LeBron James, the world's greatest basketball player, is under intense pressure to perform at his highest level in this, the NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs. If the Miami Heat lose, all the blame will be put on James. 

"I take full responsibility for our team's performance," James told nba.com, one day after his Heat had scored fewer points in the second half than they'd surrendered in the fourth quarter of their 113-77 loss. "Me as a leader, I can't afford to perform like I did and expect us to win on the road. It's that simple. So I'm putting all the pressure on my chest, on my shoulders to come through for our team. That's the way it is."

The pressure that James was promising to embrace here Thursday in Game 4 of the NBA Finals -- needing a win to tie the series, knowing a loss would position the Spurs to close it out in Game 5 at home -- is pressure that he wants. He is paid to take on that pressure. That doesn't mean he's invulnerable to it.

Michael Jordan was 30, about a year older than James is now, when he "retired" after three straight years in the NBA Finals. He had experienced a traumatic year -- his father had been murdered, and he was being criticized for his gambling habits -- and he needed to miss most of the next two NBA seasons in order to feel recharged before earning another three-peat with the Bulls.

James has been under more severe public pressure than any player in the game since 2010, when he made his life endlessly more difficult by turning free agency into reality television and then bragging about the championships he was going to win. It's only natural that the burdens of the last three years have worn on him emotionally.

It was stunning to see how passive he was in the Game 3 loss. When jump shots aren't falling, he knows the antidote is to earn free throws, reports s.i.com. But he looked as if he couldn't summon the inspiration to attack, and no doubt part of it is because neither Dwyane Wade (14.2 points in the Finals) nor Chris Bosh (12.3) has provided the kind of A-list support that James is accustomed to receiving from them.

Miami coach Erik Spoelstra refers constantly to James's ability to play extended stretches without slacking at either end of the floor. He is averaging 41.1 minutes in this series at the end of this three-year run of three NBA Finals, an Olympics and the negative scrutiny that he earned as a national pariah. Now he needs to win three of the next four games without certainty that his teammates will come up big for him.

"We're guarding him with five guys," said 37-year-old Tim Duncan, who is two wins away from winning his fifth championship. "He's the best player in the world, so we're respecting him as that. We're trying to make his life as difficult as possible every time he touches the ball."