Cavs hold off fiesty Pistons for Game 1 win
CLEVELAND — For a starting five with minimal postseason experience, the Detroit Pistons showed no playoff jitters against LeBron James and the top-seeded Cavaliers.
They didn’t care Cleveland was the one seed and didn’t think of themselves as an eight seed.
With the Cavs focused on stopping the Reggie Jackson-Andre Drummond pick-and-roll, the Pistons made 10-of-16 three-pointers in the first half, took a five-point lead into the third quarter and absorbed Cavs’ third-quarter push.
But the talented Cavaliers’ triumvirate — LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love — had too much offense, too much playmaking and squeezed out a 106-101 victory Sunday in Game 1 of their first-round Eastern Conference playoff series at Quicken Loans Arena.
It is difficult to beat the Cavs when James, Love and Irving combine for 81 points. After missing his first four shots, Irving finished with 31 points on 10-for-24 shooting. Love had 28 points and 13 rebounds and James had 22 points, 11 assists and six rebounds.
"Our objective in this series is to be aggressive and attack," Cavs coach Tyronn Lue said. "We don't want to bail them out with jump shots. We want to attack, get downhill, get to the paint and then we can kick out for threes. The Big 3 did a phenomenal job of doing that."
They scored 17 of Cleveland’s 18 points, and their performance illustrated just how important a healthy and productive Love and Irving are to Cleveland’s postseason success.
"We just could never get any of their three main guys under control," Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy said.
The Cavs outscored the Pistons 30-23 in the fourth quarter and were able to win despite shooting 44.3% from the field and 34.3% on threes.
Now, Cleveland needs to improve defensively after Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy’s spread-the-floor offense led to an onslaught of threes.
It wasn’t easy for Cleveland and may not be throughout the series, if the Pistons continue shooting the ball like they did in Game 1. Detroit shot 51.7% on three-pointers, including 60% in the first half on 10-of-16.
Cleveland’s decision to focus on Jackson and Drummond in the first half led to those threes. Cleveland changed its defense in the second, which allowed Drummond to find space in the paint. But the Cavs will take Drummond twos over threes.
Marcus Morris scored 20 points, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope had 21 points, Drummond had 13 points and 11 rebounds and Jackson finished with 17. Pistons rookie forward Stanley Johnson had nine points and eight rebounds in 16 minutes and Van Gundy said he considered playing him more, acknowledging the decision to play Tobias Harris more was a valid criticism.
""I just wish I had done some things differently and maybe we come out ahead," he said.
Game 2 is Wednesday in Cleveland (8 p.m. ET, TNT).
Follow Jeff Zillgitt on Twitter @JeffZillgitt.