In Sunday's Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Celtics, LeBron James had an outing to forget.
For the Cavaliers star, though, that's possibly the task he's least capable of accomplishing, and he again showed off his impressive memory after Cleveland's 108-83 loss to Boston.
At the postgame news conference, a reporter noted the Cavs -- having fallen behind by as much as 28 points in the first half -- had closed the gap to 14 entering the fourth quarter, only to give up a 7-0 run to start the period that all but iced the contest. Asked what happened during that decisive stretch, James took the question at face value.
"What happened? The first possession, we ran them down all the way to two on the shot clock [it was actually eight seconds], Marcus Morris missed a jump shot, followed it up, they got a dunk," James replied, and he was just getting started.
The four-time NBA MVP did have a momentary lapse in memory by initially referring to teammate Jordan Clarkson as NBA journeyman Jordan Crawford, but he quickly corrected himself while noting that Clarkson missed a shot.
James' summation of the first few possessions of the fourth quarter ended with him describing Boston's Jayson Tatum as having gone "94 feet" with the ball before using "a Eurostep" to free himself for "a right-handed layup." That was when the Cavs called a "timeout," as James recalled, and he used the pause to signal the end of his narrative, at which point his performance was met with some amused applause.
Unfortunately for James, his performance during the game could produce applause only from Celtics fans, as he scored just 15 points on 5-of-16 shooting, including 0 for 5 from three-point range, in a little over 36 minutes. James did add 7 rebounds, 9 assists and 2 blocks, but he also committed 7 turnovers.
If the lousy outing was a rarity for James, his demonstration of uncanny recall was less so. After a sweep of the Pacers in last year's playoffs, he was asked about the playmaking help he'd gotten from then-teammate Deron Williams and offered this example:
"You saw that one possession where he swung it to me, I hit Channing [Frye], Channing swung it to him, he pump-faked Myles Turner, looked off Paul George, and laid it up."
James then acknowledged what some in attendance were likely thinking at the time, saying, "It's kind of crazy I can replay all the plays in my head, huh?"
In a 2014 story about James' powers of recall, ESPN's Brian Windhorst quoted a childhood friend of the future Hall of Famer as saying, "When you play [the video game] 'Madden' with him now you have to be careful which teams you take, because he will know what your game plans were in the past when you've played with him and he'll pick the opposing team knowing what plays you want to run."
Team Trump?
Israeli soccer club Beitar Jerusalem says it wants to add "Trump" to the team's name.
The club's social media accounts say the team "from now on will be called 'Beitar Trump Jerusalem.' "
The proposal by the club's leadership was announced Sunday, one day ahead of a new U.S. Embassy being inaugurated in Jerusalem.
U.S. President Donald Trump made a campaign promise to relocate the embassy from Tel Aviv. Palestinians also claim east Jerusalem as their future capital city.
The soccer club says "President Trump has shown courage, and true love of the Israeli people and their capital."
Beitar is second in the Israeli league with one game left, and has qualified for next season's Europa League.
Sports on 05/15/2018