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James, Cavs look to take 2-0 lead against Wizards

Apr 21, 2008 - 2:11 PM Washington at Cleveland 7:00 pm EDT Eastern Conference first round Cavaliers lead, 1-0

CLEVELAND (Ticker) -- LeBron James let his performance do the talking for the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game One.

James and the Cavaliers look to take a two-games-to-none lead when they host the talkative Washington Wizards in Game Two of their Eastern Conference first-round series Monday.

In the days leading up to the series opener, Washington guard DeShawn Stevenson called James "overrated" while Gilbert Arenas said that Washington "wanted Cleveland in the first round."

But in an intense Game One, which featured a number of momentum swings, it was James who ended up having the final word.

James scored 32 points, missing only three of his final 15 shots, as the Cavaliers won, 93-86, on Monday. James made the go-ahead basket with just over 1 1/2 minutes to play.

"My play speaks louder than me going out there and pushing somebody or talking trash," James said. "That's what it's about. We're not the type of team that talks but we're not going to back down either. Our game did the talking tonight, and that's what it should be about."

Washington, which has lost seven straight postseason games to Cleveland, scored just two points over the final 4:38 of the contest. The basket came on Caron Butler's layup with just seconds remaining.

"This is the sort of game that we anticipated," Wizards coach Eddie Jordan said. "I thought that we managed the game the way we wanted and executed our game plan we had talked about. I think that coming down the stretch in the mid-fourth to late fourth we didn't keep our scoring pace."

Arenas scored 24 points off the bench and Antawn Jamison added 23 and 19 rebounds to lead the Wizards, who have lost in the first round to the Cavaliers in each of the last two seasons.

Washington shot just 4-of-20 from the field in the fourth quarter and made 6-of-24 3-pointers for the game.