INDIANAPOLIS -- As his Friday night press conference drew to a close, LeBron James was asked if there was anything he could say to encourage a breakout game from one -- any -- of his Cleveland Cavaliers teammates.
"What are you guys looking for?" James pushed back to the room full of reporters. "You think I'm going to throw my teammates under the bus? I'm not about that."
He also didn't need to.
Through the first three games of their Eastern Conference Quarterfinals matchup with the Indiana Pacers, the Cavs have gotten plenty from James and little from anyone else.
In Game 1, James notched a triple-double with 24 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds, only to see his team lose by 18 points. In Game 2, the 4-time MVP tallied 46 points, every one of which Cleveland needed to eek out a one-possession game. And on Friday, James' 28-point, 12-rebound, 8-assist stat line wasn't enough, as the Cavs squandered a 17-point halftime lead to the Pacers to fall behind in the series 2-1.
"Guys just gotta play better -- including myself," James said, pointing to his 6 turnovers in Cleveland's 92-90 Game 3 loss on Friday. "We know we've all got to play better as a collective group. It doesn't matter who it is."
There's been little, however, to inspire much optimism in that regard.
Outside of James, you'd be hard-pressed to find any player on the Cleveland roster who's found any sort of consistency thus against Indiana.
Kevin Love scored 16 points in the first half on Friday, only to finish the night with 19 total -- the final three coming on a desperation heave as the Cavs attempted to mount a late comeback. In his first three games against the Pacers this postseason, the All-Star forward has averaged just 14.3 points and has yet to reach 20 in any single game.
In fact, there's not a player on Cleveland not named LeBron James who has scored 20 points in any of the Cavs' first three games of their opening-round series. And outside of James and Love, there isn't another player even averaging double-digit scoring for the series.
The results have been jarring, with a Cleveland team that ranked fifth in the league in scoring (110.9 points per game) averaging just 90 points through three games against the Pacers. That's obviously a small sample size, but the fact the Cavs have yet to get a single scoring outburst from a player like J.R. Smith, Jordan Clarkson, Kyle Korver or George Hill hardly bodes well for their postseason future.
"There's a lot of games to be played," James answered when asked if he's getting enough help against Indiana. "We haven't played as well as we'd like to play as a team in this series so far."
From a positive point of view, the Cavs had a 17-point halftime lead and were just one possession away from taking a 2-1 series lead of their own. Perhaps this discussion looks a whole lot different if merely one more shot goes down for Cleveland on Friday night.
On the flip side, it took 46 points from James for the Cavs to win their lone game this postseason -- and even that almost wasn't enough. At this point, Cleveland has yet to play close to its best basketball. And time to do so is beginning to run short.
"We have to regroup and try to find a way to be better for Game 4," James said.
