LeBron James started Tuesday night's Game 4 poorly by picking up four quick fouls, but bounced back in the second half to finish with a total of 34 points. His performance was much better than Game 3 when he scored an ugly 11 points, including nothing in the fourth quarter.
While there's no point in looking back now, it's still interesting to hear Richard Jefferson's comments after Game 4 about why James played so poorly in the previous game. Speaking to Fox Sports Ohio in his "Was It Something I Said" segment, the Cavs teammate revealed James was likely dealing with a sickness.
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Jefferson mentioned how fellow teammate Deron Williams missed shootaround with an illness, and after that things "started clicking" in James' head that he probably had the same bug.
“I know he won’t talk about it, so I’ll give my big guy a shout. Deron Williams missed shoot around this morning because he had like a little bug, really lethargic, had no energy. And I think that’s what ‘Bron had. And sometimes these little bugs can go around. And [James] was like, dude when Deron didn’t show up to shoot around, it kind of started clicking in his head. Because for him it was like, 'I don’t know why I was so lethargic, why I had no energy, I had nothing.' And so, these little things happen. [There] was no panic. Look, he was lethargic, they hit a bunch of tough shots, if Marcus Smart doesn’t go 7-for-10 from three, then we’re not even talking about it."
James appeared to be fine in Game 4, even though it wasn't quite his best game, it was still the second-best performance of the night behind only Kyrie Irving. But the thought he could have been sick in Game 3 would explain why his stats look so much different from everything else he's done this postseason.
And as Jefferson said, don't expect James to talk about it on his own. He's the type of athlete who would say there are no excuses, and he needs to get better. He said as much Tuesday before the game by saying, "I'm focused on the present, not the past." There's also a chance he didn't want to deal with the comparison to Michael Jordan's flu game.
The Cavs are now one win away from a third-straight appearance in the NBA Finals against the Warriors.
