Sat, Jul 19 2008
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Published May 17, 2008 03:51 am - CLEVELAND — An exhausted LeBron James fired the ball the length of the floor and into the stands as the final horn sounded Friday night. On his way to the locker room, he then flipped his headband into the stands. Cavaliers do it with D Cleveland puts clamps on Boston as LeBron scores 32 to force Game 7 CHRIS BEAVEN Canton Repository CLEVELAND — An exhausted LeBron James fired the ball the length of the floor and into the stands as the final horn sounded Friday night. On his way to the locker room, he then flipped his headband into the stands.
It wasn’t anger. More like relief. “It’s win or go home and I’m not ready to go home,” James said. Led by James on a night less about talent and skill and more about determination and pride, the Cavaliers kept their season alive with a 74-69 win over the Celtics. They used a record-setting defensive effort to force a Game 7 in the Eastern Conference semifinals in front of a sold-out crowd of 20,562 at Quicken Loans Arena. “As bad as we looked defensively, we look great on the defensive end,” James said. “We give ourselves a chance to win every night when we defend like we know we can.” James got it done on that end, drawing a key charge late. And he also took over on offense, accounting for 26 of the team’s 32 second-half points. He finished with 32 points, 12 rebounds and six assists. That offset his eight turnovers. “Bottom line, he made shots,” Celtics Head Coach Doc Rivers said of James. “The defense wasn’t any different and he made some shots that, quite honestly, we don’t mind him taking.” The Cavaliers and Celtics head back to Boston for a 3:30 game Sunday to determine who plays Detroit in the conference finals. “This group, they’re tough, they’re resilient and they understand what it takes to win,” Cavaliers Head Coach Mike James said. “We faced a lot of difficult situations this year form the regular season on, and our guys have just found a way to get a win. We’re looking forward to going to Boston.” The Cavaliers nearly won Games 1 and 5 in Boston, but let both slip away as the home team has won all six games. But no game in the series perhaps was ugly or hard fought as this one. Awful turnovers and terrible shooting mixed with occasional brilliance to make for a game of sudden momentum swings and mind-numbing sequences. “There was no quit in us, there was no quit in them,” Rivers said. “That’s why the game was played that way” The Cavaliers had a second-half stretch where they made just 1-of-9 shots and turned it over three times, nearly costing them all of a 16-point lead. But the Celtics went 9:12 without a field goal from the end of the second quarter to the first three minutes of the third. And their 69 points are the fewest the Cavaliers have ever allowed in a playoff game. “We really took on the challenge on that end of the floor and that’s what’s going to have to happen up in Boston,” Brown said. 
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