CLEVELAND -- In the two days between Games 1 and 2 of the first round of the 2018 NBA Playoffs, the Cleveland Cavaliers talked about the need for small forward LeBron James to play with more aggressiveness if the team were to have a better start and even up the best-of-seven series.
And an aggressive James is exactly what the Cavaliers got, as he tallied a game-high 46 points in Wednesday’s 100-97 victory over the Indiana Pacers at Quicken Loans Arena, which evened the series ahead of tonight’s Game 3 matchup at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
“The way we’ve always been best is when ‘Bron has space to attack the basket and just wreak havoc, whether he’s attacking the basket to score for himself or kicking it out to shooters, that’s the team that I played against before I got here, and that’s the team that I’ve been a part of the last season and a half,” shooting guard Kyle Korver said after the Game 2 win.
In the first 78 seconds of Game 2, James scored all six points for the Cavaliers, who jumped out to a 6-0 lead and forced Indiana into calling a timeout.
Following the timeout, James pulled up for a three-pointer from the left wing and buried the deep jumper, which gave the Cavaliers a 9-0 advantage over the Pacers.
Then, on the next possession, James hit a fade-away jumper from the left of the free-throw lane, and that brought the fans in Quicken Loans Arena to their feet with chants of “M-V-P, M-V-P, M-V-P.”
“I think when he comes out with that type of mentality, he just sets the tone,” Korver said. “He lets them know that he’s here to play. I think he gives us all confidence. I thought that was really important for him to come out and do that. He really just set the tone for the whole game.”
James gave the Cavaliers a 16-3 lead over the Pacers when he pulled up from the right wing and buried his second three-pointer of the game. On the Cavaliers’ next time down the floor, James found power forward Kevin Love open on the left side of the court and got the assist when Love buried a triple of his own.
James finished the first quarter with a game-high 20 points, six rebounds and three assists. He converted nine of his 12 attempts from the field (75 percent), including two of his four tries from three-point range and was plus-15 despite playing all 12 minutes.
“We just wanted him to set the tone, and he did that by getting to the basket early, making a couple jump shots, but we ran the same first play until they stopped it,” Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue said. “Then, he kept getting what he wanted. He wanted to set the tone early, and he did that, and we just kind of followed his lead from there.”
Korver believes the Cavaliers will look to follow a similar script when the series shifts to Indiana for Games 3 and 4 tonight and Sunday, respectively.
“His whole thing is we roll how he rolls,” Korver said.
“There’s moments when he has to try to get us all going or get us a shot, but a lot of our shots are predicated off him putting his head down, driving to the basket and kind of creating things for us. That’s just how we play. We don’t run a motion offense or anything like that. We give ‘Bron the ball and say, ‘Go to work,’ and he was really special.”
