OAKLAND -- Fed up, LeBron James pounded dribbles of determination. He put his head down, focused only on his defender and the rim, and attacked the Warriors' defense with a mission.
He was clearly trying to take over, fight back against the tidal wave threatening to wash out his championship hopes. But King James was helpless.
Game 2 of the NBA Finals, a 110-77 Warriors' win, was reality crashing on top of Cleveland. A hope crusher. The surprising foil to the fairy tale ending James envisioned when he gloriously returned to the Cavaliers.
And the Warriors needed only 35 points combined from Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson to do it.
One of the greatest the NBA has ever seen, the self-proclaimed best player on the planet, looks powerless against these Warriors. More than that, he's a tool in the Warriors' success.
The hard truth: LeBron isn't good enough to beat these Warriors. Not anymore. Not by himself.
He wasn't good enough last year when the Warriors were rookies to the pressure of the Finals. He isn't this year now that the Warriors are defending champions and seeking to legitimize their 73-win season.
The Warriors are too cohesive on defense, too versatile on offense, too much for LeBron.
"We're doing it by committee and everybody is playing their role," Stephen Curry said after finishing with 18 points, the first time in his career he has had back-to-back game of fewer than 20 points. "The crazy part is we can do better."
This is not an indictment on the legacy of LeBron. That is etched in stone. He has logged so many minutes on his legs -- playing long seasons every year in a quest for a crown, and Team USA. It's understandable he can't carry his team in the way he once did.
And it's also understandable that he is failing to take down one of the greatest teams of all time. That's what the Warriors are. That's what these playoffs have proven.
"We've got two more wins before you can even consider saying that," Draymond Green said after totaling 28 points. "I think it's all subjective. To say we're better than the Showtime Lakers, how can you say that? We never played them."
"We are better than the Showtime Lakers," Klay Thompson chimed in with a smile, taking a shot at his father who played on those Lakers squads.
People have to understand what LeBron and the Cavaliers are facing. And so does he. Powering his way through the Warriors will not work.
Cleveland's problem is two-fold. One, LeBron's teammates are ill-suited against the Warriors. Two, LeBron's plan of attack -- which is primarily isolation basketball -- is hurting the Cavaliers.
The talk, especially coming out of Cleveland, was that the Warriors won the 2014-15 championship because the Cavaliers weren't healthy. Kevin Love got hurt in the first round and Kyrie Irving sustained a knee injury in Game 1 of the Finals.
Cleveland turned to its bench, which included aggressive defenders that gave the Warriors fits. Eventually the Warriors figured it out and won the series by winning three straight, pretty handily. The Warriors' title had an asterisk in the minds of many outside the Bay Area.
Now Irving and Love are back and Cleveland looks worse off against the Warriors. Both are the kind of defenders the Warriors attack. Both are low-efficiency offensive players who help feed the Warriors transition game.
Irving has totaled 36 points on 36 shots in two games. The Warriors have outscored the Cavaliers by 36 points when Irving is on the floor. Love has totaled 22 points on 24 shots and the Cavaliers are minus-17 when he's on the floor.
J.R. Smith? Leandro Barbosa is outscoring him 21-8 despite playing half the minutes.
LeBron is compounding the Cavaliers' issues. He's averaging 21 points on 42.1 percent shooting with 5.5 turnovers per game. He came into the series shooting 55.5 percent in the playoffs.
Last year, he was universally praised for his gargantuan numbers as Cleveland took a 2-1 series lead. But his volume scoring and one-on-one play worked against him.
He's trying to lean on it again in this series, trying to punish smaller defenders with brute force. But he's running out of gas. He's missing layups. He's largely having his shots dictated to him by the stellar defense of Andre Iguodala.
The Warriors' scheme benefits from James playing hero ball. But this is what the Warriors do: consistently apply pressure, attacking from a multiplicity of angles, coaxing great players into their worst selves and drawing teams away from their strengths.
This is how they overcame the 3-1 deficit against Oklahoma City, baiting Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook to putting on their superhero capes and trying to take down the Warriors themselves.
So far, the Warriors have lured LeBron into his phone booth -- and trapped him in it.
