James has already reached a number of milestones this season, including the youngest to score 25,000 points. The Cavaliers, built around LeBron James but with two All-Star caliber players in Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving, had to play for 5 games in the NBA Finals without those two complimentary pieces to James.
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Love reeled off 17 straight during a five-minute burst of scoring in the second quarter that included a trio of three-pointers.
Last week, LeBron James passed the great Jerry West on the NBA’s all-time scoring list. The key thing is just to make it hard for him. “But when you have the crowd on your side and you can really go on big runs, we’re tough to stop”.
James matched a season-high with 13 assists to go with 15 points and six rebounds.
“It would be more impressive if they were doing all this without Steph”, James said.
The Cavaliers victory saw them improve to 11-3 for the season, the best record in the Eastern Conference this year.
But James did much of his damage during a decisive third quarter in which Cleveland outscored Orlando 33-21.
With Stephen Curry hitting 3-pointers at a record-setting pace and the rest of his teammates playing with a high level of intensity and focus, the Warriors have tied the National Basketball Association record with 15 straight wins to open the season.
The 76ers next travel to Boston on Wednesday before heading to Houston on Friday.
Forward Andrew Nicholson scored 18 points off the bench and centre Nikola Vucevic had 12 points and five rebounds for the Magic.
Jahlil Okafor had 25 points, 12 rebounds and two blocks for Philadelphia.
Miami eventually led by as much as 26, both their biggest advantage and the Knicks’ biggest deficit so far this season. The Cleveland Cavaliers are averaging 104.9 points on 47 percent shooting and allowing 97.1 points on 43.4 percent shooting. This is clearly a team that likes to shoot 3s, and while Blatt gently identifies nights he thinks they shoot too many, the simple reality is sometimes he’s going to have to live with nights like Saturday to get to nights like this. “We were trying to take it to them instead of reading the defense and seeing what was available”. There was just something about the Spurs that became a thorn in the back of the king, but not this time as LeBron came to battle with a 2 time champion in Dwyane Wade, a multiple time all-star in Chris Bosh and the one player who would make the series saving shot in the series, the player who turned into one of the greatest shooters of all time Ray Allen. “He’s one of, if not the most, unselfish superstars in the game”. “It was more of a group effort”. Everybody was probably the best player on their team in college.
Center Greg Monroe posted his seventh double-double of the season with 20 points and 13 rebounds to lead the Milwaukee Bucks to a 109-88 rout of the Detroit Pistons. It was his seventh double-double of the season.
They led 59-55 at half-time before Smith scored 11 points in the third and the Magic shot 38 per cent in the quarter (seven of 18).
“It was the communication”, Johnson said.
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Since James was in high school, he’s been endlessly compared with players ahead of him. “He was the guy I feel helped me get to where I am today”.
