LeBron James led the Cleveland Cavaliers to a 96-82 win over the visiting Miami Heat in a Christmas Day showdown.
The Cleveland star notched 25 points, 12 assists and six rebounds Tuesday. Teammate Drew Gooden added 18 points, Daniel Gibson 16, Anderson Varejao 15 and Zydrunas Ilgauskas 13 for the balanced Cavaliers (13-16).
The Cavaliers' LeBron James goes up for a dunk during his team's 96-82 Christmas Day win over the Miami Heat in Cleveland.
(David Liam Kyle/NBAE via Getty Images)
"When we play defence, we're a pretty good team," said James, whose team held the Heat to 43.1 per cent shooting to roll to just its fourth win in the last 14 games. "When we don't, we don't look so well — simple as that. Today was a good step."
Dwyane Wade responded for Miami (8-20) with 22 points, eight assists and six rebounds, but didn't make his first field goal of the second half until there was only 4:01 remaining, and finished just 7-of-18 from the floor and 8-of-16 from the free-throw line.
"I was just missing shots," said Wade, who was battling a sore shoulder. "It wasn't their defence. It was nothing they did special."
Heat star Shaquille O'Neal was held to 13 points, one assist and nine rebounds in the teams' first matchup of the NBA season.
About the only positive for Miami was that O'Neal didn't foul out. The big man had been disqualified from his previous five games, coming within one of matching the NBA record set by Milwaukee's Don Boven in 1952.
O'Neal picked up his fifth foul with 6:55 left and was immediately pulled by coach Pat Riley.
Looking for a quick fix, Cavs coach Mike Brown resorted to a starting lineup that helped Cleveland to its first conference title last season. He replaced Gibson with Larry Hughes, who had been coming off the bench, at point guard alongside Sasha Pavlovic.
Hughes had only four points, but played excellent defence and contained Wade, who never got a chance to go off.
With files from the Associated PressRelated
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