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James guides Cavaliers to fourth straight win

Jan 7, 2007 - 5:00 AM CLEVELAND (Ticker) -- LeBron James was not going to have two bad games in a row.

James collected 19 points and 13 rebounds as the Cleveland Cavaliers won their fourth straight game, a 96-91 victory over the New Jersey Nets.

Among the best players in the NBA, James finished with a season-low eight points on just 3-of-13 shooting in Friday's win at Milwaukee. On Saturday, James made 9-of-21 shots.

The 22-year-old superstar fed Zydrunas Ilgauskas for a jam, then scored on a breakaway dunk, giving Cleveland an 87-83 edge with 3:25 remaining.

"I was able to jump in the passing lane and make Richard Jefferson try to tip it," James said. "It went right to Eric Snow and he tipped it to me and I was able to get a dunk."

"We showed mental toughness down the stretch," Cavaliers coach Mike Brown said. "They took the lead, but we stayed with it and ended up getting enough stops to win the ballgame."

Jefferson scored six straight points for the Nets to make things interesting with nine seconds to go, cutting the deficit to 93-91. But Cleveland's Drew Gooden made 3-of-4 free throws to seal the win.

Gooden had 21 points and 12 rebounds and Larry Hughes also scored 21 points for Cleveland, which is tied with Chicago for the best home record in Eastern Conference at 15-3.

"We won two road games, which is impressive, but it's going to be very tough to beat us at home," James said. "Right now we're working to get home-court advantage in the playoffs and take care of business."

Despite its stellar home record, Cleveland is just 6-9 on the road and will start a seven-game West Coast swing at Sacramento on Tuesday.

"We knew we had some games that we were capable of winning and we wanted to do that before we went out west," Gooden said.

The Cavs built a 40-24 lead with 6:13 left in the second quarter behind a 13-3 run highlighted by James' reverse alley-oop layup from rookie Daniel Gibson.

Mikki Moore had 18 points and a season-high 10 rebounds and Vince Carter also scored 18 points for the Nets, who had their three-game winning streak snapped.

"The last six minutes, we pride ourselves on trying to out-execute teams and we did it for maybe five minutes," Carter said.

Rookie Marcus Williams scored all six of his points in an impressive 14-4 run to open the fourth quarter as the Nets grabbed a 79-75 advantage with 7:24 left.

Hughes and New Jersey's Bostjan Nachbar both received technical fouls late in the third quarter after a brief altercation.

"I just tried to take off for the fast break and he just pulled me from behind," Nachbar said. "I tried to shake him off. I didn't have it in mind to elbow somebody."