The 2007 Cleveland Cavaliers squad is better than they’re given credit for
By Chad Porto
LeBron James’ 2007 NBA Finals run isn’t impressive
The 2007 Cleveland Cavaliers as a team were great, but once the playoffs came, they did more to help win than people give them credit for. Fans and critics cite LeBron James’ play as the reason for their success, but James wasn’t the unstoppable force many falsely remember him to be. In fact, many times it was his team that bailed him out.
The talk about James’ 2007 NBA Finals run is two-fold. The first is that he didn’t have any help, which is categorically false. They were a defensive-minded team and they succeeded at it. The second claim is that James’ was super impressive in that run. Another bald-faced lie that the media cooked up.
During that playoff run, James only faced one team with a winning record in the NBA Playoffs; the Detroit Pistons. The Pistons (53) had just three more wins than the Cavs (50) and were no longer the superpower they were just three years prior when they won the NBA Championship. The big difference between that team in 2004 and this team in 2007 was that the ’07 team lacked Ben Wallace. The Pistons’ best defender and the core piece to their iconic defense.
Wallace had left for Chicago, and his departure hurt the team. Almost as bad as losing championship-winning head coach, Larry Brown, who also left the team after the Pistons’ title win. Replacement coach Flip Saunders did his best, but he didn’t have the same defense that Brown did and the lack of offense on the team held them back. Keep in mind that, while the Pistons in 2007 had the 2nd best opponent points per game at 91.2, in 2004 when they won the title, they were first with 84.3.
The Pistons’ offense wasn’t good enough to make up for that slight dip in defensive production. You simply can’t replace Wallace.
The Cavs also lucked out playing the New Jersey Nets (41-41) in the second round. The Nets were a three man-team following the subsequent career-altering injury to Nenad Kristic. Without their defensive anchor, the Nets didn’t stand a chance. They didn’t have the depth to compete without (or really with Kristic) and it showed.
And while the order the Cavs played these teams is reversed, the Cavs started off the playoffs with the biggest of breaks; against the Washington Wizards (41-41), who were down their first and third-best players in Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler. Much like Kristic, the injury to Areans would be career-altering, and he’d never return to his All-Star form. The lack of Arenas and Butler allowed the Cavs to dominate the Wizards. A team that had given the Cavs fits in the past.
Despite breezing through the first two rounds, by the time the Pistons were up, James struggled at times. The first two games saw James shoot just 35% from the floor, with only one three-pointer attempted. In Game Six, the closeout game, James was even worse, going just 3-11.
It was Daniel Gibson who carried James, going 7-9 on the day from the floor, while going a perfect 5-5 from three-point. He finished with 31 points and single-handily closed out the series. Clearly, the Pistons could get to James, and it’s very possible, if not likely, that the Pistons beat the Cavs in a seventh game. After all, the Pistons had a regular season record of 3-1 against the Cavs, with their lone loss, at home, coming in over time. On the year, they were a 3-2 home record against the Cavs during the regular and postseason.
If the Pistons holding James back wasn’t a sign that this wasn’t the one-man show many claimed it to be, then of course there was the 07 Finals against the San Antonio Spurs. They dominated James. Not the Cavs, mind you, just James. James shot 35% from the floor, 20% from three, and under 70% from the free-throw line.
Drew Gooden, the team’s power forward, shot 50% from the floor and 87.5% from the free-throw line. Gibson shot 44% from the floor and 31% from three, and 100% from the free-throw line. James was seventh out of nine players on the Cavs (who played in all four games) in effective field goal percentage. The only players who shot worse than James were Donyell Marshall and sadly, Zydrunas Ilgauskas.