While Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James may qualify as one of the greatest players ever, he hasn’t always been on the winning side of NBA history. Unlike most basketball heroes, however, LeBron doesn’t forget his mistakes. In a segment on the ‘Mind the Game’ podcast, James reflected on some of his prior failures, including his infamous 2011 Finals loss to the Dallas Mavericks.
“Losing my first year in Miami gave me enough experience to know how to handle adversity even more,” said James. “How to go into Boston for game 6 down 3-2 and everybody saying ‘This is over.’ How to come back in 2016 after losing in 2015, and how to handle adversity being down 3-1, because of the things I’ve learned over the past.”
With the Los Angeles Lakers down 1-0 in their first-round series, LeBron James knows the pressure they will face going into Game 2 on Tuesday. If they drop two in a row at home, it will have a major impact on their chances of winning the series. Fortunately, James has been in this position before, and he knows how to overcome this challenge.
In 2011, LeBron experienced his first major failure as a player: losing in the NBA Finals. After cruising through the East bracket, James and his newly formed Heat team (with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh) were heavily favored to win the series against Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks.
After winning Game 1, James and Wade mocked Dirk and firmly believed they were on their way to a championship. Instead, the Mavericks rallied to achieve one of the greatest upsets in NBA playoff history. LeBron and the Heat would respond by winning back-to-back championships in 2012 and 2013, but 2011 will always be seen as a missed opportunity for them and a major disappointment for LeBron.
In 2015, LeBron made his first Finals since returning to Cleveland, but the Warriors dynasty got in his way and spoiled a historic homecoming. It wasn’t until the next summer that LeBron got his revenge, partly due to what he learned in the year prior.
As a 4x champion, LeBron James has already shown that he can win at the highest levels, but it’s not a particularly quick or easy process. It took nine years for the King to win his first title, and there have been many mistakes since. The key to his continued success is learning from the past and using his worst moments to help achieve success in the future.
This season, he can apply that thinking to beat his current first-round opponent: the Minnesota Timberwolves. Anthony Edwards led his team to a dominant victory in Game 1, but the Lakers learned a lot about the matchup that might help them take back control.
As LeBron pointed out after the loss, physicality is what caught the Lakers off guard, and if they come in more prepared tonight, it could be all that they need to swing the momentum back in their favor. At this stage of his career, there’s nothing that LeBron hasn’t seen on the court, and he’ll need to use every advantage he has to avoid falling into a 0-2 hole tonight.
