NEW YORK - And just like that, LeBron James has declared the Cavaliers fit to reach and win The Finals.

"I feel like we're ready to make a championship run," James said Saturday morning, ahead of Cleveland's shootaround at Madison Square Garden in preparation to play the Knicks. "I'm confident in this team and I know we can make a championship run, and that's all you can ask for."

On the one hand, no one should expect James to say anything less. The Cavs are in first place in the East, are likely to surpass last season's 53 wins, and James has already reached five consecutive Finals.

On paper, this Cleveland team is stronger than the one James took to the championship round a year ago. James made the same kind of statement in February of 2015 about that team, and the Cavs won two games against Golden State in the Finals without Kyrie Irving or Kevin Love.

So, of course he's feeling good.

On the other hand, of course, are James' cryptic statements and on Twitter and generally strange behavior which raised questions about his commitment to and belief in the organization. His behavior prompted separate talks from coach Tyronn Lue and general manager David Griffin. A general malaise also occasionally grips this team on nights such as Thursday, when the Cavs were beaten by one of the NBA's worst teams in Brooklyn.

Plus, the Warriors could become the best regular-season NBA team in history, and the Spurs, second-best in the West, are a full 10 games better than Cleveland.

"I haven't really thought about last year," James said. "I think it's not factual to think about what happened last year. My concern, I don't like to use the word concern because then everybody think it's like a problem. My only thought now and my preparation is getting these guys prepared to make a long run in the postseason.

"And obviously we've got 10 games left and I'm not going to shortcut that because we still can get better, but my whole mindset is getting these guys ready for the long run. I think we have enough, no I know we have enough and we just got to go out and do it."

James even took to Twitter - yes, Twitter! - Friday night to express a similar sentiment. He said "no" when asked if there was some team dinner or meeting Friday night that prompted the Tweet.

Heading into Saturday's game, James is averaging nearly 30 points on 60-percent shooting this week.

"He makes my job a lot easier because of his competitiveness, the way he gets everyone else involved, the way he can score the basketball, the way he puts his will on the game," coach Tyronn Lue said. "When you have guys like that it makes your job a lot easier."

James and the Cavs play Carmelo Anthony and the Knicks - which carries the sidebar of James hoping to maybe one day play on the same team as Anthony, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Paul.

While the tremors from that comment - published Wednesday by The Bleacher Report - have died down a little, James at Madison Square Garden always draws eyeballs. He's averaging 28.6 points with 6.8 rebounds and 6.8 assists in 21 regular-season games here.

If James goes off tonight and scores at least 31, he would pass Dominique Wilkins (26,668 points) for 12th on the NBA's all-time scoring list.