Cavaliers follow LeBron’s lead to cusp of NBA Finals

CLEVELAND — Follow him.

That’s what it comes down to at this time of year for the players fortunate enough or clever enough to be playing with LeBron James. It’s not just a matter of being in the presence of greatness, it’s the experience of being inside that greatness, of feeling the heat and feeding off the opportunities it cracks open.

James scored 23 points, grabbed 11 rebounds, passed for 11 assists and had three steals Thursday as his Cleveland Cavaliers took a 2-0 lead in their Eastern Conference finals series against Toronto. He did all sorts of LeBron things — scoring or assisting on 20 of Cleveland’s first 22 points, charging full court to finish with a contest-quality, two-handed reverse power dunk — and generally played a level above the other guys on his team, and two or three levels about the sagging Raptors.

It’s nothing new, but it isn’t getting old, either.

“He has a skill set where he can attack the game in every facet,” said Cavs reserve James Jones, who can bear witness to James’ dominance for the past six seasons as a teammate and for a bunch more before that as a foe. “Offensively, defensively, passing, shooting, in the paint, from the perimeter. More importantly, he does a really good job of putting his teammates into position to succeed.

“When we succeed, that makes the game easier for him. That gives him lanes to get to the basket, that allows him to play at his tempo and his space, and that gives him space in transition where he can drive.”

Again, this stuff isn’t new. James is bearing down on his sixth consecutive trip to the Finals, something only really old Boston Celtics ever have accomplished. He has inflicted pain on 11 of the East’s 15 teams in the process, beating them at least once (and poor Chicago, Indiana and Boston three times each). With Miami and Cleveland excluded for obvious reasons, only Washington and Orlando have avoided taking LeLumps from LeBron in the postseason during this run of June appearances.

Think of him as a year-round nemesis. He looms large from July through September when teams are assembling their rosters, forever in search of strong bodies and reckless souls willing to serve as primary defenders against the guy. He dictates decisions in October when teams set their strategies to face him. Then from November through April, he shows up on their schedules circled in red and in dread, nights occasionally to persevere but more often merely to endure.

The playoffs bring a special kind of hell for opposing coaches. They craft intricate defense game plans for coping with James and all that he might unleash and then, when that fails, they’re left scrambling even to …

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