LeBron James on Game 4: ‘One of the Biggest Games of My Career’

James and the rest of the Miami Heat placed enormous importance on last night’s game, and evidently, they were able to push through their demons at the Garden in Boston. From SI: “A city-silencing, game-tying three with two minutes left. A hesitating, long-striding, left-handed leaning drive in the final minute of regulation. A fallaway rainbow buzzer-beater to open the overtime. A catch from Dwyane Wade that he drove into the lane to create a layup for Chris Bosh, Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance. A backbreaking charge drawn near the three-point line against Paul Pierce. These are the talents (to quote himself) that LeBron James was always known to possess. These are the plays he made to redefine himself and his new franchise down the stretch of the tightest game, in the most hostile building, against the opponent he, Wade and Bosh could never beat. Miami is returning home with a 3-1 series lead, thanks to a 98-90 overtime win in Game 4 Monday that could begin to transform 10 unhappy months into the happiest year of James’s young life. ‘I looked at it as one of the biggest games of my career,’ said James. ‘Me and D-Wade had a lot of conversation after Game 3 all the way to the tip-off today about how important this game is. I heard a stat that D-Wade had lost 11 straight in this building. I haven’t had much success in this building. So we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to try to do whatever it took to help our team win this ballgame.’ They may not win the championship this year, and they have yet to win this series — ‘It will be the toughest thing we’ve had to do up to this point,’ said Heat coach Erik Spoelstra of closing out the Celtics in Game 5 Wednesday at Miami — but this win was a breakthrough of its own. As James discussed his 35-point, 14-rebound performance over 50 excruciating minutes, he was unable or unwilling to suppress a smile, perhaps because he had never felt so liberated.”