LeBron James' first-round performance against the Indiana Pacers was historically good. He did literally everything on the court, helping his Cleveland Cavaliers sweep yet another playoff opponent. James simply destroyed the Pacers and he made it look easy as he put up some incredible numbers. LeBron's performance was praised by many NBA fans and analysts, but Skip Bayless once again criticized him.
Bayless has been the biggest critic of LeBron James' game for a few years now, and he is simply not giving up. Even though criticizing LeBron doesn't make much sense considering what he did in the first round and how amazing he was, Skip Bayless simply ignores all the good things about James, and he focuses on his weaknesses.
Beside it, Bayless said James was lucky to not be playing against the Miami Heat or the Chicago Bulls, because they would cause a lot of trouble for him.
Skip Bayless doesn't give credit to LeBron
Despite his amazing performances against the Pacers, Bayless gives no credit to LeBron James and all the effort he put into those games. James averaged 32.8 points, 9.8 rebounds and 9.0 assists per game during the series, and he also shot 53.3 percent from the field and 45 percent from the long range. Before LeBron, no player in the history of the NBA had averaged these numbers in the playoffs, yet this isn't enough for Bayless.
Instead of praising the 32-year old small forward, Bayless only focused on James' weaknesses, such as free throw shooting.
While it's true that LeBron was a horrible free throw shooter in the series, converting only 57.9 percent of his shots from the charity stripe, it is also true that he did everything else incredibly well, and he more than made up for his missed free throws.
Bayless claims James is not clutch
Cleveland Cavaliers did not look like a championship team in a few quarters of the series, and they had troubles closing the games out.
However, James was consistently good and he helped them win games thanks to his big shots in the clutch period. Despite this, Bayless still claims that James was not clutch, even though the stats say otherwise. "Paul George makes LeBron James look clutch, because George is a poor man's LeBron," Skip Bayless said when commenting James' clutch performance.
"The king of Akron is not a closer," added Bayless.
When talking about a historic comeback the Cavaliers had in game 3, Bayless gave no credit to LeBron James for helping Cleveland turn a 26-point deficit into a win. Instead, he blamed Paul George for going 0-for-5 in the third quarter. George's struggles were obvious, but his poor performances did not make James any better, as he was constantly dominating the Pacers.
