Thursday, November 06, 2003

By Chuck Finder, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

CLEVELAND -- The scene had all the trappings of a Cleveland Browns playoff game, if not -- perish the thought -- a Browns Super Bowl.

A blimp floated overhead with Le- Puns flashing on LeToteboard. Spotlights blazed into the cloudy night sky. Television newscasts went live from the sidewalks. Save the WNBA Rockers protesters tried to advance their campaign by taking advantage of the thousands of fans roaming Ontario Street, many of them plunking down $75 for a new-era No. 23 Cavaliers jersey.

All this for an 18-year-old from Akron with three games of NBA experience? Most of it, anyway. The rest of the buzz was for his first pro collision with Denver's Carmelo Anthony, a friend and fellow rookie prompting the NBA hype machine to bill this as the second-coming confrontation of Magic and Bird.

There was only one way last night could have lived up to its otherworldly expectations.

"If I had scored 50," LeBron James said afterward, "and Carmelo had scored 100."

Hey, they were only 43 and 86 points off.

James finished with a ho-hum seven points -- all in the first half -- and Anthony chipped in a workmanlike 14 amid an uninspiring, 93-89 victory by the visiting Nuggets at Gund Arena.

James' teammates hardly included their point man and the 20,562 patrons' main reason for coming, hence he finished with those unlucky seven points on 3-for-11 shooting and game highs of seven assists and 11 rebounds in 41 minutes. He spent much of the third quarter on the home bench, a towel across his legs and a scowl across his face.

It was all so much tripe by game's end, when a few remaining fans booed the same old Cavaliers (0-4). Meantime, Anthony, 19, shot a lackluster 6 for 17 and added six rebounds in 39 minutes.

"Give it time," Cavaliers coach Paul Silas said afterward. "Over time, they're both going to be quality players -- for a long time in this league. To me, it's unfair to judge this right now.

"When I took [James] off the ball, he didn't get that many looks," added Silas, who played backup point guard Kevin Ollie for 32 minutes.

"I thought LeBron played fine. He didn't play that well offensively, but he got 11 rebounds and seven asissts. We've got to find ways to get him involved in the game. He has to be involved. Here's a kid who's trying to find his way. It's not going to happen overnight. But he will find his way."

From the start last night, this part of Cleveland rocked.

The ESPN audience, a full arena that was sold out only twice last season (Lakers and Michael Jordan's Wizards), a star-studded crowd (hey, there's defrocked Ohio State star Maurice Clarett, Steelers wide receiver Plaxico Burress and Nike boss Phil Knight in the first row) and the new-breed billing fueled a region dog-tired of its slumping Browns. The Cavaliers have tripled their season-ticket sales, including an unspecified amount in Western Pennsylvania, where team officials widely advertised the coming of the point guard heralded as King James.

The market for LeBron apparently has spread as far as Pittsburgh: WPXI-TV announced yesterday it has secured the local-broadcasting rights to carry one Cleveland game this season and sister station PCNC four more along with 20 on longtime team broadcaster WBGN-TV (check your cable listings). "He is going to be a regional attraction," PCNC station manager Mark Barash stated in a news release.

Last night, the attraction went national. The game brought 300-plus media types to chronicle LeBron-Carmelo, causing Silas to proclaim: "Magic-Bird, when they first met, was ... not this magnitude." Added Anthony, who won the NCAA title with Syracuse in April: "I don't think the national championship game got this much exposure. This is Game 5 of the regular season, not the Finals, man. I just wanted to get it over with."

For now, James plays with a bunch of dudes not much older than him, and he's supposed to lead them despite being slightly miscast as a point guard. He dazzled on a Cavaliers-like 0-3 swing through the West, averaging 18 points per game, 7.3 rebounds and 7.7 assists. A dud came last night, as happens with rookies, let alone teens.

It wasn't until midway through the first quarter when James scored his first points, on a nifty dunk that followed a steal from Denver's Andre Miller. Four minutes before halftime, James brought the crowd to its feet with a steal, court-length charge and thunderous dunk, with a free-throw follow -- for a 38-38 tie -- courtesy of a Marcus Camby foul. Other than that, he had an eerily quiet night offensively.

At least he got to sidle up next to Anthony and chat during foul shots a couple of times.

"A lot of people were saying the NBA was down," Anthony said. "With me and him coming in, maybe we can bring the NBA back. You aren't ever going to hear my name without hearing his name. For our whole careers, it'll be like that. Same way with Magic and Bird. You heard Magic's name and you heard Bird."

"The NBA doesn't want to see us together," James said with a smirk. "It'd be trouble. It'd be real trouble."

E-mail this story   Print this story