He never beat the Celtics, he did eventually beat Pistons and of course I wasn’t even born then so I don’t remember how good they were but I doubt it was at a level of current Warriors plus he had a much better supporting cast at Bulls at that point than LeBron had at Cavs this year. Bulls without Jordan still went to conference semifinals twice, remove LeBron from Cavs and they don’t even win 30 games. Hell, they probably don’t even win 25.
When LeBron actually had someone to play with at Cavs and Warriors did not overload their roster with Durant he got them to come back from 3-1 down in the Finals to claim the title. The year before he made their team competitive against Durant-less Golden State despite not having Love and Irving around him (I think he would have won that series with them). It’s only for the last two years that thing have gone south and it’s fully understandable considering he first had to face Warriors who added a top 5 player to the best roster in the league while Cavs stood still and then he lost his Robin to Celtics the following season.
He should have probably played a little less amazing in one of the previous rounds and get knocked out by Pacers or Celtics in game 7. At least people would not be blabbering about him destroying his legacy because he lost to a much superior team again.
I’ve already stated multiple times that the criticism isn’t because he lost, he had a historic playoffs after all. I’m comparing their fight and mentality. No point going on about whether MJ could have beaten these Warriors since we’ll never know. But we can compare their mindset in the face of adversity. Lebron apparently injured himself (punching a board) due to frustration after losing game 1. That’s not what a leader should do, he mentally lost the series at that moment.
It required more mental toughness to beat those Pistons than these Warriors. Their sole game plan was to pretty much try to physically and mentally intimidate (if not injure) MJ on every play (Mahorn and especially Laimbeer making Pachulia and Draymond seem like angels, and their leader, Isiah Thomas, being the ultimate instigator). Their play could probably have been deemed grounds for physical assault nowadays, but they did everything to get in their opponents’ heads. A team of hall of famers (coached by the great Chuck Daly) who took the mantra,“do whatever it takes to win,” to a whole nother level.
As for Kyrie, Lebron couldn’t work things out with him for whatever reason, so not having that third star is partly on him.
Sixth on defensive win shares wasn't just for these finals though, it included all the games he played in. I know he got help from his team mates but that's how a defense is supposed to work. In the Houston series in particular their strategy was to try and go at Steph at every turn especially in the early games until they found it wasn't working so well. I'm not saying he's Draymond or Kawhi but the problem he has is that he's generally the worst defender the Dubs have on the floor at any particular time not because he's a bad defender but because Draymond, Klay, KD and iggy are so damn good. Compared with your average NBA guy he's way above average.
Nah, I’m not discrediting his effort on defense, he did well. Just pointing out Lebron could have taken better advantage of that matchup in this series imo. I wouldn’t trust him to lockdown a premier player in a game of one on one, but he does enough in the Warriors’ system.