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1/6/06
1/6/06
Houston holds off Cavs’ rally to win, 90-81
Friday, January 6, 2006
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>[FONT=Verdana, Times New Roman, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]BY Mike Popovich REPOSITORY SPORTS WRITER[/FONT]
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AP TONY DEJAK LeBron James scored 32 points with nine rebounds and five assists Thursday, but it wasn’t enough to keep the Cavaliers from falling to the Rockets, 90-81.
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CLEVELAND - At least the Cavaliers left The Q knowing they did not mail it in when the night was looking like a total loss.
Head Coach Mike Brown’s team cut a 17-point deficit to 3 with just over four minutes left, but Houston held on for a 90-81 win in front of 18,019 on Thursday.
Playing short-handed on the second leg of a back-to-back, the odds did not favor the Cavaliers late in the third quarter when the Rockets took their biggest lead. And Tracy McGrady, who poured in 23 points in the first half alone, was not even a factor.
Two straight 3-pointers by LeBron James jump-started the offense. Two by Donyell Marshall on a night when he struggled with his shot helped bring the Cavaliers closer.
When Zydrunas Ilgauskas hit a 16-footer with 4:36 left to cut Houston’s lead to 79-76, the door was clearly open for the Cavaliers. The Rockets slammed it shut with a game-clinching 9-2 run.
Brown praised his team’s effort in their second game without guard Larry Hughes, who will undergo surgery today to repair a broken finger on his right hand.
“I take my hat off to our guys because they could have easily given up being 17 points down coming off playing the night before,” Brown said. “I didn’t see any quit in any of them. They all stayed composed and tried to rally.”
The Rockets did not look like a 12-18 team. They were short-handed, too. Seven-foot-6 center Yao Ming has not played since Dec. 18 because of an infection in his big left toe.
But Houston has McGrady, and the All-Star forward erupted for a game-high 34 points. Rafer Alston scored 18 points, and Juwan Howard hit to big jumpers late in the game to finish with 16.
“I think we have what it takes to put the ball in the hole, even when teams try to take it out of my hand,” McGrady said. “I think we have guys who are willing to take big shots and knock them down. When they take the ball out of my hands, I find those guys and they’re capable and willing to knock down shots.”
McGrady hit his final five shots in the first half, leading the Rockets to a 49-35 halftime lead. The Cavaliers were able to contain McGrady’s scoring in the second half, but he set up Howard’s game-clinching jumpers with two big assists.
“We know we can’t stop him,” James said of McGrady. “We hope to contain him and try to hold down everybody else. But the guys on their team did a great job of helping him out.”
James scored 32 points and Ilgauskas finished with 17 points and 10 rebounds for the Cavaliers (19-11). Marshall added 11 off the bench.
The Cavaliers were just 8-of-18 from the free-throw line and 7-of-29 on 3-pointers. The 29 attempts was a team record for a regulation game.
Marshall hit just 3-of-12 3-pointers, and Damon Jones was only 1-of-7 from outside the arc.
“When they are not going down, we need to find a way to get to the basket a lot more and not settle for the 3-point shot as much,” James said. “We didn’t shoot the ball as well as we wanted to. When we are not hitting the shots, we need to drive with the ball, get to the basket and get easy shots.”
Reach Repository sports writer Mike Popovich at (330) 580-8341 or e-mail: [email protected]
BUCKS AT CAVS
Saturday, 7:30 p.m. Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland TV Channel 43
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