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James headed to the bench to rest his strained and bruised elbow with 5:41 left in the game. For 45 minutes afterward, he had it wrapped in ice.
"I had it going, we had it going," he said, "and I wasn't tired."
The Celtics had high hopes for an upset of the top-seeded Cavaliers after taking Game 2 104-86 in Cleveland to swipe the home-court advantage. But Cleveland earned it back in Game 3, needing just one quarter to silence the Boston crowd that grew even more downcast when the Red Sox and Bruins also fell behind early -- and then lost.
"There was no reason for me as a leader to be angry," James said. "We played awful in Game 2, and I knew how important the next game was. I know how important the whole series is."
The fans booed when Boston left the court at halftime down 65-43. And they cleared the building midway through the fourth, when Rivers pulled his starters and James headed to the bench to rest his strained and bruised right elbow.
"That was embarrassing. That's embarrassing when you lose at home like that," said Paul Pierce, who scored 11 points on 4-of-15 shooting and didn't make his first basket until midway through the second quarter.
"We just let our guard down. ... You've got to know the Cleveland Cavaliers are going to come in here with all the urgency in the world. They took the fight to us early, and we didn't respond to it."
James scored eight straight points to make it a 10-point lead midway through the first, and seven points during an 11-0 run that made it 36-15 with 19 seconds left in the quarter. Cleveland led by 24 points in the second quarter, 30 in the third, and never by less than 20 in the entire second half.
"He was playing H-O-R-S-E," Rivers said. "We were awful. We just didn't play with the same intensity they did. They played with a Game 7 mentality."
NOTES: The national anthem was sung by sandal-wearing Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir. ... The Celtics had a moment of silence for Bobby Vines, a 45-year-old sales account executive who died after a lifelong battle with sickle cell anemia. ... The NBA record for points in a quarter of a playoff game is held by Sleepy Floyd, who had 29 in 1987 for Golden State. ... James reached 2,000 playoff points in his career.
[Associated Press;
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