The ball officially bounced the Cavaliers' way when it was spiked right after the buzzer by LeBron James, in a fit of euphoria and frustration and satisfaction and Lord knows whatever additional emotion burned through his veins, and no one's quite sure the ball ever came down. Who knows, maybe it ricocheted to Cleveland.
That's the site of the next two games, an appropriate place for LeBron to inflate his legacy even more, especially if Games 3 and 4 are anything like the first two. He is averaging 41.5 points, 12 rebounds and 8.5 assists in the NBA Finals and forced a pair of overtime games against the healthier and deeper Warriors, ignoring the exhaustion of 96 total minutes. Even more important for Cleveland, the spunky Cavs came away with the split they needed to invite suspense and raise the possibility of pure insanity.
Are they really tied with the Warriors? Is this series a lot closer than anyone expected not only in terms of wins but performance? Has LeBron taken control and is he playing the most spirited if not determined basketball of his career? Yes, yes and without question.
Perhaps an elaboration is needed on that last point: If LeBron wins three more games, would it be the greatest individual feat in team sports history and do you think he's fueled by that notion? Dragging a group of rejects and role players to the promised land and bringing eternal joy to the sad sack sports town known as Cleveland? Doing it without a pair of injured All-Stars against a team that won 65 games and is led by the league MVP?
Basically, yes, it would trump all others.
While it's a bit too early to start placing feats in historical terms and making a triple-jump to any conclusions, it's already clear that Curry may be the league MVP but LeBron is the certified MIP. No player in this series is more important than the one who must be all things to his handicapped team: Ball handler, shooter, leader, rebounder, defender, motivator and designated savior. It's true that Curry misfired horribly and uncharacteristically and it hurt the Warriors, but they still had a chance to win Game 2 despite his nightmare 5-for-23 shooting.
Meanwhile, the Cavs would've had their ashes spread across San Francisco Bay had LeBron not notched a 39-16-11 triple-double and consumed the Warriors' attention.
"You'd be hard-pressed to find a guy anywhere, anytime that can give you the kind of all-around performance and all-around leadership that LeBron does for this group," said Cavs coach David Blatt. "He really willed his guys to win that game. That's what a champion does and obviously he's a champion."
Certainly, Cleveland's 95-93 series-changer Sunday went a bit deeper than LeBron. Just a bit. With Kyrie Irving out, the Cavs had no choice but give Matthew Dellavedova 42 minutes against Curry, and the fireplug point guard made just two fewer shots than Curry, a player Jerry West called "the best shooter I've ever seen." Delly popped a pair of important free throws in the clutch, but it was his defense that was the signature of his night. Curry didn't score a basket when Delly was directly on him. It may be negotiable whether Delly was the main reason Curry uncorked a clunker -- Curry did miss some open shots -- but Delly was the first line of defense and wasn't overmatched.
"It had everything to do with Delly," LeBron countered. "He kept a body on Steph, made Steph work. He did a great job just making it tough on Steph. Obviously he's been counted out his entire life. Too short, not good enough, not quick enough. He just goes out and plays his tail off. When a guy does that, he gets great results."
The Cavs also had a touch of Timofey Mozgov early, and their defense against everyone except Klay Thompson was solid (the Warriors shot only 40 percent and 8-for-35 from deep), and they fought through a boisterous building where the Warriors had lost only three times before, playoffs included.
But really, this was about LeBron overcoming all of the legitimate factors that make the Cavs have no business staring down the Warriors in this series. He knows what he's up against. He doesn't spike that ball if he has Irving and Kevin Love in the lineup, or if he wasn't required to push himself to his physical limits, or if he didn't have a hunch that the basketball world thought even one Cavs win was next to impossible, especially in Oakland.
That was a take-that spike.
"I think our guys are using that as motivation," he said, "but I have a lot of motivation already just to be a part of greatness. My motivation is to make sure my guys are ready and prepared."
Keep in mind that on the Cavs, only LeBron knows what it takes to pull a team to a title. The Cavs' current rotation features a pair of players discarded by the Knicks -- the Knicks! -- another who arrived in a mid-season trade, and another who wasn't even drafted. James Jones is getting 22 minutes worth of run in the Finals -- James Jones! That's how stripped the Cavs are. It's almost enough to make that 2007 team that LeBron hauled to the Finals, the one with Mo Williams and Boobie Gibson and Larry Hughes, seem like the '86 Celtics.
There's probably a part of LeBron that doesn't mind the predicament he's in, a part of him that would rather try to stun the basketball world and win without Love and Irving than with them, crazy as it sounds. The competitor and historian in LeBron probably feels he would leap-frog over the greats should he pull this off with a team in such dire straits.
"I mean, all we can do is go out and play hard," he said. "We're undermanned. I mean, we're without two All-Stars. I don't know any other team in this league that would be able to be here without two All-Stars and compete the way we compete and be a force."
LeBron didn't play brilliantly in the two Oakland games. He unwisely took a fadeaway near the end of regulation in the Game 1 loss that didn't have a chance. Then when he chose to attack the rim instead with the game on the line Sunday, he was swallowed up by Andre Iguodala and a host of Warriors. He shot 4-for-21 in the second half and overtime in Game 2, which raises another issue: Fatigue. He was clearly gassed. Can LeBron sustain this high level of play coupled with so many minutes? Remember, there's only one off-day before Game 3 and also Game 4. Not only is LeBron being asked to do it all, he's asked to play it all, averaging 48 minutes so far.
"I'll be ready," he insisted.
How can he not be? This is why he returned to Cleveland, a city that torched him on the way out of town when he left for Miami five years ago. He returned because it was home, no doubt, but also because of what a championship would do for him as much as it would mean to desperate Cleveland. It's a package deal that LeBron found too irresistible, and while the Cavs need three more wins and realize Curry doesn't stayed chilled for long, LeBron has a chance. He gets the next two games in what will be a crazed Quicken Loans Arena. That's all he ever asked.
"I have some other motivation that I won't talk about right now," he said, and then of course he touched on it. Because it's no secret what a championship in Cleveland would do for LeBron's place in basketball.
"It means everything. It means everything to be a part of history."
Veteran NBA writer Shaun Powell has worked for newspapers and other publications for more than 25 years. You can e-mail him here or follow him on Twitter.
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