LeBron, Love, timely hacking help Cavaliers capsize Clippers
After Monday’s embarrassing home loss to the Golden State Warriors, LeBron James made it clear that he wasn’t going to panic, that his Cleveland Cavaliers weren’t going to self-destruct, and that the No. 1 team in the Eastern Conference was going to work on getting back to the business of beating up on the competition. So far, so good.
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On Wednesday, the Cavs drubbed the woeful Brooklyn Nets. On Thursday, they returned home to Quicken Loans Arena to face a higher class of competition in the red-hot Los Angeles Clippers, who entered the Q as winners of 11 of their last 12 despite losing Blake Griffin to injury nearly one month ago … and Cleveland drubbed them, too.
The Cavs withstood a strong opening quarter from the visitors, used a 12-2 mid-second-quarter spurt to take control and kept L.A. at bay the rest of the way to score a 115-102 win in the opening half of TNT’s weekly Thursday night doubleheader. James led the way with 22 points on 9-for-17 shooting, 12 assists and five rebounds without a turnover in 35 minutes, spearheading a ball-movement-heavy Cleveland attack that produced 29 assists on 42 made field goals and a 13-for-28 mark from behind the 3-point arc.
“We just didn’t get the ball moving from side to side against Golden State, and right after that game, it opened a lot of eyes for us,” James told TNT’s Craig Sager in an on-court post-game interview. “We emphasized that the last two games, starting last night in Brooklyn and tonight against a very good team in the Clippers. In order to be successful, we have to defend at a high level and we’ve got to share the ball, and get the ball moving from side to side, get the defense moving, and we’ve done that the last two games.”
All five Cavs starters scored in double figures, with J.R. Smith matching James’ 22 points on just 12 shots by going 6-for-7 from 3-point range. With Griffin sidelined and veteran Paul Pierce manning the power forward spot for Doc Rivers’ club, Kevin Love posted his second straight strong game, notching a double-double by halftime and scoring 18 points and 16 rebounds in the win, which made Cleveland the first team in the East and the fourth team overall to reach 30 wins on the season, joining the Warriors, San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder.
Clippers point guard Chris Paul opened the game red-hot, scoring 12 straight L.A. points in a four-minute stretch while also dropping four first-quarter dimes, including this beautiful lob for a game-opening dunk by DeAndre Jordan:
… and this pitch-back off a high screen-and-roll for a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Jamal Crawford that gave the Clips a 31-28 lead after 12 minutes:
Crawford would extend the L.A. lead to six on another 3-ball less than a minute into the second, but that was the biggest advantage the Clippers would hold. The Cavs regained the lead while Paul rested early in the second, then ripped off a 12-2 run in just under 3 1/2 minutes as the reinserted CP3’s shot ran cold and James began setting the table in earnest, staking Cleveland to a 59-50 lead at intermission:
Cleveland largely controlled the run of play throughout the third quarter, too. But despite holding a 79-69 lead with 2 1/2 minutes remaining in the frame, Cavaliers head coach David Blatt decided to take the bat out of the Clippers’ hands by intentionally fouling the sour-free-throw-shooting Jordan on four consecutive possessions.
It wasn’t quite as egregious an exploitation of the league’s laissez-faire approach to handling Hack-a tactics as the Houston Rockets sending Andre Drummond to the line 12 straight times to open the second half on Wednesday, but it did muck up the Clips’ game a bit; Jordan went 3-for-8 on his trips, while the Cavs managed nine points on their four possessions, turning that 10-point lead into a 16-point advantage heading into the fourth. During his between-quarters interview with TNT’s Craig Sager, Blatt said he wasn’t a fan of the league’s current intentional fouling rules and that he “absolutely” supported a change in the system … after Thursday’s game, of course.
Contemplative @CP3 pic.twitter.com/64SNhC9a0n
— vineydelnegro (@vineydelnegro) January 22, 2016
With Jordan back on the bench to start the fourth quarter, the Clippers’ reserves cut the deficit in half by the seven-minute mark, and a slick driving finger roll by Paul got L.A. within six at 93-87 with 6:37 left. Shortly after Jordan’s return, though, Blatt once again pulled the trigger on the intentional foul game, sending Jordan to the stripe on consecutive possessions that produced one point on four free throws; the Cavaliers surrounded those trips with oppressive offense, with LeBron setting up Love for a pair of 3-point bombs and hitting Kyrie Irving for a short floater that pushed the lead back to 13 with 4:48 remaining. The Clips never threatened again.
After the game, Sager asked James whether he, like his coach, had any mixed emotions about deploying the intentional-foul strategy that helped push Cleveland over the top in the second half. James shook his head as Sager asked the question, and seemed unmoved in his answer.
“It’s all about winning. It was strategy,” he said. “The game of basketball is about strategy and execution, and you know, whatever it takes for us to get a win.”
James bristled a bit, and continued.
“You know, I don’t think us going to the Hack-a-DeAndre was the reason we won,” he said. “I think we came out with a desperation attitude. We played defense at a high level, and we got timely stops when we needed them.”
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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