LeBron takes over at the end

He scored 11 straight points in the fourth quarter Saturday against the Bucks.

MILWAUKEE (AP) — LeBron James expects his team to look to him late in close games. The Cleveland Cavaliers certainly did Saturday night.

James scored 11 straight points for Cleveland late in the fourth quarter and finished with 32 in the Cavaliers’ 97-85 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks.

“They should,” James said. “I have done it in the past, and I’m going to continue to do it in the future. And tonight was one of those games when they looked at me, and I took it upon myself to do that.”

James struggled much of the night, going without a field goal for more than 15 minutes in the second half before he led Cleveland on a decisive 11-2 run. He was 12-of-27 from the field and the Cavs shot a season-low 41.5 percent.

Zydrunas Ilgauskas added a season-high 23 points and 17 rebounds to help Cleveland win for the 13th time in 14 games. Michael Redd returned after missing 14 games with a right ankle sprain to lead the Bucks with 20 points in 35 minutes.

The last-place Bucks have dropped four in a row.

Cleveland never trailed and dominated Milwaukee inside, outrebounding the Bucks 53-38. The Cavaliers had 22 second-chance points to Milwaukee’s seven and 19 offensive rebounds to Milwaukee’s seven.

“We stuck with it,” Cavaliers coach Mike Brown said. “We could’ve folded at any time during the course of the game. We could have given a ton of excuses — fourth game in five nights, things just weren’t going our way shooting the ball.

“We stuck together.”

James struggled much of the second half, scoring three points until his layup with 5:08 remaining made it 84-79. Two free throws and three more baskets later, including a 3-pointer, and Cleveland led 93-81. James finished with 14 points in the period.

“We tried three or four different coverages on him and, like all the great players do, he has a really good sense of timing of when to take over,” Bucks coach Scott Skiles said. “In both games that we have played against him, we have struggled to contain him in any meaningful way. He’s a great player.”

Milwaukee had just one field goal in the final 4:51.

Milwaukee cut it two at 79-77, following Luke Ridnour’s 3-pointer midway through the fourth quarter, but Sasha Pavlovic responded with a 3-pointer of his own to make it 82-77 with 5:43 remaining.

James then took over in the next 3-plus minutes.