Kevin Love, LeBron James lead Cleveland Cavaliers past Atlanta Hawks

The Cleveland Cavaliers have been the best team in the eastern conference this season, but star LeBron James hasn’t been satisfied with the effort of the Cavs and he showed some frustration over the weekend during the win against the Atlanta Hawks.

Then Cleveland (9-3) danced over and around the Bucks (5-7) to halt a two-game losing streak and avenge a double-overtime loss Saturday in Milwaukee.

Four-time NBA MVP James rejoined Cavaliers for a second spell in 2014 after previously playing for the franchise between 2003 and 2010.

The substitution may have been something weird, but at least James had the guts to apologize to his teammates after the game. Other than a tightly contested first quarter that saw a few different lead changes, the Cleveland Cavaliers physicality gave the Atlanta Hawks fits all night.

“Well, he was frustrated”.

“This is how we need to play”, James said. “You talk about his talent, but it’s more his IQ that intrigues me”. The two-time NBA champ said it is nothing like the “Armageddon”, but insisted his teammates should play better basketball if they want to get a shot at the NBA Finals, reports ESPN. “We just couldn’t find a way to stabilize ourselves”, Magic coach Scott Skiles said after the game.

“I taught him well”, Kidd said.

The Cavaliers (10-3), who lead the Eastern Conference, took control after trailing 17-16 midway through the first quarter.

Blatt didn’t like some of the shot selection in the first half, thought there were too many defensive breakdowns in the second half and thought a lot of bad passes led to silly turnovers. “…We’ve got to stay together because it’s early in the season”.

The Cavs spent the game’s last nine-plus minutes in the bonus, while the Bucks didn’t draw their first foul in the fourth quarter until 8:27 remained. J.R. Smith scored 25 and James added 21 points, 13 assists and eight boards for the Cavaliers. It was a virtuoso performance for James, whose team was forced to play without Kevin Love while Kyrie Irving missed two games.

Chris Paul scored a season-high 35 points, including 18 while igniting the Clippers in the opening quarter in his return from missing two games with a sore right groin. “I didn’t think we displayed the kind of toughness that made us a team past year”.

“As a player, especially when you feel like you’re not done, that you can still play, it’s tough”, he said.

The Cleveland Cavaliers just lost another starter to injury, with reports that center Timofey Mozgov will be out between 10 to 14 days due to a strained shoulder.