LeBron’s mandate is clear: Beat the Celtics

MIAMI – All his excuses have expired, all the artificial rehabilitating of his image is useless. Nothing else matters until LeBron James(notes) beats the Boston Celtics. He doesn’t need to wait to beat them once Kevin Garnett(notes), Paul Pierce(notes) and Ray Allen(notes) are past their primes, and Doc Rivers is done coaching, and the Celtics aura has been reduced to the rubble of rebuilding.

After all, James made a summertime pledge of multiple NBA championships for the Miami Heat – perhaps six, even seven. So winning an Eastern Conference semifinal series shouldn’t be too taxing of an assignment. This is merely a minimal expectation for the enormity of the Heat’s experiment.

“It always felt that we would have to go through Boston – and beat Boston – to get what we wanted to get,” James said on Wednesday night.

True for the Heat, and true for him. Finally, Miami disposed of the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 5, ending the opening-round series and clearing the way for the most anticipated, most intriguing conference semifinal in NBA history. In this information age, there’s no match for the star power and storylines of this blood-war series. And for everyone considering this the last stand of the Celtics, rest assured: In a different way, this is a last stand for LeBron James, too.

James needs to beat Boston. He lost to the Celtics in 2008 and 2010, and he has won only one playoff game in the Boston Garden. He didn’t pick Miami to wait his turn, grind away and eventually break through in the East. Make no mistake: The Heat aren’t allowed to lower expectations for themselves. The plan was never for that process to take hold in Miami, because these Celtics are living proof that a freshly minted Big Three could be a champion immediately.

James is still the best player on the floor in this series, and this time he comes for the Celtics with Dwyane Wade(notes) and Chris Bosh(notes). He’s changed so much of his life, and some seems to be for the better. Off the floor, he’s made adjustments to the management structure and public window into his life. Less is more with LeBron, and he’s starting to understand it.

Through it all, James is still judged for winning and losing. This is a culture that finds its virtue in winning. He can make “The Decision” go away, make the boorish behavior behind close doors in Cleveland a distant, faded memory. One year ago now, everything started to go awry in an awful way for him. He was absent of mind and spirit in that Game 5 loss to the Celtics, refusing to shoot the ball for a half, refusing to engage himself in huddles and interaction with coaches and teammates.

“He was in another world that night,” one Cleveland Cavaliers staff member privately said.

The Cavaliers had the talent to beat Boston, too. They won 61 regular-season games, had a good complementary cast and had James playing the best ball of his life. Boston had developed the disposition to funnel LeBron into help defense and contested jump shots. It largely worked for the Celtics.

These playoffs have been about great players making adjustments, rising over circumstances and transcending themselves. Kobe Bryant(notes) did it to the New Orleans Hornets, Kevin Durant(notes) to the Denver Nuggets and Derrick Rose(notes) to the Indiana Pacers. James needs to be transcendent now. He’s 26, surrounded with two staggering co-stars and solid role players.

The Heat don’t get to call themselves underdogs. They forfeited the right this summer. Too much is expected of them, and rightly so. They still need to figure things out, including who’ll take the big shot in the big moment. When the Heat closed out Philadelphia in Game 5, it turned out to be Mario Chalmers(notes) dropping the ball off to Joel Anthony(notes). This won’t cut it against Boston – nor Chicago, nor Los Angeles nor Oklahoma City.

When it was suggested to Philadelphia’s Spencer Hawes(notes) that the Heat stars still take turns more than they flourish in the flow of an offense, he agreed.

“It sure seems like that – even down the stretch of games,” Hawes told Yahoo! Sports. "Fortunately for them, their talent is as good as anybody in the league. But basketball is a team sport, and you can see why Boston has been successful. They all get the ball. What you get with [the Heat] are just what I call ‘talent plays,’ where their talent trumps the guy who is guarding them. But in Boston, they get everybody involved …”

This was true with the Cavaliers, and it’s true now. LeBron has to overcome everything. He will eventually have a Game 7 in American Airlines Arena, and that ought to mean a great deal to him. He picked Miami, and he must have believed that these fans were a spectacular advantage for the Heat. Yes, James picked everything here: His teammates, his GM, his coach.

He had to leave Cleveland to finally get the big things he wanted out of basketball, out of life. Beating Boston isn’t the end of the rainbow. The Chicago Bulls could still be waiting. So could the Lakers or Thunder. All waiting on Miami, all determined to destroy James’ championship aspirations.

To be the best player in the sport, James can’t go down now. He needs to rise up, and make himself the difference in this series. For James, the Celtics have been a different standard in the MVP era of his career. They’ve been the standard, the measure of success and failure. Here they come again, and this time LeBron has everything a man needs to beat them.

For the rehabilitation of James’ image, the measure of his greatness, his credibility, nothing else matters this year unless he finally crosses this threshold. While the Celtics remain spry and sure and championship contenders, James needs to slay the Boston mythology. He’s come too far to be waiting on great teams to get old and go away. He needs to dispose of them himself. Yes, LeBron James needs to beat the Celtics, and he needs to beat them now.