Originally Posted by
Tonus
I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but it's Lebron.
Cavs outscore opponents by 7.7 points per 100 possessions when Lebron's on the court and get outscored by 8.5 when he's off it. In the regular season he played 71% of available minutes. In the playoffs he's played 91% of available minutes. Assuming the ratings stay the same, that shift is enough to push the Cavs from outscoring the average team by 3.0 points per 100 possessions (about equal to the Celtics), to 6.3 points (ahead of the Rockets, good for 3rd in the league).
Now, other teams shorten their benches too, but it doesn't make nearly the difference for them that Lebron does (the Rockets with Harden have a net rating of 6.3, without him they're still at 2.8). So just playing Lebron more explains a big shift in performance.
The second factor is that LeBron is the only star who's able to maintain his level of performance against better competition in the playoffs, presumably because he "flips the switch". Almost every superstar's stats get worse playing against superior competition in the playoffs. For example, Durant's efficiency rating over the past 5 years is 28.5 in the regular season, 24.1 in the playoffs. Curry goes from 25.8 to 22.1, Harden from 25.2 to 22.9. So when everyone else's efficiency is dropping, Lebron's efficiency actually increases slightly, from 28.4 to 28.6. Even more amazing, LeBron's performance tends to get better as he's playing against better competition too. Last year, he had an average gamescore of 19.7 in the first round and 20.7 in the second round in two relatively easy sweeps, then up to 25.0 in the 6 games against the Raptors, and 26.9 in the 7 game series against the Warriors (to put that in perspective, Westbrook's game score in the current series is 23.8).
So three things happen:
1. LeBron plays more.
2. LeBron plays better.
3. As the competition gets tougher, LeBron plays even better.
That's how a 50 win team turns into a legit contender in the playoffs. Of course he's 32 now, so he's slowed down a bit, but so far he's been able to make up for that by picking his spots and savvy. In 2009 he was able to go this hard every game and his efficiency rating was an unheard of 37 over the course of the entire postseason, which is insane (Jordan's best postseason PER was 32). Now he saves it all for the big moments. At some point soon it won't be enough anymore.