LEBRON James scored a season-high 46 points, including 22 in the fourth quarter, to lift the visiting Los Angeles (LA) Lakers to a 115-108 win against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday night.
James scored 13 points in the final 4:41 to help the Lakers pull away and improve to 10-0 on the road this season.
Anthony Davis had 17 points and 10 rebounds for the Lakers, and Montrezl Harrell scored 15 off the bench.
Andre Drummond had 25 points and 17 rebounds, Cedi Osman scored 20 points and Collin Sexton finished with 17 for the Cavaliers.
The Lakers led 100-98 when James began his late surge with a 3-pointer from the edge of the mid-court logo. He sank another trey to make it 108-100 with 3:36 left, and yet another for six-point edge with 1:34 to go. His 17-footer with 58.9 seconds remaining stretched the lead to 115-107.
James shot 19 of 26 from the field, including seven of 11 from 3-point distance, and added eight rebounds and six assists.
James shot nine of 10 in the first half and scored 23 points to help Los Angeles to a 65-58 lead, but the Cavaliers opened the second half with a 12-4 run to move ahead 70-69.
The teams continued to trade leads during the third quarter before the Cavaliers took an 89-87 edge into the fourth after holding James to two points in the third.
The Cavaliers also built an early six-point lead, but the Lakers surged ahead later in the first quarter behind James, who scored 17 points in the period on 6-of-7 shooting from the floor, including 4-of-5 success from 3-point range.
James, who was playing in Cleveland for the second time since leading the Cavaliers to the 2016 National Basketball Association (NBA) title, closed the first quarter with a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to push the lead to 34-23.
The Lakers led by as many as 14 in the second quarter, but Cleveland cut the deficit back to single digits when Osman made a running hook-shot 3-pointer at the buzzer to cut the gap to 65-58 at the break. — Reuters
