Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Cleveland overshadowed Boston’s heralded trio in a 109-104 victory.
CLEVELAND (AP) — There’s at least one other Big 3 in the NBA, and this trio isn’t gracing any magazine covers.
LeBron James scored 38 points, Drew Gooden added a season-high 24 and Zydrunas Ilgauskas had 15 as Cleveland’s threesome outplayed Boston’s heralded triumvirate during a 109-104 win in overtime on Tuesday night.
James, who has raised his game to another level, scored 11 points in OT as the defending Eastern Conference champions dropped the Celtics to 11-2 with one of their best all-around performances of the early season.
James added 13 assists and finished 14-of-15 from the line, including 6-of-6 in OT. He, Gooden and Ilgauskas outscored Boston’s Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce 77-64.
“We don’t want any tag,” James said. “We don’t want any Big 3 or whatever. We just go out there and do our job. Z is playing career basketball right now, Drew is getting better, and I’m going to do what I have to do for us to win, of course.”
Allen led the Celtics with 29 points on 10-of-25 shooting, but missed two free throws with the score tied 92-all late in regulation.
“I feel like I let the team down,” said Allen, an 89 percent career free-throw shooter. “I was so surprised I missed the first one, I didn’t let it go. I took it into the second one.”
James came in averaging 37.5 points, 10.2 rebounds and 9.5 assists in his past six games, joining Wilt Chamberlain (1964) and Oscar Robertson (1965) as the only players to reach those totals in a six-game stretch.
“He was fantastic,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said. “That’s who he is. He hurt us as much with his passing as he did with his scoring. When he’s scoring and getting everyone involved, he’s a killer. That’s what he was tonight.”
With his team leading by one in overtime, James drained a long 3-pointer to put Cleveland ahead 99-95, and following misses by both teams, Cavs forward Sasha Pavlovic made a steal in the lane and fed James who was fouled.
He made both free throws to make it 101-95 with 54.3 seconds remaining.
Allen’s 3-pointer brought the Celtics within 102-98 but James went to the line and made another pair to give the Cavs a six-point lead. Pierce’s 3 cut it to 105-101 but James again made his free throws.
During the closing minutes, James and Garnett exchanged a few choice words and both teams played as if it were a playoff game. After the final horn, there were no friendly hugs shared between two of the East’s powers as players on both teams headed immediately to their locker rooms.
Garnett refused to discuss whatever problem he had with James.
“I was talking to a lot of people,” Garnett said in a sarcastic tone. “I was talking to Doc Rivers. I was talking to Drew Gooden. I had a couple of discussions with a couple of different people.”
And how did he think James did?
“He played well,” he said tersely.
Allen’s floater in the lane put the Celtics ahead 92-89 with 2:03 left in regulation, but the Cavaliers tied it with 59 seconds to go on Pavlovic’s 3-pointer.
Boston had a chance to take the lead when Allen was fouled, but the smooth guard, who came in shooting 92 percent from the line this season, missed both attempts and the Cavs quickly called time.
Rivers was surprised Allen would misfire.
“Yeah,” he said. “But I’ll take those all day. We were 69 percent at the line. If we had made our free throws, we probably would have won the game.”
James could have won it in the final second, but was short on a 17-footer at the buzzer.