With his team facing elimination for the second game in a row Thursday night, LeBron James once again reached deep within himself and delivered a legendary postseason performance, finishing with 41 points, 11 assists and eight rebounds in the Cleveland Cavaliers’ stirring 115-101 Game 6 victory against the Golden State Warriors.
The NBA Finals now shift to Oakland for a seventh and decisive showdown Sunday night.
LBJ is just the fifth player in League history to submit back-to-back 40-point games in a championship series.
Per the Akron Beacon Journal:
His 41-point, 16-rebound effort on Monday evoked memories of his domination against the Celtics. Then he scored or assisted on 27 points during one stretch in the second half Thursday, including scoring 18 straight. It was reminiscent to his first shining moment in the postseason when he scored 25 consecutive points against the Pistons. Given the stage, given that those were merely conference finals and this was a Finals elimination game, this may go down as the finest postseason performance of his career.
Now he has positioned this team for a championship. It’s a Game 7 on the road, but it’s the first time in franchise history the Cavs are four quarters from a title. […] “I’ll take it. It don’t matter to me,” James said about playing such a pivotal game on the road. “Like I told you guys the other day, it’s two of the greatest words in the world and that’s ‘Game 7.’ So I’ll play it anywhere.”
Kyrie Irving shook his head in disbelief when he heard the numbers, when he heard how James took a 73-win team and battered them into chaos. […] “Not many people in the history of sports has said, ‘Everyone get on my back: City, state, team, organization, get on my back and I’m going to carry you. If we win or fail, I’ll take the blame, but I’m going to lead you,” Richard Jefferson said. “He knows how much this means to me. … He is doing this for his teammates. He is doing this for everyone. That is a pressure that I know I personally couldn’t handle. I have a tremendous amount of respect for him taking that on.”
