The Cleveland Cavaliers enter every game against an Eastern Conference opponent as the favorite to achieve victory and that was the case again on Saturday night as LeBron James and company faced off against the Charlotte Hornets. However, the Hornets are among the better teams in the East this season and, well, the Cavs wasted no time in placing some separation between themselves and Charlotte in the first half.
Cleveland raced to a 67-52 halftime lead on the strength of incredible play from the likes of Kevin Love and Iman Shumpert, but the biggest portion of the damage was done by James. The best player on the planet racked up 18 points on 8-for-10 shooting prior to halftime and, for good measure, James added eight assists, five rebounds and two steals. Oh, and LeBron also happened to submit what was the easily the best highlight of the first 24 minutes with a reverse tomahawk dunk.
Shumpert and James were engaged in a two-man game against three Hornets defenders on one side of the floor, but with the help of some non-existent defense from Marco Belinelli, LeBron streaked toward the rim unguarded on the right side. While he could have easily finished on the short side, James decided it better to cross below the rim and flush a reverse dunk in gorgeous fashion, and no one on the Charlotte roster arrived in help defense.
Plays like this are, somehow, commonplace for LeBron James, but they shouldn’t be taken lightly and he was utterly incredible in the first half against the Hornets on Saturday evening.
