Cavaliers ground Hawks in Game 1

Cleveland — Josh Smith’s first-quarter tackle of game official Bill Kennedy, and the resulting official’s timeout, might have been the Hawks’ best chance of slowing down the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Because there wasn’t much else the Hawks could do to slow LeBron James and his crew Tuesday night at Quicken Loans Arena.

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Josh Smith finishes a dunk in front of the Cavaliers’ LeBron James for 2 of his 22 points.

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BY THE NUMBERS

• Box score • Standings • Stats
• Photos: Game • LeBron's shoes
• Bradley: From Game 1

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The Cavaliers brushed off a nine-day rest between series to pound the Hawks 99-72 in Game 1 of this Eastern Conference semifinal.

James put a stamp on his own coronation ceremony — NBA Commissioner David Stern presented him with his first MVP trophy before the game — by working the Hawks for 34 points, 10 rebounds and three assists.

“He’s the MVP of our league, and he played like it,” Hawks coach Mike Woodson said. “He was unreal on both ends of the floor. And he got all the help he needed from his supporting cast.”

James kept the Hawks on the end of his jab all night, working them inside and out from start to finish. He had 22 points on 7-for-12 shooting from the floor by halftime, much to the delight of the sellout crowd of 20,562 that turned out to see their team after the long layoff.

“I’m just taking what the defensive is giving me,” James said. “I wanted to be a little bit more aggressive with the time we had off. I wanted to get into a good flow, and we looked good.”

Cavaliers coach Mike Brown lauded his superstar for his effort more than anything, pointing to the way the 6-foot-8, 260-pound James hit the floor for a loose ball early to make clear that his team was coming to work with hard hats on.

“LeBron, during the course of the game, he got on the ground I don’t know how many times,” Brown said. “He came up with a 50-50 ball that set the tone. In the playoffs everybody knows what offensive plays you’re going to run. When you have him diving on the floor, getting after those 50-50 balls, it sets the tone.”

While other teams, namely the Los Angeles Lakers, have struggled in their first game after a long break during the playoffs, the Cavaliers had no such trouble.

James certainly didn’t. He kept the Cavaliers in control while Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Mo Williams and Delonte West worked all the bugs out of their games.

He left the game with four and half minutes to play, still being serenaded with chants of “MVP” from the crowd after another night of dominating the competition.

The Hawks kept the game tight in the first half, trailing 49-44 at the break behind the early work of Smith (17 points) and Mike Bibby (14 points).

But they broke down in the third quarter and never could get things back under control.

The Cavaliers led by seven points with 6:03 to play in the third quarter before cranking up their defensive pressure and shredding the Hawks in every category on their way to a lead that grew to as many as 27.

The Hawks shot 9-for-30 from the floor in the second half, punctuating their miserable offensive performance on a night when they could ill-afford to fall behind a team the caliber of the Cavaliers.

“In the second half we just didn’t get into any offensive sets,” Smith said. “We were careless with the ball. We had too many turnovers. Any time we have 17 turnovers, it’s never a good night for us.”

Hawks All-Star Joe Johnson wasn’t much of a factor before the break. He took just four shots, making two, all in the first quarter.

And the Cavaliers weren’t covering him with two and three defenders on every possession, as was the case in the Hawks’ first-round series against Miami.

In fact, they were guarding Johnson with smaller defenders, Williams and West mostly, and trapping him only when he was on the attack, which wasn’t nearly as often as Woodson would have liked.

Johnson finished with 11 points on 5-for-10 shooting, and he wasn’t nearly as aggressive as the Hawks will need him to be if they’re going to make this any kind of series. He did have six assists, but he also had five turnovers.

“He didn’t any free throws,” Woodson said. “Bibby didn’t shoot any free throws. Al didn’t shoot any free throws. Josh was the only guy we had out there playing aggressive and trying to force the action. We can’t be passive against this team.

“They’re too good defensively and much too good on both ends of the floor to not make them play a full 48 minutes.”

Smith led the Hawks with 22 points, on 8-for-15 shooting, and six rebounds. Bibby finished with 19, making five of his seven shots from beyond the 3-point line, and eight assists.

There wasn’t another Hawks player who came close to double-digits in scoring.

Even more alarming late for the Hawks was the sight of center Al Horford limping on his right ankle, the same ankle he sprained in Game 5 of the Hawks’ first-round series against Miami, the same ankle that cost him Game 6 of that series.

If the Hawks don’t have him at something close to healthy, Thursday night’s Game 2 against the Cavaliers will be in danger of getting out of hand as well.

“We can’t let a team like Cleveland jump on us early like that in the third quarter,” Smith said. “They know how to put teams away. That’s why they are the best team in the NBA. We played as good as we could in the first half, and we should have converted that momentum into the second half and played the same way.”