After the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Lakers this past Thursday in Kobe Bryant’s final matchup with LeBron James, Bryant passed along some advice for James’ two basketball playing sons.
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F LeBron James sat out Wednesday’s game against the Dallas Mavericks for a day of rest.
James was given the night off by coach Tyronn Lue as part of his plans to keep Cleveland’s starters fresh for the playoffs.
Cleveland (47-19) is coming off a back-to-back to end a four-game swing out West. It rolled to a 114-90 win over the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday before failing to complete a ideal trip with a 94-85 loss to Utah the next night.
Their first game back at The Q since their loss to the Grizzlies March 7 featured a new-look intro video prior to the game, and Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, and the rest of the Cavs stepped up with their biggest star watching from the bench. In their two games without James this season, the Cavs lost by a combined 29 points, which actually belies the 26 points they trailed Miami by before losing by 15 and the 30 they trailed Washington by before losing by 14.
The Dallas Mavericks snapped their five-game slide against one hot Eastern Conference team and will try to make it two straight wins when it faces another top team from the opposite conference.
14 – With 14 points off the bench, Channing Frye yet again proved that he can bring so much to the Cavaliers. Cavaliers PG Kyrie Irving is 5-of-23 from 3-point range in the last three games.3.
“I just thought giving him the three days now would be good instead of just resting him one game or one day on the back-to-back”, Lue explained.
Chandler Parsons had 24 points and nine rebounds and Dirk Nowitzki added 23 and 11 to lead five Mavericks in double-figure scoring.
“With LeBron out you lose 25 points”, Lue said. They converted 17 of those en route to a 110-107 overtime win behind 27 points from James and 22 from Irving.
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Mavericks: Dallas is in a brutal stretch of games.
