James’ Cavaliers down Chicago
Cavaliers snatched victory from the jaws of defeat against Chicago Bulls
By : ravi chakravarthy
Update: 2014-11-02 01:23 GMT
Chicago: It was the battle between the two toughest franchisees in the Eastern Conference and the biggest star on the scene chose the occasion to work his magic in thunderous fashion. Keeping in trend with the tradition of visitors pulling the plug from the home team this season, Cleveland Cavaliers, led by the one and only LeBron James withstood a late assault from the Chicago Bulls before snatching victory from the jaws of defeat in front of a partisan crowd which kept booing the man of the moment, James.
Having led the Bulls for most of the three quarters, the Cavaliers seemingly appeared to give away the match as Kirk Hinrich’s three pointers fired Chicago into a 98-93 lead with 47 seconds remaining on the clock. James, having had a meltdown of sorts in his homecoming at Cleveland against the New York Knicks on Thursday, was at his devastating best pounding the courts to not only rescue the Cavs by tying the scores at full time (98-98) but scripting a memorable 114-108 win in overtime.
It was obvious the Bulls’ supporters at the frenzied United Center were on a mission to bring him down. But annoyingly for them, James shrugged it off like water off duck’s back, scoring a sensational match-high 36 points to lift the Cavs. As the players sent the heat soaring in the closed arena, temperatures outside dipped to freezing levels with snow showers. James spent 41:40 minutes on court, the most by any player of either teams on Friday night but importantly for Cleveland, the big man was in his element.
Having said that, James will be the first to admit that his demolition act would not have been complete without the outstanding contribution of Kyrie Irving (23) and Tristan Thompson (16), the latter’s two pointer with 24 seconds to go in OT all but sealing Cleveland’s first win in two games. For most part of the game, the Bulls trailed their opponents, which at one time stretched to 10 points but given their ability to sink three pointers which Hinrich and Mike Dunleavy did with astonishing alacrity they always believed they were in with a chance. It didn’t help that their talismanic player, Derrick Rose, whose every touch brought a roar to the arena had to limp off with an ankle injury.
Powering his way to 20 points, 18 off them in the first half, Rose tripped on an opposing player raising concerns over his ankle. Having lost almost two seasons to a knee injury, the Bulls wisely kept him away in the last quarter before x-rays lifted their spirits as it cleared him of any serious damage.
Down 68-78 at the end of the third quarter, the Bulls went on a scoring spree in the final 12 minutes as Hinrich found the basket with stunning regularity. But the overwhelming presence of James combined with the speedy Irving and opportunistic Thompson negated the Bulls’ concerted bid in the final quarter. “It was an outstanding performance tonight.
We came back from five points down with about 40 seconds to go. That is a lifetime in this game and it saved us,” said Cavs’ head coach David Blatt, with the win still sinking in. It was clear that ‘the King’ LeBron is back where he belongs and so are the Cavaliers.