LeBron James scored 29 of the final 30 points for Cleveland and the final 25 points of the game for the Cleveland Cavs as Cleveland defeated the Detroit Pistons 109-107 to take a 3-2 series lead heading to game ix in Cleveland on Saturday night. Finishing with 48 points in the game, LeBron could not be stopped as it took 2 OT’s before LeBron drove to the hoop to put Ceveland up. Anderson Varejao redirected Chauncey Billups attempt to tie the game to seal the win for Cleveland.

Despite a 100-96 lead with under 2 minutes remaining in OT, the Cleveland Cavaliers missed opportunities to seal the game as the Detroit Pistons got 2 FT’s from Chauncey Billups to tie the game and force a 2nd OT.

With 1:37 left in OT, the Cleveland Cavs and Detroit Pistons are now tied 96-96. LeBron leads the way for Cleveland with 35 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists.

LeBron dunks it home again and now has 15 of Cleveland’s last 16 points. Drew Gooden has fouled out as Cleveland now trails 96-95 with LeBron headed to the line.

Another night and another thriller between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Detroit Pistons. With Cleveland down 1 leBron James drove and dunked home a 1-point lead with less than a minute left. Chauncey “big-shot” Billups then drained a 3-pointer to put Detroit on top 91-89 with just over 20 seconds remaining. LeBron then answered with another drive and dunk finish to tie the game and Billups missed a 3-pointer at the buzzer to send the game into overtime.

Unsung hero: Reserve PG Eric Snow, a player who is constantly beat up by Cleveland fans because of his lack of offense, picked up 2 steals in just 2 minutes of play late in the 4th quarter.

The Cleveland Cavaliers trail by 6 after one quarter at 29-23; not bad considering Detroit shot 55% and had a 9 to 2 assist to turnover ratio. But the real news is an Antonio McDyess hard foul on Anderson Varejao that was called a Flagrant II and resulted in an ejection of McDyess. After the foul LeBron James raced towards McDyess drawing a techinical. The loss of McDyess hurts the Pistons’ depth, and the technical leaves LeBron James one technical foul away from ejection.

Browsing sports blogs and write-ups today I came across Sports-Shop.com’s sports blog where they have a prediction on tonight’s game five pitting the Cavs against the Pistons. It seems that these guys think Cleveland is focused and will pull away with a win in game five.

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All of the pregame talk was about how the foot injury to Larry Hughes was going to “hurt” the Cavs. Thoughts were that the veteran PG/SG was not going to play, much less start the game, but Hughes did indeed start leaving rookie PG Daniel Gibson to come off the bench. Not only did Gibson handle the pressure well, however, but he excelled under pressure. Gibson scores 21 points in 35 minutes off the bench nailing 12-12 free throws as he, LeBron James and Drew Gooden finished as the Cavs’ only players to score in double-digits. LeBron led the team with 25 points, 7 rebounds, 11 assists and 3 steals and Gooden added 19 points and 8 rebounds.

With the win the series is now tied 2-2 with game five in Detroit on Thursday night, game six in Cleveland on Saturday, and game seven, if necessary, in Detroit on Monday.

As the national and local media continues to criticize the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 22-year old superstar LeBron James, James himself does not seem bothered. In fact, he may find it motivating. LeBron led the Cavs with a 32 point, 9 rebound, 9 assist game as Cleveland held on at home for a 88-82 win over Detroit in game three of the Eastern Conference Finals. With the win, the Cavs will look to even the series in Cleveland on Tuesday night in game four before heading to Detroit for game five on Thursday night.

Game two finished in a thilling fashion again on Wednesday as the Detroit Pistons again found a way to win, defeating the Cleveland Cavaliers 79-76. Rasheed Wallace’s shove of Anderson Varejao and subsequent basket put the Detroit Pistons up 77-76 with 24.2 seconds remaining, and the classy ‘Sheed followed with a obvious f-bomb as the cameras panned Wallace heading into the time out. For the final sequence, LeBron James missed a jumper in the lane thanks to strong defense from Rip Hamilton, so strong that some TV analysts claimed LeBron was obvioulsy fouled. But LeBorn’s shot was strong off the back rim and fell to Larry Hughes who missed a short jumper, and Varejao missed the tip-in to seal the game for Detroit. Cavs coach Mike Brown then received a technical as the Cavs fell 79-76.