{"id":716846,"date":"2026-06-05T13:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T13:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/716846\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T13:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T13:16:08","slug":"im-not-ok-with-it-lebron-james-was-his-own-harshest-critic-during-his-historic-2015-nba-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/716846\/","title":{"rendered":"“I’m not OK with it” – LeBron James was his own harshest critic during his historic 2015 NBA Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2015 NBA Finals saw the\u00a0Golden State Warriors<\/a>\u00a0end the franchise’s 40-year title drought. It came at the expense of the Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a>, led by the one and only\u00a0LeBron James<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The contrast of styles was apparent from the get-go. While the Warriors played team basketball with lots of ball movement, the Cavs largely relied on LBJ’s brilliance. It almost worked, but curiously, the King was vehemently against that style of play.<\/p>\n

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Borne out of necessity<\/p>\n

The 2015 series would have been a more even-handed affair if not for the injuries to Kyrie Irving<\/a> and Kevin Love<\/a>. Uncle Drew<\/a> suffered a broken kneecap, while K-Love sustained a busted shoulder from the previous series.<\/p>\n

That only left James against the trio of Stephen Curry<\/a>, Klay Thompson<\/a> and Draymond Green<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As it was, there was no way Cleveland was winning with Bron’s usual brand of basketball. There were plenty of moments where he stepped back and let Irving do his thing or ride Love’s hot hand. They couldn’t afford it this time around.<\/p>\n

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The only way to give themselves a chance was to let LeBron take the bulk of the shot attempts. The role players played off his aggressiveness, and the Cavs planned to take it from there.<\/p>\n

That strategy led to some historically unprecedented numbers by James. Through the first four games, the Chosen One averaged over 35 points, 12 rebounds, and eight assists. That included a huge triple-double in Game 2, where he collected a 39\/16\/11 stat line in a win.<\/p>\n

With the series all knotted up at two apiece, was James feeling good about his insane accumulated stats?<\/p>\n

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“I mean, I’m not OK with it. I’m not OK with it. But I’m so outside the box right now\u2026 “[It is] out of my character, but I have no choice\u2026 I don’t like to shoot this much,”\u00a0Bron\u00a0clarified<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What he wasn’t OK with was his plummeting percentages. He attempted an average of over 32 shots per game through the first four, a far cry from the 18.5 he shot every night in the regular season! It’s already a given in basketball that the more shot attempts you get, the more they tank your shooting splits.<\/p>\n

That’s exactly what happened with LBJ. Although he\u00a0became the first person<\/a>\u00a0in league history to lead both Finals teams in points, rebounds, and assists, he connected on less than 40 percent of his attempts, 31 percent on his threes, and just 68 percent at the line.<\/p>\n

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Related: “I tried to look at the business of me first” – Kevin Durant revealed how his move to Golden State wasn’t just for basketball<\/a><\/p>\n

Bron’s conscious effort to be more efficient<\/p>\n

James ultimately attempted 196 shots over a six-game span. That’s over 38 percent of his team’s total field goal tries, and more than the combined output of Curry and Draymond Green (an accumulated 193 attempts between the two).<\/p>\n

As he admitted, this style totally veered away from the structure he wanted to be in. He was more aware of his overall efficiency since his Miami<\/a> days, especially because James was playing alongside two other All-Stars in Dwyane Wade<\/a> and Chris Bosh<\/a>. Now, he had to be LBJ circa 2007 to 2010 all over again.<\/p>\n

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“When you’re a young player, you cast up low-percentage shots, and you’re not really involved with the numbers as much as far as field goal percentage and things of that nature. As I’ve grown, I’ve made more of a conscious effort to become a more efficient player, and I think it’s helped my team’s success over the years,”\u00a0he\u00a0stated<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the situation called for LeBron to be a chucker, which obviously didn’t work. The Warriors figured out how to deal with a one-man army by Game 4 and strung up three consecutive victories to seal the deal.<\/p>\n

But, hey, at least fans got to see what type of numbers prime LBJ would put up if he had the ultimate green light.<\/p>\n

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Related: “You are not going to golf in Cleveland” – Lonzo Ball explains why LeBron James is unlikely to leave\u00a0Los Angeles<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Basketball Network<\/a> on Jun 5, 2026, where it first appeared in the Old School<\/a> section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2015 NBA Finals saw the\u00a0Golden State Warriors\u00a0end the franchise’s 40-year title drought. It came at the expense…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":716847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[259580,49,48,51177,2357,14722,26978,8217,34449,14741,15047,259579,2327,6390,459,259581,82,13596,259582,259583],"class_list":["post-716846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-2015-nba-finals","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chris-bosh","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-draymond-green","tag-dwyane-wade","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-kevin-love","tag-klay-thompson","tag-kyrie-irving","tag-lbj","tag-lebron-james","tag-miami","tag-nba","tag-shot-attempts","tag-sports","tag-stephen-curry","tag-team-basketball","tag-uncle-drew"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/716847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}