LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers moved to within one win of advancing to the second round of the NBA playoffs with a 103-95 victory over the Boston Celtics on Thursday.
James finished with 31 points and 11 rebounds for the second-seeded Cavaliers, who took a 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference series.
No NBA team has ever lost a series after winning the first three contests.
Photo: USA Today
“I just try to do a little bit of everything,” James said. “Whatever it takes for my team to win, I want to be part of it.”
In the other East game on Thursday, Derrick Rose scored a season-high 34 points with eight assists and five rebounds to help the Chicago Bulls take a 3-0 lead with a 113-106 double-overtime win against the Milwaukee Bucks.
The Golden State Warriors also took a 3-0 series lead as they overcame a 20-point fourth-quarter deficit to beat the New Orleans Pelicans 123-119 in overtime.
Kevin Love, who is playing in his first career post-season, had his best game of the series so far for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Love tallied 23 points and nine rebounds and hit a couple of key three pointers late in the contest. He made a half a dozen three-pointers, including two in the final two-and-a-half minutes, as the Celtics attempted to claw their way back into the game.
Love had 12 points in the first half after scoring 13 in Game , which the Cavs won 99-91 on Tuesday.
“Kevin has been great overall,” Cleveland coach David Blatt said.
“He didn’t score as much in the second game as he did tonight, but he’s been engaged. I haven’t seen any nervousness and discomfort since the series began,” Blatt said.
J.R. Smith scored 15 points, Kyrie Irving scored 13 and Tristan Thompson had 12 in the victory.
Evan Turner paced the Celtics’ attack with 19 points, while Avery Bradley scored 18 and Jae Crowder came off the bench to score 16.
The Cavaliers can close out the series sweep against the seventh-seeded Celtics with another win in Boston tomorrow. The winner of this series advances to play either the Bulls or the Bucks.
Just like the Cavaliers, history will be on the Chicago Bulls’ side in Game 4. Rose, who was held scoreless in the first half of Game 2 and finished with 15 points, led a 12-0 run to open scoring in the second overtime period.
“It’s an honor to even be in the playoffs, let alone be up 3-0,” Rose said. “We’re playing against a hungry team, a young team that is pushing us. That’s why you gotta love the playoffs, because every game is different.”
Jimmy Butler scored 24 points and Pau Gasol finished with 17 points, 14 rebounds and five assists for Chicago, who squandered a 10-point lead in the final three minutes of regulation before battling for the win.
INJURY TURMOIL: Despite stunning French Open champions Paolini and Errani to advance, Chan was forced to pull out after her partner’s tearful women’s singles defeat Last year’s mixed doubles champions Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Poland’s Jan Zielinski on Monday crashed out of the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, leaving the Taiwanese star focused on pursuing a fifth women’s doubles title in London, while a partner injury forced compatriot Chan Hao-ching to give up on her doubles campaign. Hsieh and Zielinksi, who last year also won the Australia Open title, narrowly lost their opening set 7-6 (9/7), before Britain’s Joe Salisbury and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani stunned the former champions 6-3 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The Taiwanese-Polish duo had been dominant in the first two
Real Madrid’s FIFA Club World Cup quarter-final against Borussia Dortmund had taken three crazy turns during nine minutes of second-half stoppage time when Marcel Sabitzer chested the ball and sent a right-footed volley toward Thibaut Courtois’ post. Courtois leapt to his right, extended the long arm on his 2m frame and just managed to get his gloved fingertips on the ball, knocking it down. Courtois hit the ground as the ball bounded up. He looked skyward, planted his right hand to regain his balance, grabbed the ball with both hands on the second bounce and fell onto it with his chest. Sabitzer turned
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has overturned French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus’ four-year suspension for doping, ruling that her positive test for a banned substance was caused by kissing her then-boyfriend, American fencer Race Imboden. Thibus, a silver medalist in team foil at the Tokyo Games, had tested positive for ostarine, a prohibited muscle-building substance, during a competition in Paris in January last year. However, CAS concluded there was no intentional wrongdoing, finding it scientifically plausible that repeated kissing over several days with Olympic medalist Imboden — who was taking ostarine at the time — led to accidental contamination. The court
‘SU-PENKO’: Hsieh and Ostapenko face a rematch against their Australian Open final opponents, the same duo Hsieh played in last year’s Wimbledon semi-finals Taiwanese women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei and Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko on Wednesday survived a near upset to the unseeded duo of Sorana Cirstea of Romania and Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, setting up a semi-final showdown against last year’s winners. Despite losing a hard-fought opening set 7-6 (7/4) on a tiebreak, the fourth seeds turned up the heat, losing just five games in the final two sets to handily put down Cirstea and Kalinskaya 6-3, 6-2. Nicknamed “Su-Penko,” the pair are next to face top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in a reversal of last
RSS