Cleveland rocks — Cavaliers fight back to win in OT

After all finally was said and done Saturday night, a few things were quite clear.

One is that 2003 No. 1 overall draft choice LeBron James has his flaws, but the kid — who exited late in the fourth quarter with a mild sprain of the right ankle — is pretty dang good.

Another is that Carlos Boozer, who was selected in the second round of the 2002 draft, must have more than a few teams wondering why they passed on him in the first round.

And then there is this reality:

Those weren't your papa's Cleveland Cavaliers.

The Cavs gave the Jazz fits in front of a near-sellout crowd of 19,622 at the Delta Center, overcoming an 18-point early third-quarter deficit to beat Utah 102-96 in overtime behind Boozer's 32 points and another 29 from wonder-boy James.

In so doing, Cleveland won its first-ever game in the Jazz's current home. The 13-27 Cavs — the final NBA team to win a game in the building — are now 1-12 in the Delta Center. And they did it with a certain swagger, to boot.

"We just got abused," Jazz guard Raja Bell said. "They (the Cavs) did whatever they wanted to us, and, for one reason or another, we couldn't get done what we wanted to get done."

But it didn't have to be that way.

Utah, now 21-18 overall, didn't have to have its three-game winning streak snapped. It didn't have to have its string of home wins come to a close at six in a row, either. And it definitely didn't have to lose to a tired, ready-to-go-back-to-Cleveland team that was at the tail end of a six-game road trip.

Because even though James offered some spectacular jams, dunks and drives, the Jazz clearly were in full control 24 minutes in.

"I thought we could have won the ballgame," said Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, whose club led 51-33 at the break, "if we would have been able to stick with it and keep our focus in the early part of the third quarter."

Instead, that third period will forever be known as the start of Utah's self-destruction — even more memorable, perhaps, than an OT session in which the Cavs out-scored the Jazz 17-11.

The crumble began shortly after Jazz starting center Greg Ostertag was ejected for fighting with Cavs starting center Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who also got tossed.