Is this any way to treat an international icon? Ten points on 11 shots and not a single free throw attempt. This is what I got HD TV for?

Now, LeBron James doesn't owe me for the TV. I didn't buy a Sony just to watch "King" James. But it would have been nice of him to at least show up for my first playoff game with the new set. I adjusted the contrast, experimented with the colors, but somehow I couldn't see him. Not in the open court, not in the paint, and especially not at the foul line. Obviously the set is defective. After all, a 6'8" 26 point a game scorer doesn't just disappear into 40 inches worth of pixels. Right?

Wrong. For 45 minutes James became the NBA's version of the cheshire cat minus the smile. As he said before the game, you take what they give you. Evidently Detroit was not a charitable mood.

So what happened?

It's easy to blame James, but save a pointed finger for Cavs coach Mike Brown. Brown learned playoff basketball from Rick Carlisle, and maybe that's the problem. The Pacers had talent but they didn't have an open court player like James. Nobody does. Which makes the Cavs fixation with the half court offense somewhat puzzling.

It wasn't that Detroit controlled the boards. Cleveland outrebounded the Pistons 49-41. It wasn't that Cleveland tried to run and couldn't. They simply didn't make the attempt. The most telling stat of the night is this one: 16 assists for Cleveland. You don't get assists from a standing start, which is where Brown's offense spent most of the night.

Basketball is played in 3D. Played well it almost goes beyond to some uncharted area. Last night the Pistons turned off the high definition talent of the Cavs superstar and made the game black and white. 2D at most.

You give the Pistons their due, but still you wonder. Was the reason Cleveland played into Detroit's hands simply a matter of a self-fulfilling prophesy? Not so much that Cleveland can't beat Detroit, but that they don't believe they can. Faced with a tough opponent , the Cavaliers can either get tough or get gone. Last night they looked satisfied with just being in the game at the end. If Cleveland played like a team without heart, where was the leadership to give it to them? Not on the bench with the coach, not on the floor with LeBron James.

James has yet to learn what Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, and Larry Bird knew instinctively. It's not so much what you do when you go up with the ball. It's what you do the next play after you're knocked down with it. LeBron James didn't need a couple of seasons of college ball to learn to play, but maybe it's becoming obvious that he needed them to learn how to win.

Is Detroit-San Antonio now inevitable? Not really. If Cleveland is willing to run, willing to make mistakes, willing to exploit the tremendous talents James has in open court then the Cavs can certainly win. But first the team, starting with the coaching staff, has to become more afraid of losing than of the big, bad Pistons. And LeBron James, international icon, has to stop playing hard and play harder. It's the difference between HD and 2D and the difference in winning and "happy to be here".