Cavaliers roll to 8th straight win

James had 31 points and six assists, while Mo Williams added 20 points and three assists, including the tiebreaking bucket to give the Cavs the lead.

“In that situation, ‘Bron already said it: ‘If we get the rebound, we’re going to go.’ So we went, ‘OK, ‘” Smith said. “Being the basketball player he is, he saw it, took advantage of it and made a drive to the basket to lay it in”. Giannis Antetokounmpo nailed a jumper in the lane over Kenneth Faried with 17.5 seconds left to briefly take a 102-101 lead and it appeared Milwaukee had the game in hand as Danilo Gallinari shot an air ball from the corner. But with a chance to win it at the buzzer, James passed up on a drive and settled for a long 2-pointer that missed. He missed the free throw but the Cavs regained possession moments later when Anthony traveled. “Maybe I need to get (my teammates) involved earlier”. NY has not won a game this season when opponents have a similar or higher field goal percentage (0-2). The Cavaliers are also missing guard Iman Shumpert after he underwent right wrist surgery. “That’s all it was, nothing else”.

Meanwhile, rookie Kristaps Porzingis is giving constant excitement to the Big Apple crowd as the rookie continues to shed his “raw” label as he is nearly averaging a double-double this season with 11.6 points and 9.0 rebounds per game – where he leads the team in the latter statistic.

The Knicks spent another agonizing final minute, seeing a game get away from them Friday night at Madison Square Garden.

The Knicks led by as many as nine points early in the third quarter, but a 11-2 Cavaliers run quickly tied the game up at 62 midway through the period. The team will try to improve to 9-1 against the Bucks next and the Cavs are hoping that point guard Kyrie Irving can return to action soon.

“Records are meant to be broken, but that don’t mean you’re great”, James said.

Isaiah Thomas scored 17 of his 23 points in the second half and added 10 assists as the Celtics overcame a slow start with a solid finish and beat the Atlanta Hawks 106-93 on Friday night.

Interestingly, that set the stage for Bayless of all people to take on the task of defending James (!?) in the final three minutes, and shockingly it helped the Bucks pull away.

This is the second of their four total meetings in the regular season and is always a highly-anticipated match-up because of the personalities from each team. The French national anthem was then played as the lights of the arena were kept low in tribute.

Seven Bucks scored in double figures led by 17 from Jerryd Bayless and Michael Carter-Williams, and each made big plays down the stretch on both ends. The Bucks were without PG Tyler Ennis and SG O.J. Mayo, who hasn’t played this season because of a hamstring injury….

Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James (23) shoots over NY… Anthony, an eight-time All-Star but never first-team All-NBA, has reached the conference finals just once (with Denver in 2009), has never played in the NBA Finals and has reached the second round just once in three playoff appearances with the Knicks.