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James puts Cavs back into contention against Pistons

Posted on: Sunday, 14 May 2006, 00:25 CDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - LeBron James scored his second triple-double of the playoffs to help the Cleveland Cavaliers to an 86-77 victory over Detroit Saturday and cut the deficit to 2-1 in their best-of-seven Eastern Conference series.

Meanwhile in Dallas, Dirk Nowitzki scored 27 points as the Mavericks held off the San Antonio Spurs 104-103 in a nail-biting Game Three of their Western Conference series to take a 2-1 overall lead.

James scored 21 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists with Game Four also in Cleveland Monday.

He turned in another outstanding performance for the Cavaliers, who played with a sense of urgency that was lacking in the first two games of the series at times against the two-time defending Eastern Conference champions.

"We knew we couldn't lose Game Three at home," James told reporters.

"That would have dug us too deep a hole to get out of. We took care of home."

The Cavaliers took care of home primarily thanks to James, who played all 48 minutes and shot 9-of-18 from the field.

Anderson Varejao scored 16 points and Ronald Murray, starting in place of Larry Hughes, added 13 points for the Cavs, who shot 50 percent from the field.

Hughes left the team to be with his family in St. Louis following the unexpected death of his 20-year-old brother Justin.

Richard Hamilton led Detroit with 22 points, but the Pistons made an uncharacteristic 16 turnovers and shot just 39 percent.

Chauncey Billups added 20 points for the Pistons, while Ben Wallace hauled down 13 rebounds.

The Pistons led 42-36 at the half and 56-53 after three quarters, but James late scoring spurt helped Cleveland outscore Detroit 33-21 in the final quarter.

"I say it all the time," Cleveland coach Mike Brown told reporters. "LeBron is something special."

In Dallas, Nowitzki hauled down 15 rebounds for the Mavericks and scored 21 of his points from the foul line in a back-and-forth battle between two 60-win teams.

Devin Harris added 24 points and Jason Terry chipped in with 19 for the Mavs, who were an astonishing 39-for-50 from the foul line.

Tim Duncan led San Antonio with 35 points and 12 rebounds, while Manu Ginobili had 24 points and Tony Parker added 15.

(Writing by Roger Lajoie in Toronto)

Source: REUTERS

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