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Saturday, Nov. 07, 2009

LeBron lights up Madison Square Garden as Cavaliers defeat Knicks

NEW YORK - LeBron James said the only thing occupying his thoughts Friday was winning at Madison Square Garden.

Guess he was serious.

James sauntered into the Garden and promptly showed why the citizens of the Big Apple covet his talents so much as the Cavaliers beat the New York Knicks, 100-91.

James led all scorers with 33 points, eight rebounds and eight assists. David Lee led the Knicks with 21 points. However, James set the tone in the first quarter, scoring 19 points and putting to rest for the time being the Cavs offensive troubles.

The Cavs have lamented not playing a complete game all season. That changed Friday. They dominated on both sides of the court and the beauty, offensively speaking, was it wasn't just James carrying the load. The reserves, who had been nonexistent in the loss against the Chicago Bulls on Thursday, added 34 points, led by Zydrunas Ilgauskas' nine points and Anderson Varejao's eight points and 14 rebounds.

The Cavs shot 54 percent for the game and held the Knicks to 43 percent shooting.

Cavs coach Mike Brown tinkered with his lineup again, electing to start second-year forward J.J. Hickson in place of Varejao. The move wasn't intended to indicate any displeasure with Varejao's play to date.

The net effect gave the Cavs some flexibility, but it also allowed last year's starting five - James, Varejao, Ilgauskas, Mo Williams and Delonte West - to play significant minutes together in the first quarter. The result: the Cavs developed some flow on the offensive side of the court as they ripped off a 14-3 run highlighted by James' dominance and a rather spry looking Ilgauskas scoring six of his points in that span.

Of course, things wouldn't have been interesting without the necessary drama to create the illusions of competitiveness.

Thus the Knicks found some semblance of rhythm coming out after halftime, down 63-40, and putting together a 9-2 run in an attempt to make things interesting. Knicks forward Wilson Chandler accounted for five of those points.

But he and the rest of the Knicks, who scored in that span, can thank the Cavs, too. They turned the ball over four times inside the first four minutes of the third quarter. In the game, they had 22 turnovers that led to 21 Knicks points.

The Cavs coasted again in the fourth waiting out the victory, and it almost cost them as the Knicks made a late-game run to pull to within single digits for the first time since the first quarter. To the Cavs' credit, just when it looked as if the Knicks were on the verge of putting something together, they stiffened defensively, got a couple of stops to reassert themselves.

Buzzer beater

Delonte West drew another technical foul at 6:02 of the fourth quarter. It's his second one since returning to the court.