LeBron James, Jeff Teague and the Undefeated Club
LeBron James, Jeff Teague and the Undefeated Club
LeBron James is 12-0 against Jeff Teague in the playoffs. Is that a record?
Astounding fact which inspired this post: Jeff Teague has never beaten LeBron James in the playoffs. Not one game. Twelve games, twelve losses. Three series, three sweeps.
That’s simply incredible. It’s a fact that I hadn’t known until Teague mentioned it recently on his Club 520 podcast. He told an amazing story about the Pacers blowing what he remembered to be a 30-point lead, with Teague praying to his teammate Paul George in the closing minutes, “Please. Take us home.”
That game, in the 2017 playoffs, tied an all-time playoff record for largest comeback (it was actually 26 points, not 30. Same difference). The way Teague described it, when the Cavs cut the deficit to 8, he thought: “It’s over.” Amazing. Experience is the best teacher, LeBron likes to say.
Teague told that story to DeMar DeRozan who had his own horror stories facing LeBron. As it happens, LeBron’s Cavs swept Teague’s Pacers just before sweeping … DeRozan’s Raptors (remember the #LeBronto Raptors). DeRozan has actually managed to win two games against LeBron. He’s still 2-12 lifetime in the playoffs. Teague wishes he could be 2-12 lifetime against LeBron.
So of course, I had to look this up. Is LeBron’s 12-0 record against Jeff Teague the largest undefeated player-opponent record for him in the playoffs? Is it the largest undefeated player-opponent record for any player? As a fellow Demon Deacon, I was hoping that Teague wouldn’t be the answer to that trivia question. Only one way to find out.
Let’s pull up Basketball Reference and go to work.
The study
Using the brilliant research tools at Basketball Reference/Stathead, I couldn’t find an easy way to answer this with a click of a button. I tried pulling a bunch of levers, but didn’t quite get what I wanted. Even still, I’m pretty sure I have the answer.
First, I looked up the all-time playoff win leaders among players, and no surprise, LeBron James tops that list by a considerable margin. He has helped lead his team to 183 playoff wins. Do you know how crazy that is? Klay Thompson, the next highest-active player, could win 75 more playoff games and he still wouldn’t have more than LeBron.
Anyway, looking at the all-time list, I picked out a few all-timers and checked to see their Opponent win-loss records on their player pages. It took some work but I managed to look up the undefeated playoff list for the following greats: Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Bill Russell, Larry Bird, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain.
That’s a dozen all-timers. I feel pretty good about the chances that the record-holder would be in that group. So, have any of them faced someone as many times in the playoffs without losing as LeBron James has against Jeff Teague?
The answer is yes. But only one player has matched that level of unblemished dominance over another single player — twelve-and-oh. At least that I could find. In fact, among those greats, only one other player has an undefeated record against an individual that reaches even DOUBLE-digits.
And that player is still active. Which makes some sense. It was harder to rack up a ton of playoff wins in earlier eras. Playoffs were shorter in two ways. Bill Russell, for example, only needed to win two series to become an NBA champion whereas today’s players have to emerge victorious through four rounds to hold that Larry OB.
On top of that, Jeff Teague suffered four losses in a sweep in the 2017 first-round with the Indiana Pacers whereas players in earlier eras were mercifully eliminated in fewer games in the opening round. From 1975 to 1983, the first-round series was best-of-three. From 1984 to 2002, it was best-of-five. Beginning in 2003, the first-round became a best-of-seven round like the rest of the playoffs.
Likewise, with shorter playoff rounds, if you look at Bill Russell, for example, the largest undefeated tally to his name is just four wins.
So who’s the player-opponent combo that has reached the same level as LeBron James and Jeff Teague?