To his credit, LeBron James has played his way into the conversation for the best basketball players of all-time.Since 2003, James has been near the top of the NBA. Now in his 14th season, it's remarkable how high of a level he's playing at for the Cleveland Cavaliers.However, being in such a conversation also means you are held to a higher standard and rough performances only hurt your overall case.Which brings us to Sunday night.James and the Cavaliers had a chance to extend their playoff run to an amazing 11-0 at home against the Boston Celtics, who are without their best player in Isaiah Thomas.Not only did the Cavaliers lose Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals by a score of 111-108 on their home court, but James had a miserable performance by his lofty standards.James had 11 rebounds, 6 assists and 6 rebounds and turned the ball over 6 times in the loss. He was 4-for-13 shooting in the game from the field and was 3 for 6 on free throws and 0 for 4 from beyond the 3-point line.It's a tough game for LeBron, who had been so dominant in the playoffs up until Sunday night.

It was the sixth time in LeBron's playoff career that he scored less than 15 points, something Jordan never did in his 179 career playoff games. James has played 210 career playoff games, by the way.

This is especially important, as James will soon pass Jordan on the all-time career playoff scoring list. Jordan leads the list with 5,987 points and LeBron is second with 5,926.

Maybe he just wanted to extend the series against Boston a little bit so he can get the new record out of the way before reaching the NBA Finals?

To be fair, when taking these stats into consideration, it's important to note that James patterns his game as more of an all-around player than Jordan, who is one of the best pure scorers in NBA history.

While Jordan's playoff points per game total is an astonishing 33.4 points per game, LeBron's career mark is 28.2 per contest.

However, add in LeBron's 8.8 rebounds per game and 6.8 assists for Cleveland and Miami - compared to Jordan's 6.4 rebounds and 5.7 assists - and you have a better look at overall production.

Of course, as they say, rings are the thing. That's another stat where Jordan still dominates LeBron with his six championships with the Chicago Bulls. LeBron has three rings and has a good shot at number four this year.

If he can manage to get back to his dominant ways, that is.