Cavs climb back into series
First, he drew an L. Then, a 2.
"Put up a 2 and 3 for me," No. 23 told his little namesake.
Maybe a 2 and 1 would have been more appropriate. The Cavaliers have trimmed Boston's lead in half.
The shots didn't drop again for James, and it hardly mattered. His teammates made most of theirs.
James scored 21 points on another off-shooting night, but Delonte West scored 21, Joe Smith had 17 and the Cavaliers raced to a large, early lead in Game 3 in a 108-84 victory Saturday night over the road-challenged Boston Celtics to pull within 2-1 in their playoff series.
West, who spent three seasons wearing Celtic green and white, carried the scoring load for the Cavaliers, who are attempting to become the 14th team in NBA history to come back from an 0-2 deficit and win a best-of-seven series.
They've had practice at it.
Last year, the Cavaliers lost the first two games of the Eastern Conference finals to Detroit before beating the Pistons four in a row to advance to the finals for the first time. After dropping Games 1 and 2 in Boston, Cleveland needed James (8-of-42 in the losses) to shoot his way out of a slump.
"We came out, jumped on them and didn't give it back," West said.
James' 22.4 percent field goal percentage in the first three games is the worst of any three-game stretch in playoff history since the 1977-78 ABA-NBA merger. Still, he was only concerned about one thing.
"The win is all that matters," he said. "I can't worry about how I'm shooting the ball."
The Celtics remain lost on the road, and Game 4 is Monday night in Cleveland.
They've yet to win outside of Massachusetts during this postseason, not an encouraging sign for a team with its sights on a 17th league title. The Celtics, who went a league-best 31-10 in away games during the regular season, dropped all three in Atlanta during the first round as the Hawks averaged 100.7 points and shot 47.6 percent in three home games.
"On the road it's going to take a little bit more ... we've got to learn our lesson pretty soon," an agitated Paul Pierce said. "We took our bumps. Hopefully, the guys are mad at the way we played because I'm totally upset at the way we played, especially with a great opportunity in front of us."
Kevin Garnett scored 17 points, Pierce 14 and Ray Allen 10 as Boston's Big 3 of superstars combined for 41 points.
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