lebron james has the most career points in the nba finals.
lebron james has the most career points in the nba finals.
who has the most career points in the nba finals?
lebron james
the 2011 heat finished with a 58–24 record, third best in team history and a second overall seed, behind the chicago bulls, who had the nba's best record. additionally, the heat finished 5th in the nba in attendance with 810,930 behind mavericks, cavaliers, trail blazers, and bulls in that order (100.9% capacity). the heat faced the philadelphia 76ers in the first round of the nba playoffs and eliminated them in five games. in the eastern conference semifinals, the heat defeated their rival boston celtics in five games, winning a dramatic overtime game 4 in boston and a come-from-behind game 5 victory at home to finish the series. in the eastern conference finals, the heat faced the chicago bulls. after being blown out by 21 points by the bulls in game 1, the heat took home-court by defeating chicago in game 2, and winning their home games 3 and 4, the latter of which came in overtime. in game 5 in chicago, the heat made a historic comeback; after being down 77–65 with 3:14 left, the heat went on an 18–3 run to win, 83–80, capped by a key four-point play from dwyane wade and clutch shooting from lebron james. the heat advanced to the 2011 nba finals to face the dallas mavericks, who had defeated the portland trail blazers, los angeles lakers, and oklahoma city thunder. the series was a rematch of the 2006 nba finals, in which dallas won the first two games and then lost four straight to miami. the heat won game 1 in miami, 92–84, but in game 2, the heat were leading the mavericks by 15 points with 6:20 left in the fourth quarter before the heat were outscored 22–5 and lost, 95–93. the heat won game 3 in dallas 88–86 with the game-winning basket scored by chris bosh. the mavericks won game 4, 86–83, holding lebron james to a career playoff-low 8 points. the mavericks won game 5 and took a 3–2 series lead with a 112–103 victory. that was the first time since march 6 that the heat had lost two consecutive games, including the regular season, playoffs, and the nba finals. in game 6, dallas defeated miami, 105–95, to win the 2011 nba finals in six games, 4–2. james's 17.8 points per game in the finals was the largest drop off in points from a regular season to an nba finals (down 8.9 points from 26.7) in nba history. he only averaged three points in the fourth quarters in the series, and he received the brunt of the criticism for the team's loss to dallas.
2010–11 miami heat season
midway through the 1996 nba finals, seattle coach george karl decided to assign payton to play defense as a shooting guard instead of his normal point guard assignment in order to defend jordan. though the bulls won the series, seattle's (and especially payton's) defense held jordan and the bulls to their lowest offensive output in an nba finals and "frustrated the best player in the game." in his first three nba finals, jordan averaged 36.3 points per game and had scored at least 30 points in 14 of his 17 games. however, in the 1996 finals, jordan averaged 27.3 points per game and scored more than 30 points in only one of the six games. in a game 5 preview after payton had held jordan to a career nba finals low of 23, an nba pregame show described the rivalry of two strong defensive players renowned for their competitiveness. "[in game 4, jordan had his] lowest output in a finals game, much of it with payton guarding him. though afterwards, jordan refused to give payton credit, saying 'no one can stop me, i can only stop myself. i missed some easy shots.' the truth is, jordan finds the nba's defensive player of the year [payton] annoying. he views the [young payton] as impudent, and he would love to have a big game at [payton's] expense." (nba on nbc preview, game 5) the sonics won that game by 21 points and payton held jordan to 26 points – jordan's second-lowest-scoring finals game in his career up to that point. in game 6, which the bulls would win to capture the championship, payton played 47 minutes and jordan missed 14 of his 19 shots, getting a career finals low 22 points. bill walton, commentating for nbc at the time, said payton "outplayed" jordan during the second half of the series, and that seattle coach george karl would "rue" the decision to "hide [payton] from 'the king'" in the early games of the series. during this series, payton and his sonics also held jordan's bulls to the lowest-scoring quarter in their nba finals history. michael jordan would never score fewer points in an nba finals game than his 22 points in game 6, and would never be held under 30 points more than twice in a finals series, which the sonics did five times.
gary payton