There was a lot of doubt about the surrounding cast around LeBron James during the Cleveland Cavaliers’ series against the Indiana Pacers. It seemed at that point that the Cavs were going to go as far as James carried them.
For James though, he knew what his teammates could provide, and never lost any faith in them.
“It’s all action to me,” James told ESPN after the Game 4 victory. “I don’t get caught up in that. But I knew mentally, maybe, what was going on in their head. But for me, it’s about, I’m going to show them how much I trust them and how much I believe in them. But it’s nothing that I had to say verbally.”
After the struggles against the Pacers, Kevin Love and the rest of the supporting cast stepped up in a big way. Love looked back to his old ways and appeared to be back as the second-in-line to The King. Love averaged 20.5 points per game against the Raptors compared to the 11.4 points he averaged against the Pacers.
James also said he thought his teammates were buried alive by the media, but still he believed in them.
“At the end of the day, I understand a series isn’t won until you win four, so me, personally, my confidence never wavered,” James said. “It’s just who I am. I believe in what I bring to the table and what I can provide to the team, and I believe in my teammates. So as everyone was burying my teammates alive throughout that first-round series, I just continued to tell them, ‘Listen, we can’t win without each and every one doing their job and being as great as they can be,’ and I continued to preach that. So it’s impossible for me to lose confidence in our ballclub, no matter what the stakes are or where we’re down, because if I do that, then where are we going to go from a team aspect?”
