The relative irrelevance of LeBron James' latest buzzer-beater

Welcome to LeBron James' playground

The King makes the improbable look easy

If you paid attention to the huddle, LeBron James was sitting alone on the bench getting a breather receiving pats from his teammates while coach Tyronn Lue was drawing up the play for the Cavs. The man already predicted the play beforehand so he did not bother to ask the Coach.

With exactly one second left on the clock, his team had the ball in the backcourt as the ESPN announcer, Hubie Brown, repeatedly highlighted that fact. Facing a tough inbounds situation, three of the Cavaliers' players were being guarded tightly in the backcourt by the Timberwolves trio of Karl-Anthony Towns, Jeff Teague, and Taj Gibson. Kyle Korver lined up near the three-point line while LeBron was the only Cavs player inside of the three-point line.

The Timberwolves played into the Cavaliers simple trick as their inexperience forced them into a one-on-one situation with James facing Butler. Any experienced team would know the mistake the young Wolves were committing when they had three defenders in the backcourt, from where it was impossible to launch a reliable shot with only 1.0 second remaining.

With the ball in Jeff Green's hands, he thrust a pass up the court into the only viable solution at that point. The ball fell into the hands of Lebron who did an almost Herculean task of facing up and creating space without a dribble against his defender. With all the wear-and-tear he has had, he tried to turn back the clock again so that his aging squad would not have to head into a second-overtime against a young Minnesota team.