has been the Cavs-Pistons series though.

These are slowly becoming the King James version of the playoffs. I wrote before game 2 of this series that I thought LeBron James was finally going to show us something special. Well, I was one game off. He did in game 3. And in game 4. And even more so last night in game 5. As you can read at any sports site, that was truly a performance to be cherished.

You can credit Detroit's lack of defense at the rim for part of that (who would've thought they'd miss Ben Wallace this much?), but mostly it was LeBron. All LeBron. You don't need to know the statistics; as incredible as they are, they don't begin to tell the story.

The work isn't done for the LeBron and the Cavs, they still have to win one more game against a better team. But if there's one player who can take down a team, it's him. And even if he doesn't, we'll remember these three games for what they are: special.

There were no games last night, so what the hell am I going to write about?

That is the one drawback to the games getting deep into the playoffs, the lack of games played. Very rarely since October have there been nights where there have been no basketball games played. So what do I do? Well, I write about tonight's game.

But there's a problem to that to. Everybody is writing about tonight's game. And it seems everybody has the same idea. Right after I decided what I was going to write about, I read Scoop Jackson saying the same thing, although, much more eloquently. And Sam Rubenstein at SLAMonline had pretty much the same idea too, although his relates to LOST.

It comes down to this. LeBron James had his team in a position to win on Monday night against the Pistons with not his best game. But at the same time, Chauncey Billups and Tayshaun Prince for the Pistons had bad games too. You can't expect that two games in a row.

LeBron has also had a fairly quiet postseason. And I don't mean quiet like Tim Duncan quiet, where nobody notices. I mean quiet like people are expecting more from him.

And yes, I do realize he's averaging almost 25 points per game along with 8 rebounds and 8 assists per game during the playoffs. But these are the Eastern Conference Finals now. He's four wins away from the NBA Finals. He's playing one of the toughest teams in the entire NBA. People are expecting something special from him on his conference's biggest stage.

People are expecting one of those performances from him where years down the road, they remember where they were and what they were doing that night. LeBron James is the type of player who inspires those expectations in people.

I believe LeBron James knows this.

And I think (I hope) tonight is the night he delivers.

Down with the King?

A lot of people are on LeBron's case today. You know what? I'm not. I'm going to break it down for you:

• Donyell Marshall is a very good three-point shooter.
• Donyell Marshall was wide-the-hell open.
• LeBron is a great passer.
• LeBron had about three good-to-great defenders coming at him when he got to the lane.
• The old saying is you go for the tie at home and you go for the win on the road. Well, the Cavs were on the road.
• Calm the f*ck down. If Marshall hits the three, the Cavs win and everybody is talking about what a great decision LeBron made to pass the ball.
• I've heard people say that Michael Jordan would've taken the shot. I seem to remember Money hitting Steve Kerr and John Paxson for game winning jumpers in his playoff career.

The draft lottery is tonight and the future decade for several franchises could be decided tonight, good or bad. My God I'm glad the Spurs are in the playoffs; I couldn't deal with that stress. But I'm excited to see what happens.

I'll be at game 2 of the Spurs-Jazz tonight and I'll watch the lottery there. I'll have my thoughts from both the lottery and game here tomorrow.