Solo project: James not getting help from Cavs

CLEVELAND (AP) — Dressed down in black, LeBron James left practice on Tuesday sporting a baseball cap stitched with a jeweled royal crown and wearing one of those popular “Witness” T-shirts.

Maybe he should hand a few out to his teammates.

Because the Cavaliers have been onlookers for much of the past two weeks.

In his first NBA playoffs, James has carried Cleveland’s scoring load — alone.

“We haven’t been able to give him enough help,” center Zydrunas Ilgauskas said, “especially at the end of the games.”a

James is averaging 34.3 points for the Cavaliers, who are tied 2-2 with the Washington Wizards heading into Game 5 of the best-of-seven series on Wednesday night at Quicken Loans Arena.

James’ scoring average, which is nearly three points higher than during the regular season, is more than the next three Cavs, Ilgauskas (11.8 points), Drew Gooden (11.3) and Larry Hughes (10.3), combined.

That imbalance aside, what’s more troubling for the Cavaliers is that when James isn’t hitting his shots or dominating, none of Cleveland’s other players — with the exception of Game 1 — has done stepped up enough.

Gooden (24 points in a Game 2 loss) is the only player other than James to score more than 20 points in a game. The Wizards, meanwhile, can usually count on their “Big 3″ of Gilbert Arenas (31.0), Caron Butler (18.3) and Antawn Jamison (17.0) for points.

But despite being alone atop the stat sheet, James isn’t worried about his teammates letting him down.

“Never. I feel like they’ll come through for me,” he said. “They’ve been there for me all year. We’re tied 2-2, so we’re in a comfortable spot — tied 2-2 with a team coming to our house. We feel awesome.”

Cleveland would feel a whole lot better if it hadn’t blown a 13-point lead in the third quarter and lost Game 4. The Cavaliers appeared to have things under control at halftime, building an 11-point lead behind 25 points from James.

Curiously, James was no factor in the third quarter. He missed his only three shots and spent most of the period either fighting off double teams or deferring to Larry Hughes, Flip Murray and Eric Snow to run Cleveland’s offense.

James may have been slowed by a fear of fouling out. He was whistled for four offensive fouls, but insists nothing can stop him completely.

“I’ll never change my aggressiveness,” he said. “I get six fouls and if that means I’m going to get six offensive fouls by me going to the hole, then it’s going to have to happen. I will not change my game.”

By the time James got back into the flow in Game 4, the Wizards were in control.

For whatever reason, Cavs coach Mike Brown never adjusted to Washington’s defense in the third. If James was struggling from the outside and being forced to one side of the floor by the Wizards, a simple solution would have been to post him up near the basket, where the 6-foot-8, 245-pound James is virtually unstoppable.

“A lot of that was my fault,” Brown said, falling on a sword like the one in the Cavaliers’ logo. “I got too caught up in the referees. I’ll take the blame on that. I didn’t put him down there. It’s my fault.”

While commendable, Brown’s admission that he was distracted by the officiating could be seen as another victory for Washington coach Eddie Jordan, who complained that James benefited from some favorable calls in Game 3 and spent the days leading into Game 4 lobbying in the media.

Jordan’s smartest move, though, may have been when he told his players at halftime of Game 4, to “go out and have fun” in the second half. Instead of running set plays, Jordan allowed the Wizards to freelance.

It worked once, and Jordan could try it again.

“It’s nothing I’m going to shy away from,” he said. “I think it was good for us. I think it can be good for us going into tomorrow’s game, because I think it adds another dimension to our offense.”

In this series, just as it was during the regular season, Washington’s main offensive threat has been Arenas, who scored 28 of his 34 points after halftime in Game 4. Arenas has been best down the stretch, scoring 59 of his 124 points in the fourth.

“In the fourth quarter, he does what he does best, he closes the game out,” Butler said. “That’s what stars do.”

And in this series, matching two rising Eastern Conference teams, the team’s respective stars — Arenas and James — have taken turns taking over.

Despite being a two-time All-Star and averaging 29.3 points per game, Arenas, and everyone else for that matter, has received second billing to James. But Arenas is making it known that there’s room for more than one superstar on this stage.

“I think Gilbert’s saying the right things — ‘We are all witnesses,”‘ said Jordan, referring to the catchphrase used in James’ sneaker ads. “It’s LeBron’s series, and we’re on TV because of LeBron, and it’s a good thing. It gives us a little bit of an edge. But we’re trying to win games, we’re not trying to showcase a guy.”