Sometimes, it’s the subtle things that we have to appreciate. Take LeBron James, for instance. On Thursday, he recorded a historic, oh-my-God-did-you-see-that performance to singlehandedly win Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals. But what caught my attention almost as much was James’s more mundane, yet incredibly prescient and mature, performance that helped the Cavaliers clinch the series in Game 6.

Despite being only 22 years old and playing in his first-ever conference finals, James understood one thing perfectly well before he ever took the court on Saturday: There was no way the Pistons were going to let him score 48 points again.

A lesser player would have forced the action, trying to recreate the magical finish of two nights earlier. At the least, he would have bristled and grown frustrated as Detroit kept the game a dead heat through three quarters, especially as his own modest numbers did little to bolster the Cleveland side — the Cavs only had 67 points through three quarters.

James, however, had the same understanding in the fourth quarter that he did in the first — that as great as he was, the biggest in franchise history essentially stood on the shoulders of his teammates. Detroit was double and even triple-teaming James moments after he crossed halfcourt with the ball, so there would be no unmolested drives for rim-rattling dunks in this one. Instead of oneon-five, this game would be won four-on-three, with the other Cavs needing to make Detroit pay for all the attention paid to James.

And pay they did, thanks to a brilliant game from unheralded rookie Daniel Gibson. He didn’t score more than 19 points in any game the entire season, but matched that number in a magical sevenminute stretch of the fourth quarter en route to a 31-point night that buried the Pistons. The secondround draft choice was only on the court because a foot injury was limiting starter Larry Hughes but took advantage of the doubleteaming of James to drill all five of his 3-point attempts — including back-to-back ones at the start of the fourth quarter that broke the Pistons’ backs.

Yet Gibson only had that opportunity because James remained so unerringly patient. Even as the Cavs missed their share of open shots in the first three quarters, James wouldn’t take the bait and try taking low-percentage drives against multiple defenders. He knew that the shots were bound to start falling eventually, and once Gibson got rolling they did. Cleveland was only 4-for-12 on 3-pointers in the first three quarters, but nailed five of six in a five-minute stretch at the start of the fourth to blow the game wide open.

In this case, James’s final assist tally — eight — doesn’t come close to doing justice to his impact on the game. Every wide-open jumper by Gibson was a result of Detroit genuflecting before James, throwing extra defenders his way even when he was 40 feet from the basket.

As the Cavs know, this is in stark contrast to what happened for much of the season, and in fact for most of the playoffs, too. The Cavs have suffered from a paucity of quality outside shooting throughout James’s career, which has encouraged opponents to load up defenses against him.

That’s exactly what happened in the first two games, both Cleveland defeats. Each time, the Cavs could muster just 76 points, with the ending of Game 1 becoming the enduring symbol: When James found Donyell Marshall for a wideopen game-winning 3-pointer at the end of Game 1, he promptly clanged it off the rim to allow the Pistons to win.

Enter Gibson. In the final three games of the series, all Cleveland wins, he averaged 21 points per game. Could it be … does LeBron suddenly have some help on the perimeter? It may be so. Gibson shot 41.9% on 3-pointers during the season, and has boosted that to 44.7% in the postseason. In a way, Hughes’s injury could be the best thing that ever happened to the Cavs — if Gibson shoots like this, he’s a far more potent threat than the slashing Hughes ever could be.

And as we look ahead to the Cavs-Spurs Finals, that’s the one thing that could yet make this pairing interesting — call it the Gibson Factor. Based just on regular-season performance, it’s hard to imagine how a team that won 49 games in a weak Eastern Conference — one that barely limped past the Nets, in all their mediocrity, during the conference semifinals — is going to post any kind of challenge to the mighty Spurs.

But if Gibson can pump in 20 and 30 points a night the way he did in the final three games of the Detroit series, that’s a difference-maker. Not only does his shot help Cleveland’s bottom line, it also makes defenders reluctant to leave him to double LeBron — opening more room for the Cavs’ meal ticket.

As for their vanquished opponents, one wonders if this was the end of the line for the Pistons as an Eastern power. At the very least, an attitude adjustment is in order. In four short years, Detroit’s core of Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Rasheed Wallace, and Antonio McDyess went from “confident but hungry” to “arrogant and entitled.” Game 6 was a crowning example — virtually every call from the first quarter on was greeted with outstretched arms and childish whining, until finally Rasheed Wallace’s histrionics saw him dismissed early in the fourth quarter.

If the Pistons do come back intact, one wonders if they’ll have the same coach. I’m not as down on Flip Saunders as some others, but to say he had a rough night in Game 6 is an understatement. From Nazr Mohammed’s bizarre first-quarter cameo, to inserting scatter-shot defensive ace Lindsey Hunter on an offensive possession at the end of the first half, to leaving Hamilton on James when he had four, and then five, fouls in the fourth quarter, it was hard to fathom what he was doing or why.

But Detroit’s questions can wait for another day; this is Cleveland’s moment, and more specifically James’s. And while fans’ amazement at his Jordanesque effort to win Game 5 is totally justified, we shouldn’t lose sight of how incredibly unselfish and beyond his years his performance was in Game 6. Though he only shot 3-for-11 and scored, for him, a meager 20 points, in some ways it was just as amazing as what he’d done two nights earlier. And at the ripe old age of 22, Le-Bron’s maturity is the reason that for the first time ever, the Cavs find themselves in the NBA Finals.

jhollinger@nysun.com