With 1.4 seconds left in a seesaw affair that witnessed sporadic (at best) offense from both teams, LeBron James hit a 22-foot fallback jumper from the left corner that splashed as the buzzer sounded. The response to Rose’s Game 3 banked 3-pointer gave the Cavaliers a vital 86-84 victory Sunday afternoon to even the Eastern Conference semifinals with the Bulls at two games apiece heading back to Cleveland for Game 5 on Tuesday.
Immediately after the shot, there was dead silence. The shot went in cleanly. The bank was closed on Sunday.
After just committing a costly turnover that led to Derrick Rose tying the game at 84 with nine seconds left, James stepped up to the plate and bailed his team out of a hard-fought, intense affair.
James drove the floor and drew contact from Joakim Noah under the basket, as the ball skittered out of bounds. No foul, but the Cavaliers kept possession — and a video review moved the clock from 0.8 to 1.5 seconds. Matthew Dellevedova inbounded on the baseline and hit James, who took one step to his left to get space on Jimmy Butler and drained the jumper just inside the 3-point line.
James struggled mightily from the field (10-of-30), but he led the Cavaliers back from a seven-point deficit to start the final quarter. All eight of his points in the fourth were desperately needed, as were a couple of assists on J.R. Smith 3-pointers. James ended with 25 points, 14 rebounds and eight assists.
Smith came up huge in the fourth, draining three triples and scoring 11 of his 13 points.
Late in the third James planted his left foot awkwardly as he attempted to score in transition against Rose. He was called for an offensive foul, but that wasn’t what the Cavaliers were concerned about.
James was on the court wincing in pain, forcing the Cavaliers to use one of their timeouts. Eventually, he was able to get up and walk to the bench. He stayed in the game and never showed any signs of the ankle being an issue.
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