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CLEVELAND, Ohio: LeBron James scored 30 points and passed out 12
assists—both game highs—to power the Cleveland Cavaliers past
Washington 116-86 Monday in a National Basketball Association
playoff game.
The reigning Eastern Conference champions seized
a 2-0 lead in the best-of-7 series with game three Thursday at
Washington.
But it will take a major reversal for the
Wizards to avoid being ousted from the playoffs for the third year
in a row.
James also grabbed 9 rebounds, matching a game
high, and made the Wizards pay dearly for taunts about “King
James” being overrated and the Cavaliers being so weak that teams
looked forward to meeting them in the playoffs.
Zydrunas Ilgauskas added 16 points and Wally
Szczerbiak contributed 15 more for the Cavaliers.
Caron Butler, Darius Songaila and DeShawn
Stevenson each scored 12 points to lead the Wizards, who hit only
27-of-72 shots from the field.
In Houston, Deron Williams scored 22 points and
the Utah Jazz defeated Houston 90-84 here Monday to seize a 2-0 lead
in their series.
Turkey’s Mehmet Okur added 16 points and 16
points for the Jazz, who also had 13 points from Carlos Boozer in
the triumph.
The Jazz, who had the NBA’s best home-court
record at 37-4, took a pair of road victories and return home for
games Thursday and Saturday with a chance to sweep the Rockets out
of the playoffs.
“We didn’t want to come in and just split.
We wanted to come in here and take two,” Williams said. “We did
a great job of following our game plan.”
That strategy involved shutting down Houston
playmaker Tracy McGrady and it worked well in the fourth quarter,
when he went 0-for-3 from the field and scored only one point, his
lone point in the last period of either loss.
“We wanted to shut down McGrady. We’re
trying to keep fresh bodies on him the whole game, make him setle
for jumpers and not take easy shots,” Williams said.
McGrady scored a game-high 23 points and
contributed 13 rebounds and nine assists but had no impact when it
mattered most.
The Rockets shot only 5-of-18 in the final
quarter while the Jazz finished the game with a 14-8 run in the
final minutes for the margin of victory.
Chinese center Yao Ming, the Rockets All-Star
big man sidelined with a broken foot, could only watch in his suit
as his teammates struggled in the final minutes.
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