James overcomes physical play, carries Cavs
Flanked by security personnel, one of his own bodyguards and several close friends, LeBron James was escorted from the arena.
He was untouchable.
He could have used the protection earlier.
Bumped and banged by the Wizards on every drive, James scored 32 points, making two tough shots in traffic down the stretch as the Cleveland Cavaliers opened the NBA playoffs with an intense 93-86 win over Washington on Saturday.
Determined to shut up trash-talking Washington guard DeShawn Stevenson, who had called him "overrated" last month, James took a physical pounding. But he led the Cavaliers to their seventh straight postseason win over the Wizards, who had their chances in the fourth but missed 10 straight shots and scored just 2 points in the final 4:39.
Afterward, James felt no need to rub it in Stevenson's face.
"93-86," he said, "is the only words I need to say."
James scored 20 points -- most of them on layups -- in the second half to lead the defending Eastern Conference champions, who took a 1-0 lead in a best-of-seven series that got off to a physical start and appears to have a long way to go.
Game 2, or Round 2, if you will, is Monday night.
"It's one game," Wizards coach Eddie Jordan said. "They drew first blood."
Resting a bothersome back, James sat out the early part of the fourth quarter. But once he returned to the floor, Cleveland's superstar forward came through as usual. With the game on the line, he twice got to the basket and scored over Wizards defenders, who had spent much of the game knocking him to the floor.
James expected a physical game, and he got one. Not that he minded.
"I was built for this," he said. "I'm not 6-9, 260 pounds to shoot jumpers all night. I go to the hole and I create contact. Don't ever think I'm the only person feeling that."
With the score tied at 84-84, James knifed his way down the lane and hit a layup between Antawn Jamison and Brendan Haywood with 1:37 remaining. Following a miss by Gilbert Arenas, who led the Wizards with 24 points, James powered past Stevenson and dropped a floater with 55 seconds left in the game -- and one tick to spare on the 24-second shot clock.
The Wizards were still within 4, but although Daniel Gibson missed a free throw and James misfired on two attempts from the line in the final minute, Washington's offense went cold at the worst time possible. Jamison missed three straight outside shots, two of them 3-pointers, in the final minutes.
"They were shots I normally make, but I wasn't able to convert," Jamison said. "It's frustrating."
Delonte West made four free throws in the final 15.1 seconds to seal Cleveland's win.
Meeting for the third straight time in the postseason, these two teams know each other well. They also strongly dislike each other, and tempers boiled over in the final seconds of the first half, when Haywood flattened James with a screen near midcourt. James didn't appreciate the foul or that Haywood towered over him for several seconds after the call.
"He was standing over me in a very disrespectful manner," James said.
He squirmed through Haywood's legs to get up and the pair pushed and screamed at each other. Cavs coach Mike Brown quickly intervened and Jamison came running in to the fray as Ilgauskas and Ben Wallace led Cleveland's charge. Haywood was slapped with a technical, as were Jamison and James.
"I was over top of him and he got a little razzle-dazzled," Haywood said. "That's how things go. He ain't going to do anything. I'm not going to do anything, so let's play on."