LeBron James was dismissive.
“I’ll be all right,” he said.
LeBron growled.
“I’ll be fine.”
He was being asked about being tired, about his legs, about the fallout from playing 82 games for the first time in his life, and playing the most minutes in the NBA, and then carrying the whole of Cleveland on his broad back in the first round against Indiana. LeBron ended his 43-minute, 45-point, do-everything-humanly-possible Game 7 by saying he was tired, burnt, and he wanted to go to bed. Fair enough.
But on the morning of Game 1 against the Toronto Raptors, as an underdog before the NBA final for the first time since 2008, LeBron was not accepting fatigue as an idea.