Heat teammates reveal reason that fueled LeBron James’ 2012 playoff masterpiece

The night that LeBron James walked into TD Garden for Game 6 of the 2012 Eastern Conference finals between the Heat and Celtics has always been the talk of myth and legends.

Some, including his own teammates, have called it the greatest individual performance in a playoff game in NBA history.

But now, more than a decade later, his former Heat teammates are pulling back the curtain on the real inspiration that lit a fuse under James that night and motivated him to make history.

Speaking on the “OGs” podcast, hosted by James’ former teammates Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem, they recalled the story of that infamous Game 6 performance with another teammate who was there that day, forward Shane Battier.

“It was the bus,” Haslem said. “That’s when they pissed him off.”

As the story goes, the Heat were waiting at their team hotel for the bus to pick them up and drive them around the corner to the arena. The Heat trailed the Celtics in the series 3-2 and were facing elimination inside hostile territory. Everything was on the line.

However, the team bus ran late, and then it intentionally crawled through what should have been a quick trip to the arena. Nearly an hour later, they finally arrived. Less than 40 minutes before tipoff.

Inside the locker room, tension clung to the walls. Dwyane Wade glanced at the clock. “We’ve only got 40 minutes.”

Haslem remembers the look on James’ face at that moment. He was calm but volcanic beneath the surface. He simply replied, “Don’t worry about it.”

Miller remembered how he was lacking confidence ahead of the big game, but as soon as James said that, his confidence grew.

“I’ve never been more confident going into a game that I should not have been confident about in my life,” Miller said on the podcast.

He also recalled James telling him before tipoff that he was not only going to fire every bullet he had at the Celtics that night, but he was going to take out the clip, throw that at them and then throw the gun itself.

And that’s exactly what he did. James scored 45 points, grabbed 15 rebounds and had five assists, dismantling Boston with ruthless precision. The Heat would go on to win the series in seven games and then rolled through the Thunder to win their first title together in Miami.