CAVALIERS 106, PISTONS 101: At Cleveland, Kyrie Irving scored 31 points in his first playoff game since being injured a year ago in the NBA Finals and Kevin Love added 28, leading the Cleveland Cavaliers to a 106-101 victory over the Detroit Pistons on Sunday in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series.
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The Cavs’ Big Three of LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love combined for 81 points and made all the big plays down the stretch for the team expected to reach the NBA Finals out of the Eastern Conference.
“I think Kev, every part of the game the first quarter throughout the fourth quarter made an impact on the game”, James said.
“I thought the Big Three did a phenomenal job”, Cavs coach Tyronn Lue said. A 3-pointer from Reggie Bullock with 11:03 left allowed the Pistons to match their largest advantage of the game at 83-76, forcing the Cavaliers to call a timeout to get James back in the game. Look, the refereeing had nothing to do with tonight. As long as it’s a great shot, I know my teammates feel good about it. They exude a lot of confidence in me in shooting those shots, so the mindset was still the same. I thought they did a really good job. “It was decided by the players on the floor, as it should be”.
Van Gundy’s Orlando Magic team beat James’ Cavs in the 2009 Eastern Conference finals.
That certainly was the case Sunday in Game 1, which the Pistons led by seven early in the fourth quarter before losing 106-101.
“I’m trying to help this team advance and get another home win so we can protect home, so I don’t get (caught up in that)”, he said.
“I’ve never had a person grab my jersey and try to throw me to the floor and I come up on the wrong end of things like that”, Johnson told reporters on Monday. The bad news is that it’s hard to imagine a scenario later in this series in which they’ll be able to shoot that well from the field again.
James said he couldn’t remember the play Johnson was talking about and wasn’t going to engage in any verbal spat with Johnson, Van Gundy or anyone. They whistled the Pistons for 21 personal fouls compared to 18 for the Cavaliers, and Cleveland shot 21 free throws, while Detroit attempted 16.
It’s quite a given fact that some elite National Basketball Association stars often get better treatment, at least indirectly, than their not-so-famous peers in the league.
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“I only hear [this] when I see you guys, whatever y’all bring up”, he said to the media.
