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James looks for help from teammates as Cavaliers face Raptors

Mar 3, 2007 - 5:31 PM Toronto (32-27) at Cleveland (33-25) 7:30 pm EST

CLEVELAND (Ticker) -- Superstar LeBron James seems to be all alone. But at the end of the game on Thursday, he was his own worst enemy.

After coming up empty in the waning seconds against red-hot Dallas, James and the Cavaliers aim to get back on track against the first-place Toronto Raptors on Saturday.

James seems to be by himself on Cleveland's mediocre roster without another consistent offensive threat. On Thursday, he did his best to try to hand Dallas its first loss since January 25 as he scored 39 points on 17-of-27 shooting. And he almost did.

Cleveland used a 17-6 burst to pull within 95-92 with 41 seconds to play. James scored 11 of his 13 fourth-quarter points in the run. Then the Cavaliers had chance to send the game into overtime, but James misfired on two straight 3-pointers in the final seconds.

The superstar's fellow starters scored just a combined 22 points against the Mavericks.

However, James' teammates helped him out in the Cavaliers' last meeting with Toronto on February 21. Although James netted 29 points, the rest of the starting lineup added 37 and 33 rebounds for Cleveland, which won 86-85.

It was the sixth win in seven games for the Cavaliers against the Raptors, including four in a row at home.

Toronto, which has the best record in the Eastern Conference since the start of the calendar year, shot less than 40 percent for the third time this season and committed 19 turnovers en route to a 94-81 loss to scuffling Milwaukee on Friday.

Rookie Andrea Bargnani had 16 points and nine rebounds and fellow first-year player Jorge Garbajosa scored 13 for the Raptors, who dropped to 19-9 at home.