He had a triple double in game 5 if I recall.
Again, although Lebron could have played better, people are forgetting the fact that the Mavs team defense was entirely focused on shutting him down, and making Wade beat them by going one-on-one with Marion, Stevenson, and Kidd over and over.
Every time he would put the ball on the floor, he would be swarmed with 2-3 defenders immediately. Not much you can do about that other than pass to your teammates, and hope they can create with all the extra space they have. Unfortunately for them, they weren't able to. Wade had a nice series, but everyone else was very streaky, to the point that the Mavs could continue getting away with the excessive amount of attention they paid Lebron. Had Bosh and others stepped up and been more of a threat offensively, Lebron probably ends up getting less defensive attention, has a better series, and they probably beat Dallas.
In a lot of ways, it was reminiscient of the Mavs/GS series in 07, where GS was entirely focused on shutting Dirk down, and making everyone else beat them. Unfortunately for the Mavs, Terry, Stackhouse, and Howard proved that they could not consistently score in one-on-one situations against their superior athletes. Had they shown an ability to score more efficiently, Dirk would have gotten more space to work with and likely had a better series, probably beating GS.
Teams couldn't do that to MJ, because he had other guys who would consistently make buckets if you left them open and unattended, like Scottie, Kukoc, Paxson, Armstrong, Kerr, Grant, Cartwright, and Longley. However, people forget some of the series he had earlier in his career where defense were able to do that, because his teammates weren't able to step up like he needed them to, and he had several less than stellar performances himself, especially against the Pistons in 3 straight years where while he scored a lot of points, they came incredibly inefficiently as his %'s were noticeably lower than his usual average, in fact quite bad for the era he was playing in, and he was putting up those bad %'s with a LOT of shot attempts (usually 22-27, not including FTAs). Those poor series of his just get overlooked because of that ridiculous run of 6 championships. Point is, you need consistent help and performance from your teammates in order to win championships, especially when facing elite defenses in the playoffs.
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in my corner than Barkley and Magic
