





MIAMI – LeBron James told himself: Get up and walk to the sideline. All around him, there were trainers and teammates to lift him up, but his muscles burned, his legs locked and his desperation to defy the pain was met with the body's resistance. He had been standing on his own in the biggest moments of these NBA Finals, rising above everyone else, and his inclination was natural in the closing minutes of Game 4: All these times he had gone down, all this pain and angst and LeBron James had wanted to get back to his feet and keep hurtling toward his championship destiny.



"I wanted to walk to the bench, but my legs wouldn't allow me," James said late Tuesday night.

For the instances in the past when his will, his spirit, his psyche failed James, this was a transformation. Those impediments weren't bringing him to his knees, but instead now served as a means to push him to his feet. Away James had gone to the bench, crumpling onto his back, cramps coursing through his legs. Five and a half minutes left, all hell breaking loose in a telltale Game 4 of these NBA Finals, and the most indomitable body this sport has ever seen betrayed him.

"He's a freak of nature," Udonis Haslem said, "but he's still a human being."

They worked furiously on his legs, unloaded fluids down his throat and finally hurried him back to the scorer's table. All around him, the Heat were making plays to hold back these Oklahoma City Thunder stars, holding on until James could limp back into this 104-98 victory, and summon the strength for one moment to punctuate the victory, the championship coronation coming for him.

Twenty-four feet away, the shot clock bleeding down and those wobbly legs secured James as the ball left his fingers for a 3-pointer to make it 97-94, make it the Heat's game for good, make everything end in the kind of neat, tidy bow of what's turning into one of the grandest MVP performances in Finals history. James had gone for 26 points, 12 assists and nine rebounds, and the final furious minute had to be played with James on the bench, with Mario Chalmers closing out the Thunder and a spectacular 43 points out of Russell Westbrook. In the end, James' beleaguered legs collapsed beneath him as he tried to stand and cheer that dizzying, delirious ending out of Chalmers.

[Related: Russell Westbrook dampens stellar game with terrible foul late in Game 4]

For the way James had carried these Heat, they carried him on Tuesday night. They lifted him into the air, marched him to the sideline and turned those last few minutes into a referendum of how badly they wanted to return the favor to him. Now, Miami has thrust itself into a 3-1 series lead, and it'll have the chance on Thursday night to be champions.

This wasn't Willis Reed or Isiah Thomas. He simply had cramps. Nevertheless, this was still the framing of a moment for LeBron James. His moment, and he had earned it. In his theater on the shores of Biscayne Bay, this was the ultimate command performance. As much as anything, this was the imagery that leaves an imprint for everyone when recalling his breakthrough championship season: James goes down on the basketball court, but no longer stays there.

There's something physically indomitable about him, and that's why it's jarring to see him stay down. He had pushed and pushed, controlling the action with the passes and shots, with rebounds and stops, at a turbo speed. Before the game, James had told his teammates: "You should be totally exhausted after this game," and now he had fully embodied it.

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