LeBron dunk, Kyrie dagger push Cavs streak to 8 in OT win vs. Mavs
The Cleveland Cavaliers are overwhelming favorites to win the East in large part due to the wealth of talent on their roster. Whereas other teams must rely on executing intricate game plans with a relatively slim margin of error, the Cavs can rest assured knowing that amazing individual performances can often bail them out of difficult situations. It’s not all they need to win a title, but it certainly helps.
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LeBron James and Kyrie Irving showed why that advantage matters on one play each late in Tuesday night’s game against the Dallas Mavericks at the American Airlines Center. The first found the Cavs down 95-93 with just 28 seconds remaining in regulation. That changed when the Mavericks left LeBron James with a clear lane to the basket:
James wanted a trip to the free throw line, as well, but he had to settle for one of the best crunch-time dunks you’ll ever see. Iman Shumpert stripped Dirk Nowitzki at the other end before he could get off a potential game-winner, and the two teams headed to overtime.
The extra period was a very tight affair, with the margin never escaping one possession in either direction until the final few seconds. After a LeBron lay-up gave the Cavs a 106-105 lead, Deron Williams missed a three-pointer near the end of the shot clock to give the visitors a chance to make it a two-score contest. Irving did just that right before the buzzer on this deep three:
Mavericks fans may argue that James fouled Williams on the drive, but referees did not bite on what appears at minimum to be a slight embellishment of the contact. Regardless, Irving’s deep, deep shot iced the game before LeBron split a pair of free throws and Williams added a meaningless jumper to complete the 110-107 Cavs win. Cleveland has now won eight in a row to boost their record to 27-9, good enough for a 4 1/2-game lead over the Toronto Raptors for first in the conference.
In truth, the Cavs relied on both James (27 points on 9-of-17 FG, 10 rebounds, seven assists) and Irving (22 points on 8-of-20 FG and nine assists) well before crunch time. The Cavs offense did not have its best night as a whole, shooting just 41.7 percent from the field. If not for a 17-of-44 mark from three-point range, the Cavs would have considerably more trouble with a Mavericks team that hit 49.4 percent of its shots, including 11-of-28 from deep. Williams (16 points and 10 assists) and Chandler Parsons (25 points on 10-of-14 FG) paced that effort.
Of course, that ability to transcend an average performance is part of what makes Cleveland so good. Neither James’s tying dunk nor Irving’s dagger three registers as a particularly easy play, but their talent allows them to execute where other players cannot. Sometimes the difference between a win and a loss is that simple.
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Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
