CLEVELAND -- A nifty left-handed post-entry catch under the hoop morphed into a lefty laser feed from LeBron James to Kevin Love in the corner for 3 late in the fourth quarter of Game 2 between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Detroit Pistons on Wednesday.
And just as he did in Game 1 on a Kyrie Irving 3-point attempt off one of his passes, James started to sprint to the other end before he could see the result of the shot, so sure in his teammate’s ability to convert that he didn’t need the visual confirmation.
The fact that Irving’s shot missed and Love’s shot went down, giving the Cavs an 18-point edge en route to a 107-90 victory to go up 2-0 in the first-round series, matters little.
On both plays, James’ show of confidence was more significant than the shots themselves, anyway.
One of James’ pet phrases -- “The ball finds energy” -- is manifesting itself at the start of this postseason run for the Cavs. And he is doing his part to infuse every teammate, every possession, every celebration -- be it post-dunk or pre-3 -- with the requisite vigor to fuel that directive.
The Cavs were kinetic all over the court on Wednesday, connecting on a playoff-record-tying 20 3-pointers in pummeling the Pistons to take a commanding lead heading into Friday’s Game 3 at Detroit.
Against Stan Van Gundy’s band of upstarts -- postseason newbies hungry enough and naive enough to believe that Cleveland can be beat this series -- the Cavs have found a way to match Detroit’s urgency while still commanding the moment.
It happened in Sunday’s Game 1, when Cleveland fell down five at halftime and Irving started the third quarter with a personal 8-0 run, then again in the fourth quarter, when it had to erase a seven-point deficit with 11 minutes remaining before rallying to win.
And it happened again on Wednesday, when the Pistons possessed a 10-point lead midway through the first quarter, which Irving erased nearly on his own with an 8-0 burst, then again in the third quarter, which Detroit began by reeling off seven straight points before the Cavs clamped down with a 16-2 run to break the game open.
“When you got guys -- we have one goal, we have one objective every single night, and that’s to play our game both offensively and defensively,” James said afterward. “When you got guys like this guy [J.R. Smith] next to me and the rest of the 13 guys, we all just believe in one thing and that’s how we can be better in the next possession.
“They came out and hit us, and we knew they were going to give that. We just had to stay calm, continue to work our game plan, continue to defend and just try to wear on them, and then he got it going. Once J.R. gets it going, the floodgates open for us because he stretches the floor for us so well.”
If James is the energy creator for Cleveland, then Smith is that temperamental toy that is a ton of fun to play with so long as its batteries are fresh. Smith shot 7-for-11 from 3 in Game 2, joining James (27 points) and Irving (22 points) above the 20-point plateau with 21.
For a team that was picked apart as much as any wire-to-wire first-place team in league history for supposedly waltzing through the regular season, the Cavaliers have had no chill in this series so far.
Marcus Morris and Stanley Johnson want to be the next guys to join DeShawn Stevenson and Lance Stephenson on the pile of defenders James discarded for trying to make a name for themselves at his expense? Go ahead, try it. James had a shoulder bump for Johnson and an “I’m going to let the world know how foolish you looked leaving me open” face for Morris in his bag of tricks for Game 2.
And then he’ll deny that they ever got under his skin in the first place.
“The game is played in between the four lines, and everything outside that means absolutely nothing,” James said.
From the way the Cavs are approaching the postseason so far, the same could be said for whatever supposed fatal flaws the team showed during its much-scrutinized regular season: They mean absolutely nothing.
The lights are on, the stage is bright and the Cavs are electric right now.