USA – Amazing Gibson sends Cavs into NBA Finals

CLEVELAND (NBA) - Daniel Gibson scored a season-high 31 points and fueled a second-half surge as the Cleveland Cavaliers locked up their first trip to the NBA Finals with a 98-82 victory over the Detroit Pistons in Game Six of the Eastern Conference finals on Saturday night.

LeBron James had 20 points, 14 rebounds and eight assists and Zydrunas
Ilgauskas added 11 points and 12 rebounds for Cleveland, who advanced to the NBA Finals for the first time in their 37-year history.

"This is big for Z (Zydrunas Ilgauskas)," said James, a Team USA captain at last year’s FIBA World Championship in Japan.

"This is big for the franchise, big for the city of Cleveland and big for Ohio. It doesn't get much better than this."

The Cavaliers, who will play the San Antonio Spurs in Game One on Thursday, have a chance to win a major championship for the city for the first time since the Browns won the NFL championship in 1964.

"There have been a lot of ups and downs," said Lithuanian Ilgauskas, who reached his first finals in 11 seasons. "It's a feeling I've never experienced in my life. We know we're not done yet. This is great, and it's fun, but we need four more wins to get the big one."

Cleveland are just the third team all-time to reach the NBA Finals after dropping the first two games of a conference final.

"We went down 0-2 and nobody gave us a chance," Cavaliers reserve guard Damon Jones said. "Our fans got us over the hump in Game Three and we got a little momentum, and then we just rolled on from there."

With the Pistons defense smothering James every time he touched the ball Saturday, Gibson, a baby-faced assassin from Texas, took charge. With Detroit leading, 63-62, Gibson scored Cleveland's next 11 points, including three three-pointers, to give the Cavaliers a 73-67 lead with 10:45 left.

"I told Daniel before the game, I said, 'I believe Detroit is going to double-team me, triple-team me before I cross half-court, so get that gun and get it locked and loaded and just shoot it, don't second guess yourself, just shoot it,'" James said. "And that's exactly what happened."

James then converted a three-point play off a fast-break layup and Gibson provided a three-point dagger from the left wing to make it 79-67 with 9:42 left.

"Gibson had a phenomenal series for them," Pistons coach Flip Saunders said. "LeBron kills you one game and you want to not let him go totally off again. We had more people running at him, and Daniel then made every big shot."

The Pistons soon unraveled and Rasheed Wallace was ejected after picking up two technicals with 7:44 remaining and Gibson knocked down another three-pointer from the left corner to extend the edge to 86-71 with 6:52 left.

"Rasheed was very frustrated with how the game was being called and he should have been," Pistons guard Chauncey Billups said.

Gibson was seven of nine from the field, including five of five from three-point range. Doing his best LeBron imitation, he scored 22 of the Cavs' 29 points during one stretch in the second half and was also 12 of 15 from the free-throw line.

Gibson's performance came on the heels of Game Four, when the 21-year-old had his previous high of 21 points, making 12 of 12 from the charity stripe.

Even without a fantastic performance by James, who shot just three of 11, the Cavaliers finished off the Pistons in six games after being in a similar situation last year. However, in the 2006 Eastern Conference semi-finals, Cleveland had won three straight to take a 3-2 series lead before dropping Game Six here and losing Game Seven in Detroit.

Richard Hamilton scored 29 points for the Pistons, who lost four in a row for the first time all season.

The Cavaliers finished the first quarter on a 12-2 run and shot
57% (nine of 16) for the period to take a 27-21 lead despite James having two points.

After the game was delayed 21 minutes before start the second quarter because of a scoreboard malfunction, Detroit responded by outscoring Cleveland, 25-19, to help them enter the locker room tied at 48-48 at half-time.

FIBA