The Heat-Lakers matchup on Monday night transcended a mere national TV game between two teams in the mid-tier malaise of their respective conferences. That's because it was Dwyane Wade's last game against LeBron James as the Heat superstar plays out the final season in what is sure to be a Hall-of-Fame career. But Bron, being Bron, still got the win, scoring 11 of his 28 points in the final session of a 108-105 win.
Viewers at home knew LeBron was feeling himself when he lined up from the charity stripe in the final frame and informed those around him about just how dominant he's been scoring the ball in the fourth quarter so far this season.
"I'm also leading the league in points per fourth-quarter," he said as he went through his pre-shot motions. As you can tell, he still missed the free throw, one of three such free throws he missed in the fourth (he was 3-for-6 from the stripe in the final quarter, and 3-for-6 from the field, including 2-for-3 from 3-point range).
But he's not wrong about his fourth-quarter scoring. Through 23 games, he's averaging 8.6 points per fourth quarter, the best such mark in the Association as of this writing. Bron's bravado at the charity stripe feels incongruent with what he was doing when you remember he's struggled from the stripe, costing the Lakers a game against the Spurs earlier this year, and later almost costing them another one against the Hawks.
After that near-loss to the lowly Hawks, James admitted "I'm garbage. I suck from the free throw line right now." LeBron is the best player of his generation and the only player in the contemporary game who deserves a Michael Jordan comparison in terms of all-time legacy. Part of why stems from the dual strains of cocky self-confidence and humility. Walt Whitman would say Bron contains multitudes, but that's just a poetic way of calling him human. We forget sometimes.
