James dominated the final minutes — scoring seven consecutive points, making a key block on Pau Gasol, putting the Cavs ahead on a powerful driving layup, and making an out-of-this world save on a ball going out of bounds with time running out.

With Mo Williams, without Mo Williams, when James closes games like that there's not much the other team can do.

His attitude after the game showed maturity as well. In past years, the Cavs might have exulted over this win.

Make no mistake — they were pleased.

"It was huge," James said of the second win over the Lakers in as many games.

But he also said he didn't "want to look too far into it."

"As a player you don't want to look too far into one team, beating one team twice, no matter who they are," he said. "The championship still goes through LA. No matter if you beat them four times in a year, in the playoffs you have to beat them in the Finals to take that trophy from them.

"It's a huge win. I can't say it's just any other game, because it's not. But at the same time it's one win and I'm happy we got better tonight."

Added coach Mike Brown: "They have the best record in the league and it could give guys some confidence. It is a win and it's one of 82. You feel good about it because we won the game and I thought we won the game the right way. Other than that, I don't know how much weight it carries."

—Bryant started the game like he was going to score 50, making six of his first eight shots — and barely moving the net with every make. But he finished 12-of-31, meaning after the fast start he shot just 6-for-23.

—It was curious that Phil Jackson rested Bryant the first six minutes of the fourth quarter. During one stop in play, James returned after a rest and Jackson called for Ron Artest, to guard James. Bryant stared at Jackson the entire time, as if to say: My turn too?

–Mike Brown said the way Delonte West ran the offense in Mo Williams' absence was "terrific."

—Now we know why the Cavs treated West so delicately following his offseason arrest. They need him.

—Well, they also did it because they like him, and they support him.

—But with Williams out, the Cavs need West more than ever.

—Bryant on the game: "Their bigs were very active and very physical and wore us down." When is the last time an opponent had that to say about the Cavs?

—Bryant went on to talk about how physical the Cavs have become. "That’s not part of our DNA," Bryant said. "We have to step up and match that and still play skillful basketball."

—The Lakers shot 33.3 percent the final three quarters.

—James certainly seems to be reprising his MVP season. Anyone for a back-to-back news conference at St. V?

Some other takes:

ESPN's John Hollinger: "While the Cavs used this game to show they may have overcome some of the early hurdles that plagued their offense, the Magic demonstrated that their early 5-1 start may be something of a mirage."

Interesting how James acted when the game ended.

Tim Povtak, a friend who wrote Shaq would be embarrassed against Howard before the game, had to change his tune after: "If Dwight Howard wants to keep that Superman moniker — if he wants to deliver on his promise to bring an NBA title to Orlando — he better turn his game up another notch real soon. Playing Shaquille O'Neal — who is well past his prime and 14 years older — to an uninspired standstill like he did Wednesday night won't get his team anywhere close to the Finals again."

Chris Tomasson of AOL hyped Mo Williams' big game.
 
Finally, prior to the game, SI.com's Chris Mannix wrote this of Shaq: "I spoke to an executive from one of O'Neal's former teams last week and he warned that if things stay status quo in Cleveland, Shaq will start to divide the locker room. 'It happened to us,' the executive said. 'It will happen to them.'"

LeBron James called it a "transition period."

Coach Mike Brown said: "We will get better."

The cynic in me started to ask why Boson's transition seemed so much easier, but there is an easy reason. Boston's new guys — Rasheed Wallace and Marquis Daniels — are off-the-bench role players.

The Cavs' new guys, right now at least, are core starters. And one of them will be a secondary focal point of the offense. That would be Shaquille O'Neal, who looked a little uncertain at times.

It just wasn't all there. Not yet at least.

And the Cavs don't sound in the least concerned or worried about it.

As James said: "I don't want to look too much out of one game."

Random thoughts …

—There was a lot of hoopla about the game. Early pregame crowd. Lot of excitement. All that stuff. It carried over into the first quarter. But after that it was pretty much all Celtics. They are a bunch of pros, after all, and they understand how to play the game. The Cavs have shown an unnerving habit of racing to a fast start and then losing the lead and the game.

–Of course that happened against Orlando and Boston, two pretty good teams.

–There were still too many times when the offense devolved into the James-on-five game. He scored 38, but it's just not going to work every game. His late three off no movement or passes with the Cavs down 87-83 was simply not a good shot.

–Mo Williams looked uncomfortable being the third guy in the offense. Last season, he was No. 2. Now he has to pound the ball inside to O'Neal, or give it to James and let him do what he does. The Cavs need more from Williams, who looked more like the guy who struggled against Orlando than the guy who was so good in the 2008-09 regular season.

–Delonte West's absence is huge, because it screws up the guard system. Without West, Anthony Parker has to play 40 minutes, and he wasn't signed to play 40 minutes. Without West, Daniel Gibson becomes a backup point guard, and it's not his forte. Without West, the entire guard system is thrown off.

–This could be a concern all season.

–For a good part of the fourth quarter, Brown had Zyrdunas Ilgauskas and O'Neal on the floor together. Late in the game, he brought Anderson Varejao off the bench. I expected him to replace O'Neal and take Shaq's free throw shooting out of play, but he went in for Ilgauskas.

–Brown admits he's searching for the right substitutions and patterns. He admitted he didn't do a good job of working his lineups during the game.

–James had two more of those chase-down blocks that are becoming his signature.

–At one point, Ray Allen was guarding James. Could he not have done what Allen did when Allen saw Gibson guarding him and go to the low block?

–Said Shaq: "I've been around 17 years, won the first game, lose the first game … we've just got to get better. We're still a fairly new team. We're still learning each other."

Shooting.

Mo Williams took a huge stride toward regaining his form in Game 5 (after he had taken small strides in Game 4). His shooting, along with that of Daniel Gibson, opened things up for LeBron James at "the nail" — the position he took with the ball at the foul line.

The general thinking is that it's near impossible to double-team James at that spot, so the Cavs will use that play again if they need it. If a team does double, James can find a shooter on both sides of the floor, or a big guy cutting to the basket. But "the nail" does not hold if shooters aren't shooting. Williams must be back on his game again, and he must shoot well.

Conversely, the Cavs have to keep trying to defend Oralndo's shooters. I didn't think they did as great a job getting in the fact of the Magic's three-point shooters as the score indicated. But they did something right, because Orlando was 8-for-25. The Cavs have to do what they can to keep that figure low, but if they make their shots it will also help.

Of course, with James there probably should be no "absolutely" statements. Except for this one: No matter what happens, no matter what anyone else does, he almost always will absolutely find a way to keep the Cavs in the game, and maybe even win it.

–I was starting to get very angry, but thank goodness the outrage can subside. Dayana Mendoza, Miss Universe, is back blogging.

She took a break following her uplifting trip to Guantanomo, and the absence of her updates was making it tough to get through a day.

But she's back. Like the kid from Poltergeist. Shes back.

Here's some highlights:

She recently went to the People en Espanol's party for the "50 most beautiful" people. She was one; I was not. Go figure. "I saw all the guys from the magazine, the actors and actresses, everybody was salsa dancing and Meringue, it was great!" She also went to Dubai, a trip she called "educational" as well as "fun." She did some visits with HIV patients in El Salvador, and she's been Twittering a lot recently.

We can all rest a little easier.

—The bus driver from the Airport FastPark had an interesting point about the way the Cavs played Game 2. He pointed out that Orlando loves the three, and he wondered why the Cavs would continue to double-team Dwight Howard after they had a big lead. His point: Threes get the Magic back into the game, so let Howard score all the twos he can. He said if he were the coach, he'd defend the three-point line aggressively to limit the threes, which would limit the Magic's ability to come back.

Bus drivers as a group can be very insightful people.

See LeBron.

See LeBron dribble.

See LeBron dribble some more.

See LeBron shoot.

Yes, James, as he said, "had it going." He was hitting a lot of jumpers, and he was carrying his team, but it always seems like the Cavs are better off when James scores 48 points off set plays and picks and screens and ball movement rather than the stationary version it used for good parts of the Game 1 loss. That's the angle I went to on game night.

As Thursday wore on, the thought hit me, though, that Mo Williams and Delonte West shot a combined 10-for-32. And Zydrunas Ilgauskas can shoot better. And the offense in general can be better — if James allows it to function. So even if James doesn't score 49 again, the Cavs still should be OK offensively because the rest of the team can score more.

So I started to think about the Cavs defense, and the more I thought (always dangerous, I know), the more it seemed like the Cavs key to winning this series is in their bread-and-butter, their bellcow, their GDOTA (granddaddy of them all .. those who had Mr. Benander for Algebra understand).

And that is their defense, a topic I tried to address in Friday's Beacon Journal. Because if the Cavs really are as proud and as good a defensive team as we've thought all season — and they played some pretty good defense — they cannot let a team shoot 55 percent again, and they cannot let the team shoot 63 percent in the final three quarters.

The conundrum (like that word?) is that the Magic make good defensive teams look bad with their style. They murder teams that are not strong on the inside (ahem … Cleveland) with Dwight Howard, then when the defense starts to collapse they turn to their shooters on the perimeter. They have good ball movement, and they put their shooters in spots where they can make shots.

Sounds simple, but it's pretty tough to stop. And it's all pretty much the reason the Magic are in the East Finals.

Mike Brown did not seem overly concerned when he spoke to the media on Thursday. He said his team did not need to make "a ton" of defensive adjustments. Perhaps they need a half-ton? Brown has always believed in his system, and come playoff time he believes his team can shut down anyone. His players believe in his system, too.

But the system has had trouble with Orlando — unless you think the Magic winning nine-of-12 is an aberration. The Cavs have every right to believe they can win the series, but the Magic play a style that causes the Cavs problems.

Brown is the Coach of the Year. Defense is his specialty. He has made some very adept moves during past playoff series. The Cavs were built with a defense-first mentality. James was second in the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year voting. The Cavs will score, but to win this series they have to stop Orlando.

Figuring out the best way to do that will be key as the series continues.

Williams was on the receiving of LeBron James' jump-ball tip, which started when James touched the ball with one second left. Williams basically shot an 18-foot, tip-in, as he jumped, caught the ball and shot in one motion. Pretty amazing when you think about it.

The shot hit the back of the rim and bounced out.

But it was much more difficult than it looked.

"I couldn't see the rim," Williams said.

Because he was blocked by an Orlando defender. Williams said it was like closing your eyes to take a free throw.

"I couldn't see the rim," he said. "I was just guessing the distance it was. … But it was close."

Was Williams fouled on the play?

"Probably," he said. "But you can't expect a foul in that situation."

That's putting it politely. The Cavs lost Game 1 to Orlando because they quit doing the things they had done all season, things that won them 66 games. That meant ball movement and player movement. But in Game 1, too often the Cavs stood around and went one-on-five and relied solely on their MVP.

LeBron James did all he could, scoring 49 points and playing through what appeared to be some serious cramps in his right leg in the fourth quarter to time and again provide his team points.

But the problem was James didn't start taking the ball to the basket until less than four minutes were left, and by that time the Cavs were down 93-90. He was successful in those drives, either scoring, getting to the line or setting up a teammate — including setting up Delonte West for a three with 40.8 seconds left that gave the Cavs a 103-102 lead. After Rashard Lewis gave the Magic a one-point lead, James made a more conventional three-point play to put the Cavs up two, which set up Lewis' game-winning three.

The Cavs could not answer in the final seconds, and Orlando won. But the game was not lost in the final seconds, it was lost in the third quarter and early fourth when the Cavs allowed a 15-point halftime lead to fritter away.

"I don't think it's what they did," West said. "I think it's what we didn't do. I'm not taking any credit away from them, but we didn't come out with the same intensity that we have normally done in the third quarter thus far in the postseason."

The Cavs started the game with enough effort and energy for three games. And it showed. James had four assists before he scored a point, and by halftime he had 26 points.

Dwight Howard said Magic coach Stan Van Gundy told the team at halftime that the Magic "were all witnesses, and we couldn't have that." Meaning they were all standing around, admiring James.

In the second half, the Cavs offense was stagnant and Orlando's was fluid. Orlando relied on its superstar –Howard scored 30 points and was near unstoppable in the paint when he did not commit an offensive foul — but still had ball movement and plays, as shown by Hedo Turkoglu's 14 assists.

James had an amazing night, with 49 points, eight assists and six rebounds. But until those final four minutes, he was taking a lot of jumpshots. Eventually it caught up with the Cavs.

This loss does not end the series. The Cavs almost certainly will win Game 2 (they better). They'll need to win one on the Magic's home court. It's not time to panic.

But anyone who doubted the Magic should be taken seriously can now re-think. The Cavs are in a series.

Random thoughts …

 —James set Cavs team records for points in a half (26 in the first), points in a game (49) and field goals made (20, in 30 shots). He had six rebounds, eight assists, two steals and three blocks.

—The only criticism is that it would be better if those points came off more set plays, as opposed to the one-on-five approach the Cavs used so much. Too much.

—In the playoffs James is averaging 34.7 points, 9.3 rebounds, 6.9 assists and 2 steals per game.

—Van Gundy continually told his team that it had been in tough games in the playoffs and Cleveland had not. The looks on the Cavs faces late in the game seemed to indicate they were shocked to be losing at that point of the game.

—The way they started they should have been shocked. The Magic players all candidly admitted they played just one half.

—Howard's first dunk was a monster that brought down the shot clock attached to the top of the backboard. "I thought it was a regular dunk," Howard said.

Stating it clearly:

Mike Brown: "That's why this is a series. A series is not won nor lost after one game. I have confidence in our guys. I trust our guys. We'll be ready for Game 2 when it comes around."

 West on his last shot that didn't go in: "I got a good look at it and that's all you can ask for. You practice that shot and you step up and take it confidently and it's either going to go in or it's not. It just didn't go in for me."

Van Gundy on guarding James: "The one thing I don't leave this game with is any idea whatsoever to do with him. As a coach, you are supposed to have some idea. I don't have a clue, OK? I don't."

James: "My statistics don't mean anything when it ends in a loss. Tonight my individual performance means nothing."

James: "If we think the world is coming down on our head, we'll get beat pretty bad in Game 2."

Van Gundy on the teams' last possessions: "There was no big genius thing there. Rashard just made a hell of a shot and we came up with a stop on the last possession."

Not much to add to that. If either or both plays a normal game Sunday, Game 4 won't be close.

The Cavs won Friday despite their worst offensive game in a long time. Their two guards were not very good. Their offense, to quote LeBron James, was "terrible" in the third quarter. And their coach spent much of the night being angry and/or exhorting his team from the sidelines.

Yet they won by 11.

They won because their defense again was excellent, and they won because LeBron James again was beyond excellent. His fourth quarter was as sterling an example of bring-your-team-up basketball as we've seen since James' last sterling example of bring-your-team-up basketball, which probably was the last time the Cavs played.

The Cavs won by 11, on the road, in a game when they didn't play well.

Charles Barkley was right.

This series is over.

Random thoughts …

—A win Sunday and the Cavs will have given themselves a nice long rest before the East semifinals. Miami and Atlanta could go six or seven games.

—I wonder what it feels like for James to almost single-handedly take down a franchise. Detroit's run in the East will be over when it loses this series, and what the Pistons look like next season is anyone's guess.

—Said Detroit coach Michael Curry of James: "Big-time players make plays, and that's what he did."

—My view in Detroit is from behind the basket. Three rows of fans sit in front of us, with an aisle separating us and the fans. When James took off in the fourth quarter, the fans stood and all I could see was Mo Williams on the right. Next thing I knew he lobbed the ball and appearing out of nowhere, above the standing fans, came James' hands to catch the lob and flush the dunk. It was kind of an interesting view, when you think about it.

—When the game started, a fan behind me said to his buddy: "Look how empty this place is … and I'd say half are Cleveland fans." Not sure if it was half, but an MVP chant did break out for James. Wonder how many Cavs fans will be present on Sunday.

—James was asked if he ever thought he'd hear an MVP chant in Detroit. He said : "No. Did I ever think I would play the Pistons without Chauncey Billups? I didn't think that would happen either." Somewhere, Joe Dumars looked around to wonder what in the heck had just buzzed by his head.

—I'll say this until the cows come home: James does not get near enough credit for his rebounding. He pursues missed shots, and when he goes after the ball nobody, but nobody, is going to take it from him. In the first quarter, Ben Wallace — a pretty strong guy — went up for a missed shot and could not control the rebound. Had that been James, he'd have swept the board clean.

—At one point during a timeout the Pistons trotted out a group of dancers called "The Spare Tires." They were a bunch of obsese men, who made a joke of their obesity by rolling their bellies and removing their shirts. The crowd howled. This seemed a bit disturbing, for some reason.

—Nice play by Z in the second quarter leading the break. He clearly didn't want the ball, but dribbled up the court and found LeBron for a layup. The bench loved it.

—Are times tough in Detroit or has this fan base lost interest? An ad during the game said tickets are available for Sunday's Game 4, some as low as $12.

—How the Cavs were tied after three quarters must be one of the great mysteries. They had 13 turnovers, were shooting terrible, were 1-for-15 from three-point range and scored nine points in the quarter. At that point, James was 5-for-13, and Williams, West and Daniel Gibons had combined to go 2-for-16.

—The Cavs scored 10 points the firs t 2:49 of the fourth quarter. That topped their entire third-quarter scoring.

—Free-throw disparity continues to favor Cleveland. The Cavs shot 30 free throws, Detroit 12.

—Where would the Cavs be without Joe Smith?

—Detroit thought it played pretty well against James, and he missed a triple-double by one assist.

Stating it clearly:

Curry: "It was tied going into the fourth and they just made a few more plays and we missed a couple of shots and then had a couple of turnovers. I thought we had played well enough to have a lead and not be tied." 

Brown: "It was a playoff game that was an ugly game. It was a soft game. I don't think either team though they played its best basketball. But somehow, some way, especially in the fourth quarter defensively, and it started with getting stops. Lebron — I thought in the fourth quarter his aggressiveness was terrific." 

Hamilton: "This is killing me. I can't even lie. It's killing me – just the simple fact that how great we were, being down 0-3, being the 8th seed and watching them celebrate shot after shot." 

Joe Smith: "To be on a team that's close to doing something special with what we have here, it's going to pay off. We have to continue to be hungry as a group and I've been around a while so I understand what it takes to win at this level right now."