Cleveland trailed by six points with 5:24 to go, before James and Williams seized the moment. Langston Galloway padded the lead with a layup and finally a short floater in the lane with just 4.5 seconds remaining in the quarter. The Cavaliers star player then spared the time to write and send Duncan a personal letter along with a few items just to let him know that he was able to read the story and was thinking of him. Williams’ jumper put the Cavaliers ahead for good at 86-84 with 40 seconds left and his four free throws in the final 18 seconds sealed the win.
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“As great as he is, I’m going to try to make it as tough as possible for him”, Bayless said of guarding James. He made the remark as he opined more generally that his team was good, but not yet “great”.
Kenneth Faried added 14 points and 11 rebounds for Denver.
James scored six straight points to give Cleveland an 84-82 lead with 76 seconds to play.
Raymond Felton scored 23 points and Charlie Villanueva added 19 as they made sure the Dallas Mavericks did not miss absent starters Dirk Nowitzki, Wesley Matthews and Chandler Parsons in a 110-98 win over the Houston Rockets. He had 14 points and four assists in his second game back. Five more players finished in double figures, while only three more (including Kevin Love scoring 24 points) had 10 or more for Cleveland.
Afflalo buried back-to-back jumpers, the second of which turned into a three-point play when he was fouled in the act of shooting by Williams. NY has been steady from the free throw line, shooting a stellar.820. James blocked a shot by Bayless with 10 seconds left, and described himself as “full of steam” to push the ball up court. After a hot first half, Anthony fell into a cold spell in the second half, missing his first nine shots from the floor.
“As I get ready for my game I can’t help but to think of the tragedy in Paris!” “We get into trouble when we try to manufacture offense as individuals rather than as a unit”.
“We had to play really well to win, which was very concerning the way we were scoring in the first half”, Boston coach Brad Stevens said. Porzingis is the first Knicks rookie since Patrick Ewing in 1985 to score at least 80 points and grab at least 60 rebounds through the first seven games of a season.
Carmelo Anthony scored 26 for the Knicks, but 22 of that came in the first half.
I blew the whistle with 7.4 seconds because I was in my action refereeing the play, and off to the side I heard Cleveland’s bench ask for a timeout. Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers will be playing against the Latvian professional basketball player Kristaps Porzingis and the NY Knicks tonight at Madison Square Garden.
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Whether the Cavs’ problem – again, they’re 8-2, – is specifically related to effort, or, as Blatt suggested, it’s an execution issue, the broader point is the team wants to (needs to?) guard against any complacency that may exist from reaching the Finals a year ago with the entire core from that team intact.
