Lebron, Cavs pull away from Pistons

Detroit played Cleveland tough for three quarters at the Palace of Auburn Hills on Sunday.  In the fourth, however, LeBron James took over and the Cavs pulled away for a 90-80 victory—the first triumph in their past four trips to the Motor City. 

LeBron finished with a game high 33 points, along with eight assists and four rebounds.  Spurned for the All Star team, Mo Williams posted another impressive scoring tally with 22 points.  Zydrunas Ilgauskas was the only other Cavalier to score in double digits with 13 points to go along with eight rebounds.  After the game, coach Mike Brown expressed his pleasure with the victory in a usually challenging venue for his team:

"This is a good win in a building where we've always had a lot of trouble. It seems like they've had our number here, so this feels good."

Alan Iverson led the Pistons with 22 points, while Richard Hamilton added 16 off the bench for Detroit.  Amir Johnson and Tayshaun Price also posted double digits numbers, with 10 and 11 points respectively.  The Pistons have lost 9 of their last 12, but Iverson stopped short of expressing panic in his postgame comments:

"I'm surprised, but I've seen the flashes of how good we can be. And, I see the reasons that we lose games. Our whole thing is, it better be figured out by the time we get to the playoffs," Regardless of where we're seeded, we need to be playing at a high level and that's the only thing I'm concerned about."

Cleveland returns home on Tuesday for a game against Toronto and a defense of their undefeated record at the Quicken Loans Arena.  They’ll then play the Knicks at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday before heading back to Ohio for an epic tilt with the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday night.  Detroit hosts Miami on Wednesday, travels to Milwaukee on Friday and will entertain the Phoenix Suns on Saturday night.