Williams' halfcourt shot closes out Cavs' win
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OKLAHOMA CITY -- LeBron James scored a season-high 44 points and Mo Williams hit a backbreaking halfcourt shot in the fourth quarter to help the Cleveland Cavaliers close out a 102-89 win against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday night.
Williams tracked down the ball after Thabo Sefolosha had tipped it into the backcourt, then turned and fired a 48-footer with coach Mike Brown yelling to him as the shot clock ran down. The shot earned him a look of disbelief and a congratulatory hand slap from James, and it gave Cleveland its largest lead to that point at 94-87.
The stunned Thunder didn't score again for 3 1/2 minutes as the Cavs put the game away.
Williams finished with 22 points, half of them coming in the fourth quarter.
Kevin Durant led Oklahoma City with 29 points and Jeff Green scored a season-high 26. Russell Westbrook added 10 points.
Shaquille O'Neal, who was a gametime decision, played despite a bruised left eye suffered two days earlier against Portland. But Cleveland was without reserve Daniel Gibson for a second straight game with a sprained right pinkie finger.
O'Neal played only five minutes in the first half and picked up three fouls. He finished with five points and six rebounds in 18 minutes.
Williams teamed with Jamario Moon to hit 3-pointers on three straight possessions to keep Cleveland out front while James rested on the bench early in the fourth quarter. After his 3-pointer from the left corner made it 91-87, the Thunder didn't score for the next 6 minutes - including Williams' unbelievable shot that helped the Cavaliers avoid a third straight road loss.
The Cavs played from behind for all but a few seconds in the first half, but James still put on a show on the way to his third 40-point outing of the season.
After he stole the ball and stumbled through a foul to convert a layup, James stopped along the baseline to snag a french fry from a boy seated in the front row wearing a Kevin Durant jersey and munch on it. He dunked with his left hand early on and had a right-handed jam off Anderson Varejao's alley-oop pass in the first quarter, too.
Then, as he scored the Cavs' final 12 points of the first half, he broke out a two-handed reverse slam and a right-handed power dunk.
The Thunder still took a 54-49 lead into halftime but came out sluggish in the second half for the second straight game. Cleveland pounced with a 12-4 run, including a 3-pointer and a fastbreak layup by James, to go up 61-58 before Durant led Oklahoma City right back.
He had a pair of 3-pointers in a 12-2 response to put the Thunder back on top. James responded with seven straight points to tie it, and hit his third straight 3-pointer to put the Cavs ahead 78-76 after three quarters.
NOTES: James, O'Neal and Durant are the only three players to average 28 points through the first 21 games of a season when they were 21 years old or younger. ... Thunder coach Scott Brooks and Cleveland center Zydrunas Ilgauskas roomed together during the 1997-98 season when Brooks was in his last year and Ilgauskas was a rookie. "I really appreciated that free rent. He did not charge me and he bought me dinner every night," Brooks said. "I have too many stories on him to call me cheap." ... Oklahoma women's basketball coach Sherri Coale sat courtside at the end of the scorer's table.
