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Sports

James, Cavs take down Heat

By Sports Network
Published | Updated

Cleveland, OH (SportsNetwork.com) - LeBron James posted 23 points, eight rebounds and seven assists against his former team, leading the Cleveland Cavaliers to a 114-88 win over the Miami Heat on Thursday.

Kyrie Irving scored 23 points as well, while Iman Shumpert added a Cavaliers high 17 points off the bench. Tristan Thompson pulled down 15 rebounds for Cleveland, which controls its own destiny for the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference. With the win, the Cavaliers moved 3 1/2 games ahead of idle Toronto.

"I think our activity was high," James said. "We were flying around and our activity level was very high."

Luol Deng and Hassan Whiteside scored 17 points apiece for Miami, which lost star Dwyane Wade to a left knee injury in the second quarter.

"I hit the inside of my knee on the ground," Wade said. "That's all I feel right now. I don't know what I'm going to wake up with, but right now I just feel the pain on the inside of my knee where I hit the court."

The Heat sit in a virtual tie for eighth place in the East with Boston with seven games remaining in the regular season.

Miami scored seven straight early in the first to claim an early edge, but Cleveland took the lead for good on a short James jumper not long after. Irving followed with a triple, and the Cavs used runs of 7-0 and 8-2 over the next six-plus minutes of game time to create some distance.

The Heat shot 54.5 percent from the field in the first half but still trailed 61-50 at the break.

Dragic hit from deep at 5:49 of the third, getting the Heat within 10, but the spread never dipped back into single digits. Late in the stanza, James converted a three-point play, Matthew Dellavedova found Thompson for an emphatic alley-oop and J.R. Smith canned a deep 3-pointer.

It was 91-72 after three, and Cleveland rolled down the stretch.

Game Notes

The Cavaliers have won six of seven ... The two teams split the season series, with both teams defending home court ... The Heat are 2-5 in their last seven games ... Cavaliers forward Kevin Love (back) did not dress.