Williams brings game to new level

By CHRIS BEAVEN

When the fourth quarter arrived a year ago for the Cavs, it usually turned into The LeBron Show.

Game after game, LeBron James took over in the final quarter to lead the Cavs to victory.

The LeBron Show, though, is sharing the marquee more and more this season with a new crowd pleaser — The Mo Show.

Point guard Mo Williams is developing a LeBron-like knack for taking over games in the fourth quarter and leading the Cavs to wins.

“Mo’s a great player,” James said. “It’s no surprise to us what he can do out there. It might surprise you guys [in the media] sometimes, because you’re not used to having two guys that can put up these type of numbers. It’s been awhile since [Mark] Price and [Brad] Daugherty. It’s kind of fun to have a guy who we can give the ball to and he can make things happen.”

The Heat saw more than enough of Williams making things happen last week. He burned Miami for 17 fourth-quarter points last Monday, rallying the Cavs from 11 down to win on the road. He then scored 12 points in the last 7:12 Saturday to finish off the Heat in Cleveland.

“It’s about reads,” Williams said. ‘They don’t leave LeBron alone too often, and that gave me a lot of room to create. We made them make a decision.

“We mixed it up: He handled the ball and I set it up for him, and he set it up for me and we both just played off of each other. If [defenders] want to help one another, we make a play.”

Powerful dunks, daring drives and lights-out 3-point shooting are the fan favorites provided by James once he gets rolling. Take away the dunks, and Williams delivers plenty of the other two.

“Mo’s had a couple fourth quarters for us that have been huge, where he’s scored 14, 15, 16 points in a quarter,” Cavs coach Mike Brown said. “It gives a guy like LeBron rest, obviously, to do other things for us. And then when Mo’s able to do things like that, it really heightens awareness around the rest of the league that ‘Hey we can’t just game plan for LeBron at the end of the game when it comes to a guy going to make a play. We’ve got to game plan for Mo Williams, too, because he’s going to make plays for others.’ So it’s good to see that.”

Williams has taken his game up several notches since the All-Star break. In the 11 games since, he is averaging 19.9 points, shooting 51 percent. Even more impressive is he is shooting 60.8 percent from beyond the 3-point arc, making 31-of-51 3s.

It has him averaging a career-best 18.0 points per game for the season. Williams could become the first Cavalier other than James to average more than 17 points a game since James’ arrival in 2003.

“It’s been fun because we are winning and because it’s effective,” Williams said of teaming up with James. “If something is effective, you want to keep going to it. We are in the latter part of the season and teams haven’t figured it out yet, so obviously it’s effective.”