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| Miami Heat's LeBron James takes part in NBA basketball practice Wednesday, June 12, 2013, in San Antonio. The Heat trail the San Antonio Spurs 2-1 in the best-of-seven games series. Game 4 of the NBA finals series is scheduled for Thursday. |
SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- A day later, LeBron James didn't back down.
When
the Miami Heat were embarrassed by 36 points in Game 3 of the NBA
Finals, James took all the blame and even lauded his teammates for
playing great. Shortly after that 113-77 debacle of a Spurs' victory
ended Tuesday night, James insisted that he would do enough to change
the way the Heat compete in Game 4.
And Wednesday, James' tune was the same.
"I'm
putting all the pressure on my chest, on my shoulders to come through
for our team," James said, virtually echoing what he had vowed the
previous night. "That's the way it is."
That's
not necessarily the same game plan that Heat coach Erik Spoelstra would
prefer, but by now, it's just become assumed that when the stakes are
highest, it's all going to be on James anyway, whether that's the actual
reality or not. If the Heat win Game 4, odds are James will be credited
as the reason why. If they lose Game 4 and go one loss away from
elimination, then it'll be widely considered as James' failure.
"Look,
we have great confidence from our guys and their ability to bounce back
and respond in a big way," Spoelstra said. "And that's all our focus is
the next 24 hours - how do we prepare ourselves to play our best game
of the series tomorrow night. That's the only thing that matters. LJ has
proven himself enough in this league and on the biggest stage. He is
going to ... he'll be better."
When the Heat
arrived Wednesday for practice in San Antonio, after a particularly
difficult-to-stomach film session to recap Game 3, James had his
practice jersey slung over his head, letting the piece of mesh fabric
sway down his back much in the way that a cape would.
Fitting. In Game 4, he might need a hero's effort to save the Heat.
"We're
not worried about LeBron," Heat guard Dwyane Wade said. "He's going to
find his way. He's going to get in a groove. As teammates you try to
figure out a way to get him an easy basket in a breakout, try to get it
back to him, get a lay-up, so he can see the ball go in. As a scorer you
need to see it go in. Besides that, we're not concerned about him at
all."
Strangely, some of the Spurs sound as if they're not concerned about James either.
Danny
Green has had a phenomenal start to these finals, and James' former
Cleveland teammate raised a couple eyebrows after Game 3 when he said
that while the Spurs were executing their plan against him as they would
hope, the reigning and overall four-time NBA MVP was hurting his own
cause as well.
"I'm just saying, we all know
what he's capable of doing," Green said. "I don't know what's going on,
but he's not playing his best basketball right now. It's not just us.
We're doing a decent job of making it tough for him, but I don't know
what's going on. He's not playing LeBron basketball. ... It could be a
number of things. It could be stuff going on behind the scenes."
When told of Green's comments, James smiled.
"I'll be better. I'll be much better tomorrow night," he said.
The
36-point loss matched the largest that James has endured in his career,
and his minus-32 rating was the worst of his 899 previous games. He was
7 for 21 from the field - his shooting has been subpar in every game so
far in this series - and did not get to the foul line, a byproduct of
both the Spurs taking driving lanes away and James shooting the jumpers
than San Antonio is daring him to try.
Spoelstra
said the Heat would find ways on the film to clean up some of the many
issues from Game 3.
Wade had a far more succinct approach.
"As
players I think we figured it out in the game," Wade said. "We're
playing terrible. So the film session just brings it to light a little
more. It's not really much we can learn from that, from the standpoint
of schemes, we just have to do what we do a lot better versus the team.
So film session gives you an opportunity to ... in front of your
teammates, in front of your coaches, to really own it up. Own up to it,
and move on."
And there was plenty for the Heat to own in that film session.
Starters
Udonis Haslem and Mario Chalmers missed all seven of their shots and
did not score. The Heat were outrebounded 52-36, 19-9 on the offensive
end. They gave up a Finals-record 16 3-pointers on 32 attempts, and got
blown out of a game where Tony Parker, Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili were
really quite ordinary.
"There ain't no explanation," Haslem said. "There ain't no excuses."
The way James was talking on Wednesday, it's all-or-nothing time for the Heat.
"It's
just something we've grown over the years, being able to bounce back in
adverse situations," James said. "And no matter the circumstances, this
is going to be probably one of the toughest, because ... we're going
against a team with championship DNA and championship pedigree on the
floor and a must-win. We're going to be ready for it. We're going to
accept the challenge and see what happens."
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