CLEVELAND — It was a perfect night from the field for Zydrunas Ilgauskas and a near-perfect one for the Cavaliers as a whole.
Led by a 10-of-10 shooting performance from their 7-foot-3 center, the Cavaliers absolutely demolished the Washington Wizards 121-85 Wednesday night at sold-out Quicken Loans Arena.
“Maybe I gave the wrong pregame speech,” Wizards coach Eddie Jordan quipped.
There’s no maybe about it. Cleveland, which led by as many as 45, recorded its largest victory since a 38-point win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Nov. 30, 1994.
“We played with a sense of urgency, a sense of purpose,” Cavaliers coach Mike Brown said. “Even when we got up big, we did not relax.”
Ilgauskas, who didn’t play in the fourth quarter, finished with 24 points, while LeBron James, also a spectator the entire final period, had 23 points, eight rebounds and eight assists.
Drew Gooden had 18 points on 8-of-11 shooting and 10 rebounds, while Sasha Pavlovic, who now has two straight double-figure scoring games for the first time since
Dec. 5, had 13 points and a career-high seven assists before limping off with a sprained left foot in the third period. Devin Brown added 15 points, most of them in serious garbage time.
“It was another great performance by us tonight,” James said. “Defensively, offensively — what more can you ask?”
The Cavaliers (23-18), five games above .500 for the first time in 2007-08, have now won a season-high five straight, eight of their last nine and 11 of their last 13. At the midpoint of the season, they are just one game behind their pace of last season, when they finished with 50 victories and advanced to the NBA Finals.
Just as impressive, Cleveland rolled against a Wizards (22-18) team that had won seven of its last nine games, giving it a lot of confidence with Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns coming to town Friday.
“Great basketball teams know when it’s time to crank it up,” James said. “We’ve done that.”
The third quarter, in which the Cavaliers outscored Washington 43-17 and held the Wizards to 3-of-21 shooting, was particularly ridiculous. Not only did Cleveland record its highest-scoring period ever at The Q, it had already tied its season high for assists in a game (30) en route to an arena-record 39 for the evening (on 47 field goals).
“If we could have finished with 39 assists and zero turnovers (the Cavaliers had a season-low six), it would have been a perfect game,” James said. “It was a pretty daggone good game for us.”
Up just six at halftime, Cleveland got layup after layup early in the third period while the Wizards threw up brick after brick. Then Pavlovic, who will undergo an MRI today, started making jumpers. Then Gooden started making turnarounds from the baseline. It got so out of hand that even Hughes, who missed his other six shots (and wasn’t credited for at least one other), threw down a pair of dunks.
“It was exciting to see us come out and score the way we did in the third and also defend,” Mike Brown said. “We’re not masters of the third quarter yet, but the last few games we’ve done a pretty good job of coming out and playing the right way.”
By the time this one was over, the Cavaliers had shot a season-high .566 from the field (47-of-83) to Washington’s .390 (32-of-82) and outrebounded the Wizards by a whopping 53-29.
“It was painful, bordering on embarrassing,” Washington’s Jordan said. “They really brought it to us.”
Ilgauskas came out on fire, making eight straight shots en route to 19 first-half points as the Cavaliers took a 52-46 lead. Fifteen of the center’s points came in the first period, when he and James combined for 28 points on 11-of-12 shooting.
“Z took over the first couple minutes of the first quarter,” James said. “We just road that the rest of the game.”

Tip-ins

Ilgauskas’ 10-of-10 shooting made him just the second Cleveland player to make at least 10 shots in a game without a miss. John Warren was 12-of-12 against Buffalo on Dec. 14, 1973.
• The previous record for points in a quarter at The Q was set by Orlando, which scored 42 on Dec. 6, 1994.
• The Cavaliers’ 39 assists broke the arena record of 38, set twice by Cleveland, most recently on Nov. 9, 2006 against Chicago.
• Since turnovers became an official statistic in 1969, no NBA team has had at least 39 assists with six or fewer turnovers.
Contact Rick Noland at (330) 721-4061 or rickn@ohio.net.

NEXT UP

WHO: Cleveland vs. Phoenix
WHEN: Friday, 7 p.m.
WHERE: The Q
TV/RADIO: FSN Ohio; WTAM 1100-AM

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