Ranking the top 5 NBA Finals games in LeBron James’s career

1. 2018 NBA Finals, Game 1

Sadly, LeBron’s finest Finals performance came in a loss. It seems wrong, but there’s simply no denying the greatness that we witnessed in Game 1 of the 2018 Finals.

With Kyrie Irving injured and the entire Cleveland Cavaliers team struggling, LeBron James put the team on his back in a manner that we’ve never seen before.

Between Irving’s injury and the previous year’s dominant Warriors win, expectations hadn’t been lower for a LeBron-led team since his first Finals when the Cavaliers were decidedly over-matched against the Spurs.

But LeBron refused to lay down.

He was absolutely brilliant throughout the game, scoring 51 points on an incredible 69.2 true shooting percentage while shouldering an unthinkable offensive load. He added eight rebounds, eight assists, a steal, and a block but his scoring prowess was the ultimate story.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr, member of several 90s Chicago Bulls championship teams, perhaps put it best following Game 1:

"“They have a guy who’s playing basketball at a level that I’m not sure anybody’s ever seen before…”"

The ending of the game soured the final result with George Hill missing a free throw and J.R. Smith seemingly forgetting the score and circumstances of the moment. But it couldn’t possibly spoil the performance put on by the King.

His 51 points were good enough for the fifth-highest output in Finals history and he did it while every bit of an all-time great team’s focus was on him. Cleveland may not have won the game, but LeBron cemented his place in history with one of the greatest performances in the history of the Finals.