CLEVELAND -- LeBron James arrived fashionably late Saturday night to his New York party.
He didn't need long to catch up.
James scored 47 points, including 24 straight for Cleveland in the first half, and the Cavaliers held off the Knicks 113-106 for their 11th straight victory.
"It's something that can't be explained," James said of his stunning streak. "It's a feeling I wish I could be in every game, but it's not possible. It was a great moment."
James, who historically has saved some of his best performances for the Knicks, set a franchise record with 35 points in the first half. He finished one point shy of his season high while adding eight rebounds and eight assists.
He needed just 5:29 to score 24 straight -- 16 in a row to end the first quarter and eight straight to start the second. He closed the first quarter with four 3-pointers in the final two minutes, including a pair from 32 feet in the final 37 seconds. He shot 8 of 11 for the quarter.
"You sometimes become a fan because he's taking 3-point shots way beyond the arc," New York's Chris Duhon said. "Sometimes you get star-struck and you just start to get in a daze."
James' final 3 of the first quarter, from the "A" in the Cavaliers' half-court logo, came at the buzzer. He celebrated by charging toward the fans and throwing open his arms as the sellout crowd inside the Q roared.
With James' free agency pending this summer and the woeful Knicks dreaming of him in New York blue and orange next season, the Knicks could only stand by and watch James embrace his hometown crowd.
"My God," Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni said. "He didn't even come close to missing."
James did not take part in pregame warmups, nor did he join his teammates on the floor for the national anthem, something he rarely misses. He slid into his chair on the bench just before the pregame introductions, but would only say he had something to take care of before the game.
It certainly didn't affect his performance.
"I told him to go for 60," Cleveland's Shaquille O'Neal said. "He's fun to watch."
Despite James' theatrics, the Cavaliers had to fight to hold on in the fourth quarter.
Cleveland led by as much as 24 in the first half, but the Knicks cut the deficit to 109-106 on a basket by Jordan Hill with 2:19 to play.
James countered with a jumper from just inside the 3-point line, then grabbed the rebound following a miss by Al Harrington and stuck another jumper to make it 113-106 with less than a minute to play.
Nate Robinson, in his second start at point guard this season, had 26 points for New York. David Lee added 20 points and Harrington had 16 off the bench, including nine in the fourth.
After the Cavaliers scored 74 points in the first half, New York held Cleveland to just 39 the rest of the way. D'Antoni said he would forget about the first quarter, when the Knicks were outscored by 20, and instead enjoy the comeback.
"I like to sleep at night," he said. "I'll take the last three quarters."
O'Neal scored 19 points, Anthony Parker had 11 and J.J. Hickson added 10 for Cleveland, which is two shy of tying the franchise record for consecutive wins it set last season.
The 24-point scoring stretch isn't even James' career best. He scored the final 25 points in Cleveland's memorable 109-107 double-overtime victory at Detroit in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference finals in 2007. That performance propelled Cleveland to the NBA finals, someplace James and the Cavaliers, with the NBA's best record, could be headed again.
"I could really go for 50 a lot of nights if I wanted to," James said. "But I feel like if I have my teammates involved, it's ultimately going to help us in the long run."
Big games against the Knicks are nothing new to James. He had 52 points on Jan. 4, 2009, in New York, when he later had a triple-double taken away after video review. He scored 50 against them March. 5, 2008, and he had 45 at Cleveland on Nov. 2, 2007.
During his only visit to Madison Square Garden this season, James had 19 in the first quarter and the Cavs scored 40 in what became a 100-91 Cleveland victory on Nov. 6.
All of those games were Cleveland victories, but James won't concede that New York brings out the best in him.
"It's nothing personal," he said. "It's strictly business."
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CLEVELAND -- LeBron James was willing to do anything necessary to beat close friend Dwyane Wade.
Even if it meant filling in at point guard.
Forced to start in the backcourt, James scored 36 points -- 17 on free throws -- and Daniel Gibson added 12 in the second half after rushing back from the hospital as the Cleveland Cavaliers ran their winning streak to 10 with a 102-84 win over Wade and the Miami Heat on Thursday night.
James ran Cleveland's offense in place of Gibson, who had been starting while Mo Williams and Delonte West recover from injuries.
In attack mode from the start, James added eight assists, seven rebounds and went 17 of 21 from the line. The anticipated one-on-one showdown between him and Wade never materialized as the Cavs controlled the game and attempted 36 free throws to 14 for Miami.
"This team is just better than us," said Wade, flattened twice by run-ins with Shaquille O'Neal. "You have to be realistic. I understand this team has NBA championship aspirations. We don't have that. We're focusing on trying to get to the playoffs and this team is trying to get to the championship. It's totally different."
Wade finished with 24 points on 11 of 26 shooting and Michael Beasley had 21 as the Heat dropped its fourth straight and sixth in seven games.
Gibson was scratched from the starting lineup and didn't enter the game until the second half after joining his pregnant fiancee, singer Keyshia Cole, who was hospitalized for precautionary reasons. He made two 3-pointers in the fourth when the Cavs outscored the Heat 21-13.
Gibson watched part of the game on TV at home before heading to the arena.
"We had a long day," Gibson said, adding that Cole has not had the baby.
The last time James and Wade hooked up on Jan. 12, they scored a combined 70 points in an anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better matchup. Both provided their usual jaw-dropping plays again, but James was able to improve to 13-9 against Wade, including 9-1 in Cleveland.
"Nothing personal," said James, averaging 34 points, 6.3 assists and 6.7 rebounds in three wins over Miami this season. "Strictly business."
Miami was within eight after three quarters, but the Cavs outscored them 10-3 to open the fourth, taking a 91-76 lead on a 3 by Gibson. Wade tried to keep Miami close but didn't have nearly as much help as James, who has adapted his game lately to fill the backcourt void.
"I knew I was going to have the ball in my hands a lot because I was the starting point guard or point forward, whatever you want to call it," James said. "Like Magic [Johnson]. I can go coast to coast and do a lot of things with the ball that point guards in this league can't do.
"I was aggressive, they fouled me and I continued to be aggressive."
While James was able to draw fouls -- he shot 21 free throws to 2 for Wade -- his Miami counterpart wasn't able to get as many calls despite being knocked down on a few occasions. Twice, Wade ran into O'Neal, his former Heat teammate, and found himself looking at the ceiling without hearing a whistle.
"I went into him a couple times and nothing got called," Wade said. "I do what I normally do and that's be aggressive. He stepped up and delivered a couple body blows, but he knows I'm not going to break. So it's fine. He got a little blood, but it wasn't nothing."
O'Neal added 13 points and eight rebounds in 21 minutes, yet another strong, efficient performance from the big man who has stepped his game up of late. When Wade came at him, O'Neal held his ground.
"I'm not going to move and I ain't going to flop," he said. "So I'm just going to stand there. They're either going to call a foul or let us play."
O'Neal posted up and scored on a pair of short jumpers as the Cavs pushed their lead to 12 late in the third.
Gibson rejoined his teammates in the second quarter, and moments after he came back, James scored on an alley-oop dunk, fed J.J. Hickson for a slam and set up Zydrunas Ilgauskas for a 3 that put the Cavaliers ahead by five.
Gibson said Cole, who was sent home, didn't want him to miss the game.
"She was pushing me to get here just as much as I was trying to get here," he said.
Hickson posterized Wade with a monster dunk in the first. Hickson hustled to pick up a loose ball near midcourt and then raced down the floor before throwing down a two-hander on Wade, who probably would have been better off if he had let the 6-foot-9 Hickson pass freely.
Wade tried to return the facial in the third, but was rejected at the rim by Hickson.
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CLEVELAND -- LeBron James made at least one play that was Jordanesque. More than a few others were Magical.
James tied a career high with 15 assists and
Shaquille O'Neal ruled underneath, collecting 13 points and 13 rebounds in 21 minutes to help the
Cleveland Cavaliers beat the worn-down
Memphis Grizzlies 105-89 on Tuesday night for their ninth straight victory.
James scored 22, but like Magic Johnson, one of the legends to whom he is often compared, he was more focused on setting up his teammates.
It was the fifth time in six games James has had at least 10 assists, accepting the challenge of running Cleveland's offense while guards
Mo Williams and
Delonte West are out with injuries.
"He sees things other players don't see," Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins said. "He attacks the basket and throws it out for a 3. He attacks the basket, then throws it for a layup. He gets the ball on one side, he's not looking, but he sees the guy and whips it all the way across the court for another 3-pointer.
"He's just a great player. I don't know much more that you can say about him," he said.
Cleveland has won its past four games by an average of 19 points.
Rudy Gay scored 15 for Memphis, playing its fourth game in five nights.
Zach Randolph finished with eight points -- 13 below his average -- on 3-of-14 shooting and
O.J. Mayo had 10 on a 4-of-15 night as Cleveland's defense clamped down hard on the Grizzlies, who beat the Cavs in December.
"We just tried to keep a body in front of all three of them, that's O.J. and Rudy and Zach, their All-Star," James said. "It was a whole complete defensive performance, that's the reason we ended up winning big."
The Grizzlies were coming off a two-point home win over the
Los Angeles Lakers, but they lacked the legs or energy to run with the Cavaliers, who lead the NBA with a 39-11 record and improved to 10-0 against Western Conference teams at home this season.
"Last night had nothing to do with tonight," Hollins said. "Tonight had to do with the Cleveland Cavaliers and what they did defensively and what they did offensively."
James added two more great plays to his remarkable resume.
In the third quarter, he chased down Mayo from behind for a block. Late in the first half, James drove the lane, rose in the air and switched the ball from his right hand to his left before making the layup. It was reminiscent of the signature shot Michael Jordan made in the 1991 NBA Finals.
"It wasn't that good," James said. "But thanks."
Before the game, Cleveland's coaches stressed the importance of stopping Memphis' inside game, writing "Defend the paint" on the dry-erase board in the Cavs' locker room. The Grizzlies came in leading the league with 52 points per game in the paint, but with O'Neal blocking four shots, the Cavs never let Memphis' big men get comfortable and outscored the Grizzlies 64-34 in the lane.
Cleveland built an 18-point halftime lead and never let the Grizzlies get closer than 16 in the second half. After Mayo's 3-pointer capped a seven-point run, James picked up a loose ball in front of the Grizzlies' bench, calmly measured his shot and drained a 3 to put Cleveland back in control.
O'Neal doesn't have to dominate the way he once did, but that doesn't mean he can't take over.
In the second quarter, the 37-year-old showed no signs of aging, imposing his will on the Grizzlies' quality frontline of Randolph and Marc Gasol. O'Neal scored seven straight points -- two on a nifty spin move -- before feeding James for a layup as the Cavs took a 15-point lead.
Later in the quarter, with the Cavs up by 19, O'Neal gave baseline help and rejected a short shot by Mayo. The play brought Cavs coach Mike Brown out of his seat and he led Cleveland's fans in a rousing ovation as the 7-foot-1, 325-pound O'Neal came to the bench.
O'Neal has been coming on strong. The injuries have forced Brown to play O'Neal more than he would like, but the big man has responded.
"He looks great," James said. "He's motivated. When Mo and Delonte went down he decided to step his game up, which we knew he could do. He's just playing with a little bounce in his step that he didn't have at the start. But he had a different mindset than we all thought. We all thought he was playing slow, he was just saving himself for the second half of the season.
"He tricked all of us, I guess," he said.
© 2010
