THE greatest show on earth continued his amazing run yesterday in the National Basketball Association (NBA) playoffs.
LeBron James, the reigning king of world basketball, played his usual leading role to the hilt in masterminding yet again Cleveland’s 128-93 rout of Toronto in Ohio’s Quicken Loans Arena.
The win allowed Cleveland to complete its much-anticipated 4-0 sweep of Toronto, sending the Raptors to yet another shameful exit for the second straight season.
The result xeroxed Toronto’s 4-0 loss in 2017 after dropping a 4-2 decision, also to Cleveland, in 2016.
But what made it more painful was the fact that in suffering its third straight elimination in the playoffs, it happened when Toronto emerged No. 1 in the regular season with the best record of 59-23.
Cleveland was a mere No. 5. But look what the Cavs had achieved thus far: Oust No. 4 Indiana in an epic seven-game struggle before eliminating Toronto via a sweet sweep.
How Cleveland was able to claim two formidable scalps, chiefly credit that to, who else, but LeBron James.
In yesterday’s Game Four alone against Toronto, James played as if he was merely in cruise mode.
Relaxed mostly in his demeanor.
Not forcing things.
Taking one shot at a time.
No rush at all.
Only sporadically did he come up with his spectacular fadeaways, aggressive rebounding and behind-the-back, bounce-to-the-floor basket-producing passes.
So clinical and Picasso-like master pieces were his quiet disposition that in most of yesterday’s fourth quarter minutes, when Cleveland was building 20-plus leads, Cleveland Coach Ty Lue found the luxury to rest his majesty, King James.
Still, at the end of the game, James was waving another double-double of 29 points and 11 assists to go with his eight rebounds.
It marked the third time in Cleveland’s four wins over Toronto that LeBron had accomplished a double-double.
It was only in Game Three that he didn’t achieve that—but only because James elected to attack the basket more in the face of Toronto’s terrific bid to stop a third straight loss from happening; it was in vain.
James grabbed only six rebounds and issued only seven assists in Game Three but then, holy cow, did he not score the winning shot at the buzzer yet again in Cleveland’s 105-103 win over Toronto?
He ended up piling 38 Game Three points, his second highest in the series against Toronto—the highest being his 43 points in Cleveland’s 128-110 Game Two victory on the road.
That 43, embellished with eight rebounds and 14 assists, was a follow-up to LeBron’s triple-double 26-11-13 as Cleveland eked out a 113-112 overtime triumph in Game One that was unfairly dismissed as “a steal of a win” for the Cavs.
But it was a legitimate, crystal-clear vicrory for Cleveland after James issued back-to-back assists that produced successive threes by Kyle Korver and J.R. Smith to give Cleveland a 111-105 lead in overtime.
After Tristan Thompson made it 113-105 for the Cavs with a hook shot with barely two minutes left, the Raptors could barely scrounge for points to absorb the debacle that foretold of omens to come their way.
Seemingly, Cleveland’s Eastern finals opponent would be Boston, which holds a commanding 3-1 lead against Philadelphia.
“I’m gonna get a lot of rest from hereon,” said James, who will be in his eighth straight Eastern Conference finals.
Even kings need to rest.
THAT’S IT Happy birthday to Paco G. Fernandez (May 4) and Migel Antonio “Kuya Biley” R. Mendoza (May 12). And happy 25th wedding anniversary to Freddie and Maricelle Abellar (May 8).