LeBron watches loss from bench

The Cavs’ injured ace watched in street clothes as his team lost to Boston.

BOSTON (AP) — LeBron James watched from the bench in street clothes. The show he saw wasn’t very pretty.

“There’ll be no video on this game, hopefully,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. “It was not a piece of art.”

Boston plodded to an 80-70 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers Sunday. But the NBA’s leading scorer was sidelined with a sprained finger, the NBA’s best team had little energy, and the crowd that showed up for the rare 12:30 p.m. start was subdued.

“Afternoon games aren’t one of my favorites to begin with,” Boston’s Kevin Garnett said.

He and Paul Pierce each scored under 10 points. Garnett had only nine in 26 minutes two games after his streak of 435 games, including playoffs, of scoring in double figures ended when he had eight points in 23 minutes of a 104-59 win over the New York Knicks.

“We just didn’t have the energy we normally come out with,” said Pierce, who had seven points in 30 minutes. “I don’t know if part of it was [the game] being early. I don’t know if part of it was LeBron not playing, but we usually come out with a better start.”

James, who missed his second straight game, is day-to-day, Cleveland coach Mike Brown said.

The Celtics led just 43-39 at the end of a slow-paced first half. It was 48-44 before an 8-point run put them ahead 56-44 with 4:52 left in the third quarter.

That’s when Cleveland called a time-out. James, watching from his bench in street clothes, smiled and gestured toward Boston’s Scot Pollard, who played on Cleveland’s Eastern Conference finalists last season.

“When King James goes down, you feel like you have to carry the team by yourself offensively,” Drew Gooden said.

On Tuesday night, the Cavaliers handed the Celtics one of their two losses of the season, 109-104 in overtime at Cleveland. James scored 38 points, 11 of them in overtime, and added 13 assists.

But the next night in a 109-74 loss in Detroit, James sprained his left index finger in the second quarter. Cleveland lost again Friday night, 91-82 at Toronto.

Boston improved to an NBA best 14-2 and was led by Ray Allen with 20 points and Rajon Rondo with 12. Cleveland was led by Zydrunas Ilgauskas with 12 points and 13 rebounds and Sasha Pavlovic with 11 points. Gooden had a double-double at halftime and finished with 10 points and 11 rebounds.