LeBron James is in the middle of one of the greatest playoff runs in NBA history. Without Kyrie Irving to help take some of the scoring load off of his shoulders, James has been running the entire offense for the Cleveland Cavaliers and posting absolutely incredible statistical lines in the process. He has now scored 40 points in eight separate playoff games this season. Those would be Games 2, 5 and 7 of Cleveland's first round series against the Indiana Pacers, Game 2 of their season against the Toronto Raptors, Games 2, 4, and 6 against the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals, and now, Game 1 of the NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors. Those numbers put him in rarified air in NBA playoff history.

When he crossed the 40-point threshold against the Warriors in Game 1, he officially became only the second player in league history to ever score 40 points in eight playoff games. The first was Jerry West, who astonishingly scored at least 40 points in all six games that he played against the Baltimore Bullets before added two more in the NBA Finals against the Boston Celtics. That record had stood for over five decades. Players scoring 40 points in the playoffs is extremely rare even once, but to do so eight times against the quality of defenses that they face in the postseason is just unheard of.

But almost everything James has done in this postseason has been unheard of. He is currently leading a team without a definitive second superstar against an opponent that has four of them, and so far, the two teams appear to be relatively even. That is a testament to what James can do in the NBA Finals, where he has scored at least 40 points in seven career games. With at least three more games left in the NBA Finals this year, James is almost assured to break West's record. The Cavaliers have played in 19 total playoff games and James has crossed the 40-point line in eight of them. That is a rate of 42 percent, meaning James should be expected to score 40 points at least one more time, twice if the series extends for at least five games beyond this one.

But in the NBA Finals with his legacy on the line, it wouldn't be a surprise to see James even average 40 points per game in this series. Golden State is without their best defender of James in Andre Iguodala currently, as he is recovering from a leg injury that kept him out of most of the Western Conference Finals. Even if he returns, there is no guarantee that he will be healthy enough to pose any sort of threat to James. The NBA's best player is putting on an absolute clinic in the playoffs. Expect more and more records to fall before him.