CLEVELAND -- Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard said he felt like he was watching a slow-motion movie. Cleveland Cavaliers coach Mike Brown was speechless.
As for LeBron James, the Cavs superstar who made the winning three-point shot as time expired last night, he had a one-word reaction:
"Wow."
James' 25-foot catch-and-heave found the bottom of the net, giving the Cavaliers a 96-95 victory over the Magic in Game 2 of the NBA Eastern Conference finals.
The win enabled Cleveland to avoid the unthinkable -- a second straight home loss to start the series. Instead, the series is tied 1-1 as action shifts to Orlando for the next two games.
"MVP, MVP," the crowd roared, thrilled with how James scored the last of his game-high 35 points.
"The reaction from the fans and my team was the loudest it's ever been," James said. "It's unbelievable."
It appeared that Orlando's Hedo Turkoglu had won the game for the Magic when he backed down Sasha Pavlovic, then stepped back and hit a jumper for a 95-93 lead with 1.0 seconds left.
Cleveland called a timeout. On the inbounds, Mo Williams was looking for James to make a backdoor cut, but Turkoglu took that way.
James then looped back to just beyond the top of the key. James caught Williams pass, turned and fired up a legitimate jumper -- not an off-balance prayer -- before Turkoglu could close on him.
"Goll-ee," Brown said. "Whooo. He's an amazing person first, and obviously he's an amazing player."
Howard said, "It was crazy, like I was watching the ball when he threw it up and it was like watching a movie. The ball was just spinning. It's a tough shot. Turk played great defensively; there's nothing he could do about it. LeBron hit a tough shot, and he's MVP of the league. That's what he does best."
Orlando coach Stan Van Gundy was second-guessing his defensive strategy for the play. Without saying what he would have done differently, he beat himself up about it afterward.
"I'd like to have that last one back," he said, after watching his team suffer its fourth buzzer-beating loss of the postseason. "Hedo played the play perfectly, but I should have defended it differently. It's crushing enough to lose, but when you're the guy who feels he could have made the difference "
Orlando played with poise and calm, once again erasing a big Cleveland lead early.
Down by 23 at one point, and by 12 late in the third quarter, the Magic hung in. A Courtney Lee drive tied the score at 82 with 6:50 left -- the first tie since the opening two minutes -- and a Rashard Lewis jumper knotted it again at 84 at the 6:11 mark.
Orlando took its first lead on another Lee swooping drive with 5:27 left, and the game was within three points the rest of the way.
Williams backed James with 19 points -- even though he suffered through another poor shooting night (7 of 21) -- and Cleveland played much-improved defense on Howard, holding him to 10 points after he scored 30 in Game 1.
Lewis had 23 points and Turkoglu 21 to lead the Magic.
