NEW YORK — For us regular folks, there are telltale signs of getting old.
Groans while sitting down. Triple-checking the weather. A greater appreciation for Jeopardy. Defeated by items difficult to reach.
For LeBron James, the signs are a little bit different. But they’re there. Finally, they’re there.
James, at 38, is aging better than the Wizards’ version of Michael Jordan, if only because LeBron’s offense was built on elements other than scoring in isolation. But the fast-twitch explosion we’ve come to know from James is quite diminished.
Sure, he can blow past defenders and convert if provided adequate running room on a break. The head start is crucial.
But lift is now a problem. It was symbolic and evident in Thursday’s Game 2 loss in Denver, when James’s reverse lay-up attempt with 26 seconds left received such little airtime you’d think Nikola Jokic swapped jerseys. Another version of James would’ve simply dunked it. This 38-year-old iteration was flailing his feet close to the hardwood without body control.
Earlier in the game, James blew a wide-open layup and a breakaway dunk. He squandered six points on looks at the rim, in other words, and the Lakers lost by 5. James has also missed 19 consecutive 3-pointers dating back to Game 2 of the first round, which represents the worst playoff slump of the last 25 years.
“Obviously it sucks that ball squirted out of my hand like that, maybe it hit my knee or whatever,” James said about flubbing his dunk attempt in the second quarter Friday. “Unforced turnover by myself. Horrible, especially on the road.”
These things tend to happen to elderly and exhausted legs. Perhaps the altitude in Denver was a factor, but James was physically done by the end of his 40 minutes.
Of course, it speaks to the highest bar established for James that criticism is the theme after he fell one rebound short of a triple-double in the conference finals.
But after nearly two decades of physically dominating his sport, the clear evidence of decline on the biggest stage — and with his team facing a 2-0 series deficit — is nonetheless jarring to the eyes.
Father Time, as Kevin Garnett once told me, is undefeated. Against LeBron, he was against the ropes and knocked down but is now rising from the canvas.
Thank you, Knicks and Nets
Both sides of the conference finals feature players that came courtesy of the locals.
For Boston, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown were acquired with draft picks traded by the Nets in that ill-fated 2013 deal involving Garnett and Paul Pierce.
Less known is that Denver’s Game 2 hero, Jamal Murray, was drafted in 2016 using a pick swap from the Knicks that was negotiated into the Carmelo Anthony trade of 2011.
Meanwhile, neither the Knicks nor the Nets have advanced to a conference finals in 20 years.
