Game 2: 3 Major Takeaways From Cavaliers' 100-97 win over the Pacers
After a poor performance to start this series in Game 1, the Cavs bounced back to winning ways following a dominant display from their linchpin, LeBron James. The series now shifts to Indiana for Games 3 & 4 at the Bankers Life Fieldhouse, where the Pacers will hold the advantage having the stolen home court with their Game 1 win.
Here are three things that stood out from Game 2 between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Indiana Pacers, which ended in a 100-97 Cavaliers win.
#3 LeBron is still the best player in the league
After having what was a ‘sub-par’ night for his standards in their Game 1 loss, James took matters into his own hands in Game 2, where he absolutely shot the lights out in the first quarter.
James scored the Cavaliers’ first 16 points of the game, including an astonishing 11 points after only two-and-a-half minutes of the match. He ended the first quarter with 20 of the Cavaliers’ 33 points on nine-of-12 shooting, outscoring the Pacers' entire team.
LeBron was rested for the majority of the second quarter, however, he still finished the first half with 29 points, eight rebounds, and four assists. He finished the game with 46 points, 12 rebounds, and five assists, and made it his tenth playoff game where he recorded 40-plus points and ten-plus rebounds in a game and five-plus assists, six ahead of next best Shaquille O’Neal.
LeBron’s first quarter performance just shows what he truly is capable of, and proves to all the doubters wrong that James knows how to score, and can impact the scoreboard massively. Some shots he put up were just amazing with a plethora of fade-away jumpers from isolation plays, along with many unstoppable drives to the ring.
He made a statement to the rest of the playoff teams that he is still the best player in the world.