TORONTO -- LeBron James says he has nothing more to prove in the NBA.

"What else do I have to prove?" James told cleveland.com Friday, after the Cavs had just ripped the Raptors' souls out of their chests in Game 3, 115-94. James scored 35 points in the game, 13 in the fourth quarter.

"Seriously, what else would I have [to do]?" James said. "I've won championships, I won my first one and I've won for my teammates, I came home and won. There isn't anything I have left to prove."

James knows he has answered every question, met every challenge to define his legacy as one of the NBA's very best. But if it sounds like James is on his way out of basketball, he isn't. Not even close. Nor is he playing like it.

Through seven playoff games -- all wins -- James has scored 240 points. That's the most since Kobe Bryant scored 240 through the first seven in 2008.

James is averaging 34.3 points, 9.0 rebounds and 7.3 assists for the playoffs and is shooting .566. Heading into Friday's game, he was already enjoying one of the finest starts to a postseason of anyone in history, and maintained that pace in Game 3.

"This also my oldest start to a postseason, too," he said.

The conversation grew out of an observation he made about teammate J.R. Smith, who has essentially changed his game this postseason to be a defender first. Smith took five shots and made three Friday (all 3-pointers), while the guy he guarded, Demar DeRozan, scored 37. But this was a discussion about more than a single game.

"It's all about winning for him now," James said. "That's all he cares about. He's won a championship, he's made some money and now he can take care of his family. All that's left for him is winning."

From there James was asked how liberating it can be for a player to only have to worry about winning? When money and points and playing time and any number of other things that can bother a professional athlete melt away?

"If you're not in a place where you can win, where you might not have the opportunity, then that might not be what it's about for you," James said. "For me, I've always won. Ever since I started playing this game, my first year in youth (basketball), we went 6-0 and won the championship. And then we won it again."

James has a net worth of $275 million, according to Forbes. His first Nike contract was worth at least $90 million, maybe $100 million. Now he has a lifetime deal with Nike, worth $1 billion or more.

He was asked when he stopped worrying about money as a player, if he ever did.

"The only thing I worried about when it comes to money was not to go broke," he said. "It wasn't about how much do I need to earn, it was keeping what I have, saving what I have. Where I came from (as a child), I'm not going back there."

James is 32. He won three NBA championships, including last year's for the hometown Cavs. He's a four-time MVP. He said he stopped jotting down personal goals for the season on his cell phone. Because, again, what else is there to prove?

But James also said he still has sleepless nights, even now, while the Cavs are steamrolling through the first two rounds of the playoffs. He's averaging 36.3 points and is shooting 60 percent in this series. He's knocked down 8-of-15 3-pointers, and, get this, is 37-of-45 from the foul line, for an .822 shooting percentage. During the regular season he shot a career-worst .674 from the stripe, and vowed to shoot better in the playoffs.

If it's sunk in by now that James feels he has nothing left to prove, and is yet playing arguably as well as he ever has, at age 32 in his 14th season, you're believing that James is playing free. Without the burden of expectations and goals and promises unfulfilled.

But that's not it. Otherwise, James says, he'd be sleeping through the night, every night. And when that happens, he said, it would indeed be time to retire.

Nor does playing free, with nothing to prove, jive with his stated chase of Michael Jordan, who won six championships to his three.

"I know what you're saying, but I'm not free, because my passion for this game is so huge, it's enormous, and my desire to be great is ridiculous," James said. "My desire to be great, to be great at this game I love so much, that trumps everything else."