CLEVELAND — It seemed just like old times: LeBron James dominated the fourth quarter as Larry Hughes and Drew Gooden disappeared.
The difference Sunday was Hughes and Gooden were playing for the Chicago Bulls, who stood by helplessly as James rallied the Cavaliers to a 95-86 victory in front of a sellout crowd at Quicken Loans Arena and national-television audience on ABC.
James, who finished with 37 points, six rebounds and six assists, was at his best when his team needed him most. The
23-year-old had eight points, three rebounds and three assists in the final 9:55 as Cleveland (34-26), which had been down by eight, outscored the Bulls 27-10 to end the game.
“I just live for the fourth quarter,” James said. “When the games are competitive, when they’re close, that’s when I like to do my work.”
The 6-foot-8, 250-pounder’s biggest plays were a resounding dunk that put the Cavaliers up 87-83 with 2:29 to go, followed by a pull-up jumper the next trip down that made it a six-point game with 2:01 remaining and drew chants of “MVP” from the crowd.
“We just took the life out of them with that dunk,” James said.
Playing against their former Cleveland team for the first time since a blockbuster trade on Feb. 21, Hughes and Gooden posted nice numbers overall, but were lifeless down the stretch.
Hughes, who was 8-of-20 from the field, finished with 23 points, five rebounds and four assists, but he missed his last five shots and went scoreless as James dominated the last 9:55. He also missed five shots in a row early after scoring five points on Chicago’s first two possessions of the game.
Gooden had 11 points and 10 rebounds, but those were the same numbers he had at the end of three quarters.
Meanwhile, two of the players Cleveland acquired in the three-team deal that sent Hughes and Gooden to Chicago (23-36) stepped up big.
Joe Smith, a former Bull, scored all eight of his points in the final quarter and punctuated his third straight field goal with a fist pump as Chicago was calling timeout.
“He was laying in the bushes the whole game and we were playing great defense,” Gooden said. “We were more concerned about LeBron James getting in the paint. You know how it goes: LeBron starts finding open guys for shots and it’s easy to knock them down because you have time.”
Wally Szczerbiak, whose wife had a baby boy Saturday, flew back to Cleveland early Sunday morning, then boarded a plane and went back to New York in the evening to be with his family. In between, he played his finest game since joining the Cavaliers from Seattle, with eight of his 17 points coming in the pivotal fourth quarter.
“I’ve been so amped up and so excited for these games, maybe this settled me down a little bit, cleared my mind a little,” Szczerbiak said of his hectic schedule. “There was so much else going on that I didn’t really press too much.”
Other than James and Szczerbiak, no one else scored in double figures for the Cavaliers, who will be minus center Zydrunas Ilgauskas for at least a week due to a strained back.
Ben Wallace, who was 2-of-6 from the field and 3-of-8 at the line, had seven points and eight rebounds in 36 minutes against his former team, while the starting backcourt of Devin Brown and Delonte West had nine points each. Anderson Varejao, who started at center in place of Ilgauskas, had five points and eight boards.
By contrast, the Bulls had six players score in double figures but left The Q with another loss because James dominated the fourth quarter and brought Szczerbiak and Smith along with him.
“That’s what we needed,” James said. “Guys stepped up in the fourth quarter.”
The Cavaliers led most of the game, but Chicago went on a 16-2 run at the end of the third quarter and start of the fourth to go up 76-68. Twelve of the Bulls’ points came with James on the bench, as Cleveland coach Mike Brown went with some combinations that had almost no chance of being successful at the offensive end.
Once James came back, however, the Cavaliers turned the game right back around.
“I wasn’t itching (to get back in),” James said. “I knew at one point it was going to be my time.”
The Bulls knew it as well.
“We had an eight-point lead and they turned the heat up on us,” Chicago coach Jim Boylan said. “We got a heavy dose of LeBron, especially down the stretch. He made the plays that needed to be made.”
Contact Rick Noland at (330) 721-4061 or rickn@ohio.net.

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