Red-hot Cavs win in yawner

By MARY SCHMITT BOYER

INDIANAPOLIS — LeBron James was so dominating in the Cavaliers’ 94-73 victory over the Indiana Pacers on Friday night in Conseco Fieldhouse that he actually got a point and a rebound while sitting on the bench.

James took himself out of the game with 2:29 left in the fourth quarter. At the time, the box score said he had 22 points, nine rebounds, 13 assists and four blocked shots. But 40 seconds later, the box score said he had 23 points, 10 rebounds, 13 assists and four blocks.

According to a Pacers official, the stats crew failed to insert Cedric Jackson into the box score in place of James, so Jackson’s statistics were briefly credited to James. By the end of the game, the statisticians corrected their errors.

Too bad the Pacers couldn’t do the same thing. Frankly, they offered no resistance. They were absolutely dominated by the bigger, stronger Cavaliers (37-11), who won their seventh straight game.

Cavaliers center Shaquille O’Neal put on a show with 22 points — tying his season high — eight rebounds and two blocked shots. He led one fast break and delighted the bench with a multiple pump-fake in the lane that gave the Cavs their biggest lead of the night, 47-24, early in the second quarter. It was the sort of playful, yet powerful, performance not seen often enough since he joined the Cavs.

Backup center Zydrunas Ilgauskas finished with 13 points, five rebounds and three blocks to help the Cavs to a commanding 61-38 edge on the boards and a season-high 11 blocked shots.

The timid Pacers hit just 31 of 92 shots (33.7 percent) and shot an embarrassing five free throws. Total. For the game.

If the Cavs looked like big bullies, that was the whole idea.

“We tried to take advantage of being bigger than them,” Ilgauskas said. “We just made them pay on the other end. We dominated the boards, made them shoot a low percentage, made them shoot a lot of contested jump shots, which they didn’t make. They got in foul trouble. You could tell they were frustrated.”

Indiana coach Jim O’Brien did not disagree.

“We did not have enough bullets in our gun to make a game of it,” said O’Brien, who might hear from NBA Commissioner David Stern about that one. “We couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.

There wasn’t much his team could do against a Cavs lineup that at one point in the second quarter featured James, O’Neal, Anderson Varejao, Jawad Williams and Jamario Moon — the runt of the litter at 6-8. No wonder James didn’t care about falling just short of another triple double.

“It’s all about wins for me,” he said. “I probably have the most career one-rebound or one-assist-away triple doubles than anybody in NBA history.”