Nevius: Watch out, Warriors: Here comes LeBron James

Buckle your chinstraps, Warriors. Here comes LeBron James.

Every star in the NBA Finals has a signature move. Steph Curry draws ooohs for his crazy-long 3s, but he and Cleveland’s Kyrie Irving make the SportsCenter highlights when their ballhandling puts defenders in the spin cycle. Klay Thompson and Kyle Korver make their reps as spot-up shooters.

And LeBron James overpowers people. He gets the ball, gathers a head of steam and runs them over. As a defender you can stand there and take it - no bargain, he’s 6-8, 250 pounds - and hope for a charging violation, but statistically it is more likely you will get the foul.

As the analytics website FiveThirtyEight says in a post headlined “The LeBron James School of Driving,” James led the league this year in “and one” plays, meaning he made the bucket and also got the call. You don’t want to foul him, but you have to do something. FiveThirtyEight also points out that he leads the league in field goal percentage on drives to the basket.

Not since the days of Shaquille O’Neal - or way back, Wilt Chamberlain - has a player so consistently banged defenders out of the way to clear a path to the bucket.

So when looking for reasons for the lopsided, 22-point loss in Game 1 - and there were plenty - one suggestion would be that James needs to open up the FasTrak lane to the hoop.

“Yeah, just keep attacking,” said Tyronn Lue after the game. “They don’t have a lot of shot blocking on the floor … so we can get into the paint and get pretty much anything we want. With (James) being aggressive, getting downhill, it really helps our offense.”

So expect more of that. But it won’t be pretty.

When James lowered his shoulder and ran over Andre Iguodala in Game 1, they both ended up sprawled on the floor. Iguodala got the foul, so you can say it was a good basketball play by James. But it looked more like third and goal.

Understand, this is not to say James isn’t a freakishly talented player. He handles the ball, he shoots from distance, he finds open shooters and he makes at least five amazing acrobatic plays a game. With seven consecutive Finals appearances he is, clearly, the player of his generation.

I’d add that his response to the racist graffiti, particularly making the Emmett Till reference, was an example of a sports star handling an emotional, real-life situation perfectly. That’s what we call a role model.

However, it is hard to watch his runaway locomotive act down the lane. Even if a defender holds his ground, leaps straight up with hands in the air and isn’t called for a foul, James gives them the shoulder to create room and then lays the ball in. (He also has the league’s highest percent of successful shots from within 3 feet, according to FiveThirtyEight.)

Now let’s overlay that with Game 1. In the first quarter James drove consistently. The result? Eight free throws and 13 points in the first 12 minutes. By halftime he had 19 points and 10 free throws.

And that was pretty much it. The rest of the game James scored nine points and shot two free throws. Call me crazy, but I’m betting he will want to change that in Game 2.

He pretty much warned the Warriors in the postgame press conference. Asked if he felt the team should get away from “isolation situations” where either he or Irving take the ball themselves and try to score, James shrugged.

While admitting “We got to be able to move the ball,” he defended isolation plays.

“Playing iso ball has helped us get to this point,” he said. “And it has gave us success in the past three years. So we don’t want a steady diet of it … but that’s part of our package.”

So you know who I wouldn’t want to be? One of the officials for Game 2.

In a logical and just world, the officials would call James on some of these rugged forays. It wouldn’t take many - and in fact James was called for charging in Game 1 - before everyone adjusted. James, as a transcendent talent, would focus on his other abilities.

But there are nuances. James was long ago admitted into the “One Extra Step Club.” The play in the second half when he left his feet, came back down, touched his foot to the floor and then shot and got the foul call was a classic. Stars get calls, that’s just a fact.

And as James knows, nobody want to foul out the superstar. An unrepentant and unrestrained lobbyer of the officials, James makes foul calls against him into a three-act play. No wonder they are reluctant to whistle him.

Besides, this is for the championship, the trophy and the legacy. If James is going to be allowed to shove aside defenders and take it down the lane, he’s going to do it. As he said, that’s how the Cavaliers got here.

So if I were the Warriors, I’d remember my mouth guard.

Contact C.W. Nevius at cw.nevius@pressdemocrat.com. Twitter: @cwnevius.