[Note]: I made a lucky decision to watch last night's Game 5 on PPLive (I refused to pay the greedy Comcast a premium price just for the TNT channel) after only watching each of the first two games of this series with a 1-day delay. It was extremely rewarding experience although the video quality of CCTV-5 through PPLive was pretty low. Now I really hope Detriot can regroup and force a Game 7 of this interesting series.

Wall Street Journal, THE DAILY FIX

By CARL BIALIK AND JASON FRY

Epic Performance by LeBron James Puts Cavs on Brink of NBA Finals

June 1, 2007 11:47 a.m. EDT

It all seems so long ago. The pass. The foul not called. The identical losing scores.

Last night the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Detroit Pistons, 109-107, in a double-overtime thriller that gave them a 3-2 series lead in the NBA's Eastern Conference finals. And nobody, but nobody, had any reservations about the performance of the Cavs' LeBron James -- 48 points, including an amazing 29 of his team's final 30.

"If you missed this one last night, you did yourself an epic disservice," writes Chris Sheridan on ESPN.com. "Go find someone who TiVO'd or videotaped it, fast forward to midpoint of the fourth quarter, then sit back and prepare to be awestruck. This performance was one that'll be talked about for ages, a testament to greatness that'll rank right up there with Reggie Miller's 8 points in 8.9 seconds, Michael Jordan's 63-point coming out party in the Boston Garden, or his 'flu game' in Utah, Magic Johnson's 42-point outburst while playing center in Game 6 of the 1980 finals."

The Akron Beacon Journal's Brian Windhorst, moonlighting for ESPN.com, explains how that 48-point explosion didn't come out of nowhere, looking at key games in Mr. James's development as a player.

"So many gyms, layers of challenges and moments of failure led James to the mindset he took into the fourth quarter," Mr. Windhorst writes, adding that "perhaps there has never been a basketball player more watched, poked and analyzed by the age of 22 than James. His talent and ability to carry his various teams has provided so many opportunities for smashing success or crushing failure. He has taken all of them in his own personal stride. He almost never admits to making a mistake, he usually downplays the significance of losses by saying he's not disappointed, and he never seems to give himself an ultimatum. Yet there's no doubt he is learning and growing from each momentous experience."

In Detroit, the Free Press duo of Drew Sharp and Mitch Albom can only gawk in amazement.

"My eyes have now seen," Mr. Sharp writes. "I am officially a Witness. … The Pistons find themselves in a similar situation as last year against Cleveland, but the problem is that there's nothing similar about this Cleveland. The King is ready to assume the throne."

"In the end, it was a night that begged a simple question: Who would stand up to win the thing?" Mr. Albom writes. "You knew it would be one man. But one against five? Normally, that's a no-brainer. But LeBron James is not normal. And at 22, he is likely on his way to an NBA Finals to prove it."


http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime?page=dailydime-070601

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2007/columns/story?id=2889613

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070601/COL08/706010424/1048

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070601/COL01/706010425/1048/SPORTS