Irving Lifts Cavaliers over Bobcats

Kyrie Irving scored 16 of his team's final 18 points in the fourth quarter to lead the Cleveland Cavaliers past the Charlotte Bobcats 106-104.

For the Cavaliers, Irving scored 33 points and six assists, Tristan Thompson had 19 points and 13 rebounds and C.J. Miles finished with 18 points.

Irving believes that he is a player who brings out his best in the final minutes of the game.

Jeffery Taylor was supposed to stop Irving from scoring huge points, but could not.

Irving made 10 out of 21 attempts from the field, including three 3-pointers.

"I just read the defense," the Associated Press quoted Irving as saying. "He's taller than me but he won't stop me from getting where I need to go. I just created space and shot my pull-up."

For the Bobcats, Ben Gordon was the top scorer with 27 points, Ramon Sessions added 20 points, six assists and five rebounds and Gerald Henderson contributed with 17 points.

Henderson was very impressed with the Irving's game-winning performance.

"It's tough because you never know what shot he is going to take," he said. "He can make any shot. So, you know how good he is off the dribble so you want to give him a little cushion, but you can't really give him that much because you know he can shoot the lights out of the ball.

"You just have to toy with him and move your feet and guess a little bit and also rely on help from your teammates but he is special. He really is special because he can score in so many ways."

Cleveland outscored the Bobcats 29-23 in the first quarter. The six-point lead boosted their confidence and they completely outclassed their opponents 33-25 in the second to enter the second half with a 14-point lead.

At one point the Cavaliers were leading by 18 points in the third quarter, but the Bobcats bounced back behind Gordon to take the lead at 91-90 with 4:43 remaining.

Cleveland then made a comeback with Irving hitting a 3-pointer to put the Cavaliers in the lead again. Soon Irving shot another 3-pointer to extend the lead.

Henderson's jumper tied the game for the Bobcats with 16 seconds remaining.

Irving, however, was the man of the moment, making a pull-up jumper from the foul line with only one second remaining in the game to hand the Bobcats their 19th defeat in the last 20 games.

"Our guys never seem to make it easy on us," Cavaliers coach Byron Scott said. "You know that is one thing I told them, We have to figure out how to have a killer instinct when you have a team down like that, don't relax and just allow them to get back in the game. I thought that is what we did."

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