Your browser does not support iframes.
END RESULT
With the top seed in the NBA playoffs assured, LeBron James, Antawn Jamison and Mo Williams have nothing left to play for, so they didn't. That left a group of athletic, hungry reserves to face the Pacers Friday night in Quicken Loans Arena and the result was a taut, active and entertaining game.
But the Pacers had their best players on the court at the end and ultimately that made the difference as Danny Granger scored 13 of his 36 in the fourth quarter as Indiana rallied from a six-point deficit in the final seven minutes to pull out a 116-113 victory before a sellout crowd of 20,562.
IMPACT
The Pacers snapped a 10-game losing streak in Cleveland, and won for the ninth time in 11 games overall to improve to 31-48 (9-31 on the road). The Cavs lost for the third time in four games and dropped to 61-19 overall, 35-5 at home.
QUOTEWORTHY
- "I'm feeling great. I stayed aggressive the whole entire night. I got to the basket and was able to hit some big threes at the end to help us seal the game.'' – Brandon Rush
- "It's definitely a great win for us. We came close the last time we played here so it's definitely a good feeling to get a win." – Rush
- "Everybody should be excited for next year. We're definitely going to try to carry this over and I think we're going to have a great season next year." – Rush
- "We expect a good effort from the Nets. They've had an up-and-down year, too. They've strung up some wins lately like we've been doing and we have our hands full tomorrow." – Rush on facing the Nets Saturday.
KEY MOMENTS
The game that featured 30 lead changes and 16 ties and neither team led by more than six. The Pacers shot 55 percent in the first half but committed nine turnovers as Cleveland won the possession game to offset Indiana's hot shooting and led 57-55 at the break.
The Pacers tightened up their turnovers in the second half but didn't shoot as well. In an extremely tight third quarter, the teams traded the lead 12 times as it remained a one-possession gap for more than 13 minutes heading into the early moments of the fourth quarter.
Cleveland surged to a 10-0 run sparked by 3-pointers from Telfair and Jawad Williams to take a their biggest lead, 99-93, with 6:59 left. But Mike Dunleavy came up with a huge play, hitting a 3-pointer while drawing a foul from Anderson Varejao, converting the rare four-point play to stop the run and cut the lead to 99-97.
That set up a close finish. The Pacers, who missed 12 of their first 18 shots in the fourth quarter, made their final four, including 3-pointers by Rush and Granger, the latter putting them up 108-106. Varejao hit two free throws to tie it but Granger hit a tough challenged layup and Earl Watson drove to make it a 112-108 game with 24.7 seconds left.
The Cavs' last gasp came after Anthony Parker hit a 3-pointer with 3.4 seconds left to cut it to 114-113 but Granger sealed it with a pair of free throws.
BY THE NUMBERS
Granger was 9-of-17 from the field, 4-of-9 from the arc and 14-of-14 from the line for his 36 points. Watson had 16 points, 10 assists and two steals. Rush scored 16, Troy Murphy 14 with 11 rebounds and four assists, Roy Hibbert 12 with three blocked shots and Dunleavy 10 off the bench. Josh McRoberts had seven points, five rebounds and a career-high five assists. The Pacers shot .506 overall, were 14-of-32 (.438) from the arc, had 29 assists and committed just three turnovers in the second half (12 overall). They were outrebounded 47-35.
The Cavs got 21 points and 10 rebounds from Hickson, a season-high 21 points from Telfair, 17 points from Parker, season highs in points (15) and assists (four) from Jamario Moon and 14 points from Zydrunas Ilgauskas. Cleveland shot .461.
Pnyxe Comment Widget
try { var pnyxeWebWidget_clientKey = "bpbSTWwwak5pBaTbtoNFhg"; var pnyxeDiscussIt = new PnyxeDiscussIt(); pnyxeDiscussIt.init("544720"); } catch (e) {}