LeBron James does it all on after spinning past the Suns' defense before grabbing the basket and the foul in the third quarter.
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INDEPENDENCE, Ohio -- LeBron James' voice has been hoarse for a little while now -- a product of constantly barking instructions at his teammates to get them up to speed with the playoffs fast approaching and the typical Cleveland springtime that has him feeling a little under the weather.
But that didn't prevent him from doing voice over work for an upcoming animated feature called "Smallfoot" on the Cleveland Cavaliers' day off Thursday afternoon.
"It's about Yetis trying to find you guys, humans," James said following Friday's shootaround at Cleveland Clinic Courts. "I play one of the main characters in the movie, his name is Gwangi. I was doing voice over for it yesterday. We have a launch date of Sept. 24, I believe, if not sooner.
"It's fun to actually put your voice into a character and then see some of the clips come to life. I'm looking forward to seeing my daughter watch it. She loves, obviously, animated movies. To hear her dad's voice she's going to be kind of weirded out a little bit at first. But she'll get it as the movies goes on."
Gwangi is a giant purple Yeti who is a bit of a conspiracy theorist. James' fellow bigfoot in the movie, Migo, is voiced by Channing Tatum.
"Smallfoot" also stars James Corden, Zendaya, Gina Rodriguez, Common and Danny DeVito. As for the release date, James might be a bit off, as IMDb shows it launching on Sept. 28.
James is no stranger to the silver screen, having acted in the 2015 romantic comedy "Trainwreck." He's also expected to team up with several NBA All-Stars for "Space Jam 2" at some point in the future, but that's still a ways off.
This particular role for "Smallfoot" is quite a bit different than anything he's ever done before.
"They're both challenging," James said. "I've been fortunate enough to have some great roles that's allowed me to be myself with a little twist. I got a little time yesterday morning to kind of go through my lines, look at my script and add some more lines, so it was pretty good."
The four-time MVP, who co-founded SpringHill Entertainment with business partner and friend Maverick Carter, said he got to see the footage for his upcoming scenes to get in the proper mode before attacking the voice work.
He also said his voice wasn't "great" at first, but was able to open it up with tea and honey as well as throat lozenges -- a remedy he's been using after every game to get his voice to recover over the last few weeks. On Thursday, he put even more stress on it because of the amount of takes he needed to complete his scenes.
"It's not that you need more takes because you're not doing it well," he said. "It's just because they like more takes. That's just the director. They always like more takes. The more takes they got, the more they can use. That's just the nature of the business."
He's starting to learn the entertainment industry quite well. Next for him is trying to figure out how to keep his voice from deserting him.
After all, James is the Cavaliers' on-court mouthpiece and unquestioned leader. Communication, which has been a problem at times this season, is vital, and even more so with new players still getting acclimated.
"That's my last thing I'm trying to figure out," James said. "How can I stop from getting hoarse after every game? It's like a singer, I guess. Right after the game, I got to knock down some tea, get some honey, get some things to kind of get my voice back working, especially with us playing every other day for the next couple weeks til the end."
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Cleveland Cavaliers' week began with bad news.
With the urging of general manager Koby Altman and others in the organization, head coach Tyronn Lue decided to step away for an undisclosed amount of time to focus on his health.
That kind of adversity at this time of the season -- just weeks away from the postseason when teams are trying to "sharpen their knives," according to Tristan Thompson -- could've sent the Cavs any which way.
The reigning Eastern Conference champs could've let the latest bit of turmoil push them the wrong direction, interrupting their process and preventing them from finding a rhythm. Or they could've rallied around Lue's absence. Cleveland chose the latter, polishing off a 3-0 homestand while showing the mental toughness of a champion -- something that was questioned more than once throughout this turbulent season.
"Sometimes you have to play the hand that's dealt to you," Larry Drew said. "And certainly, it was unfortunate what happened with coach Lue. And the way our guys have responded, you go through the course of a season and you deal with a lot of different things and when you do that, you don't know whether you're going to be able to overcome it. And I think for our team, we really rallied, No. 1, around coach Lue, when the organization made the decision that he was going to step away for a few games. We rallied around him, we rallied around one another."
Hours after learning of Lue's absence, the short-handed Cavs topped the Milwaukee Bucks. Then came a statement win against the East-leading Toronto Raptors, one Drew believes can be season changing, as the Cavaliers rallied from 15 points down without five key rotation players for a three-point victory.
The promising three-game stretch ended Friday night with a blowout win against hapless Phoenix Suns, who have one win since January.
So what's it all mean?
"It says that we are very capable of persevering," Drew said about the week that was. "And certainly when you look at our year and everything that has happened, we have persevered. And to me that's a sign of a team that is mentally strong and a team that is mentally capable. Personally I'm very proud of how they've responded to everything. They could've gone the other way, but they didn't. They've responded very well."
Adversity is nothing new for the Cavaliers. Former GM David Griffin always said the team shined brightest in darkness.
There's been plenty of that. The season started with a roster overhaul, a handful of moves forced by Kyrie Irving's trade demand. Then came the first wave of injuries followed by finger pointing, losing streaks, sulking, more upheaval and a second rash of injuries.
"It's funny, we've had so much happen to us over the last three or four years, we've almost seen it all now," Love said. "Having a coach go down, it just shows us we're down but not out. A lot of guys missing for different reasons, but L.D. has done an awesome of kind of rallying the troops.
"The biggest moment at least for him was halftime of last game really brought us all together and had us come up and fight in that second half of the Toronto game. It was a good win for us today, a good week for us overall. Just shows our togetherness out there on the floor."
The Cavs are certainly hoping the toughest stretch is over. And it appears things are starting to normalize once again. James could sense it in the pregame huddle, noticing something different.
"Before we even ran out, our huddle was almost complete," James said. "It was a good step in the right direction."
On Friday night, Thompson returned after missing nine games. Rodney Hood, still showing signs of rust, played for the first time in more than a week because of an achy back. Larry Nance Jr. was flying high once again, showing no ill effects from of an injured hamstring that sidelined him the previous four games.
The picture isn't completely clear. Lue is still at home, well enough to communicate with coaches on off days and following games, but not yet to return. Cedi Osman is still nursing a sore hip and Kyle Korver remains away from the team following his brother Kirk's death.
All of that while Cavs coaches are trying to figure out lineup combinations and establish a rhythm before the playoffs.
But things are starting to come into focus. Right in time.
"Just be in the best shape of your life," Thompson said of the final 10 games. "That's how I view it. Be able to do your job at a high level when the postseason hits. I think that's all that matters. At the end of the day no one really remembers Game 65 or Game 78. People only remember what you do in the playoffs. As long as you're playing your best and on the top of your game then that's all that matters."
Despite the positive week -- which James praised because the Cavaliers have been playing the right way, sharing the ball, communicating on the defensive end and not straying from the game plan -- he's staying steady.
After all, James knows -- and has seen firsthand -- just how quickly everything can change.
The Cavaliers got a reminder of that this week, uniting to push through the latest obstacle in their title quest.
"You can have a great week like this week and then you can have a horrible week next week," James said. "I'll stay even keel. We got better this week. We played well this week. We won some really good games versus teams that are at the top, teams that are at the bottom and we worked our habits. We just want to continue to not get too high about what we just accomplished.
"We did what we wanted to do and we want to try to continue to do that going into next week."
According to Elias, LeBron James’ streak of consecutive assists w/out a turnover ended at 28 tonight (He had 2 without a turnover the night before his 17-assist game). That’s the longest streak of his career & longest streak for any player since Jimmy Butler (37) in March 2017
Chris Fedor, cleveland.com
