This dunk isn’t anything remarkable. But considering the players involved in the play above and the fourth quarter incident that tilted Tuesday’s matchup between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Utah Jazz to the former’s favor, it looms large in explaining the game’s outcome.
LeBron James is the NBA’s premier finisher in the paint. He jumps over defenders, swoops past defenders and goes right through defenders with ease of which the league has never seen before. Rudy Gobert, meanwhile, is basketball’s best rim-protector. He’s impossibly long, surprisingly explosive and uses his supreme physical gifts to force opposing players into league-worst 30.9 percent shooting at the rim.
James and Gobert, basically, are peerless at what they do best. They’re the NBA’s equivalent of an unstoppable force and an immovable object. And except on this slam early in the first quarter, the immovable object was winning – until he was sidelined when the game hung in the balance.
Gobert turned his ankle midway through the fourth quarter as Utah led Cleveland 98-96. Though he tried to walk it off and even briefly returned to action after a short stint on the bench, his absence proved the Jazz’s biggest detriment in their hard-fought 118-114 loss to the Cavaliers at Quicken Loans Arena.
Is it a coincidence that James took over when the crux of Utah’s league-leading defense wasn’t on the floor? Yes and no. The four-time MVP’s stint from the time Gobert left the game to just above the two-minute mark was basketball bravura – and it mostly came without scoring.
There was James knocking the ball out of Gordon Hayward’s hands to get his team an extra possession when it was down one. He ripped an offensive rebound away from Trevor Booker on the other end before leading the break and finding Richard Jefferson for an easy layup to put Cleveland ahead 101-98. He went by Alec Burks for an uncontested lefty finish on the Cavaliers’ next trip down the floor, and ended his game-deciding spree by sliding in front of Rodney Hood to take a charge on the Jazz’s ensuing possession.
It was dominance in the form that only James could produce, and the strongest indicator yet this season that he remains the league’s all-around best player. When the 30-year-old flips the switch as his team needs him most, he still does things nobody on the planet can duplicate.
But would James have even done so had Gobert not tweaked his ankle? Cleveland turned a one-point deficit to a five-point lead in just over 100 seconds by the time the 7’2 Frenchman walked off his sprained ankle and returned to the game. Who’s to say James didn’t sense an opportunity when he saw his biggest foil hobble to the sidelines and react accordingly?
There’s no way to know for sure, and the Cavaliers’ superstar certainly deserves immense credit for his crunch-time performance irrespective of Gobert’s whereabouts. After all, James only scored two points during that mesmerizing stretch; it’s not like he attacked the rim with successful abandon to grab his team an insurmountable lead.
Hopeful Utah fans across the country, though, are no doubt wondering just how different this game might have been if Gobert hadn’t been forced to leave it. And frankly, we wish the Stifle Tower had been able to continue, too. Basketball is best when the teams playing it have the chance to maximize their collective individual ability, and that’s only possible when their top players are on the floor.
Either way, Cleveland’s victory serves as a helpful reminder of just how great James is when the going gets tough. And the next time these teams face-off, here’s hoping Gobert is available to try and prevent him from reaching that exalted level.
