Chicago Bulls vs Cleveland Cavs - 1st Half Highlights | March 30, 2017 | 2016-17 NBA Season
CHICAGO -- The Cavs" slide continues, and the best anyone can say about them right now is March is almost over.
Cleveland fell to the Chicago Bulls 99-93 on Thursday night in a game in which LeBron James passed Shaquille O"Neal (28,596 points) for seventh place on the NBA"s all-time scoring list.
Now is not a time for the Cavs to celebrate personal accolades. James said the milestone "means absolutely nothing right now." It"s time to put out a dumpster fire that consumed them this month.
With the loss, Cleveland fell to 6-10 in March with a game to be played Friday at home. The Cavs have lost three in a row and five of seven. As an aside, they lost all four games this season to the Bulls, who pulled to within a game of eighth place in the East.
The possibility exists for a Cavs-Bulls first-round matchup come playoff time. But at the moment, Cleveland is again a 1/2 game behind Boston for first.
And the losses continue to mount. At least a stretch of six out of seven on the road has come to a merciful end.
"For a team to beat us four games out seven, it will be tough," cavs coach tyronn lue said before the game, when asked how confident he would be if the playoffs started today. His reply was "very confident."
"We"ve been going through some ups and downs as of late, but still confident we"re the best team right now and we just gotta start playing like that," Lue said.
Any time now would be great, fellas.
James scored 26 points to go with 10 rebounds and eight assists. A free throw with 4:28 left in the fourth quarter pushed him ahead of Shaq, his former teammate on the Cavs.
But James was fouled at the 3-point line, so he had two more free throws. And missed them both. He entered play shooting .679 from the line and was 3-of-7 Thursday. This is the worst season of his career from the charity stripe.
Kyrie Irving added 20 points and shot 7-of-20. J.R. Smith was better than he"s been, scoring 12 points on four 3s. Tristan Thompson was strong with 15 points and nine boards.
Kevin Love had a rough night. He finished with eight points and 10 boards on 3-of-10 shooting, and fouled out. He picked up his fifth foul with 11:47 left in fourth quarter, and about eight seconds after he returned to the game he fouled out with 6:08 remaining on a reach into Jimmy Butler. The Cavs looked at Love with stunned expressions.
Nikola Mirotic tied a season high with 28 points for the Bulls. Butler added 25. Rajon Rondo finished with seven points, nine boards and 15 assists.
Chicago shot just 42.2 percent from the field -- an improvement for the Cavs" defense -- but were 12-of-25 from 3-point range.
The Cavs were without Richard Jefferson, who"s battling left knee tendonitis, and Kyle Korver is still out with his sore left foot.
James finished the first half with a 19-footer at the buzzer. He scored 19 in the first two quarters and the Cavs went to the locker room with a 50-41 advantage.
The Bulls turned that around with 37-point third quarter. All of Cleveland"s problems returned, from poor defense (the Bulls shot 15-of-25 overall and 5-of-8 from the perimeter) to turnovers (six for 11 Bulls points).
As for passing O"Neal, who played with James in 2009-10 in Cleveland, James said: "Shaq is an all-time great, and the most dominant player to ever play this game. He re-defined what the big man was all about. He"s like a big brother of mine.
"But I could care less about me passing him. Means absolutely nothing."
NEXT: The Cavs start a three-game homestand Friday night against the Philadelphia 76ers at 7:30.
Source: http://www.cleveland.com/cavs/index.ssf/2017/03/lebron_james_shaquille_oneal_c.html
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