Rising Raptors overcome LeBron's triple-double
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Seven years in the NBA has taught LeBron James the importance of patience. It is being tested after Cleveland started their new season with two straight losses.
Andrea Bargnani scored 28 points, Chris Bosh had 21 points and 16 rebounds and the Toronto Raptors overcame James' 25th career triple-double to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 101-91 on Wednesday night.
"Early in my career, I'd get very upset when you lose two or three games, you'd just feel like you can't turn it around," James said. "But I'm at a point in my career now where I know that you can lose two but, at the same time, you don't look too far into it. You learn from the mistakes and you just try to get better."
James had 23 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds, but Cleveland opened their season with consecutive losses for the first time since an 0-3 start in 2004-05. James scored 38 points in Tuesday's 95-89 home loss to Boston.
"I'm still positive," James said. "If it was 25 or 35 games into the season and we were going through a three or four-game losing streak, then I'd be a little bit disappointed but I'm not at this point."
Mo Williams scored 16 points and Shaquille O'Neal had 12 for Cleveland, who had won five straight over Toronto and nine of 10.
"Coach is still learning us, we're still learning the system, we're still learning each other," O'Neal said. "It's going to be a work in progress."
Cavaliers coach Mike Brown said his team had work to do at each end of the court.
"There were stretches where we struggled offensively and there were stretches where we struggled defensively," Brown said. "To struggle the way we did on both ends of the floor is going to result in a loss."
Hedo Turkoglu scored 12 points in his Raptors debut and Marco Belinelli had 10. Jose Calderon had 11 assists for Toronto, but Bargnani's performance was the talk of the lockerroom.
"If Andrea gets it going and is scoring the basketball a lot, then we are going to be tough to beat," Bosh said.
Trailing 78-71 to start the fourth, Brown left James on the bench and Toronto took advantage, outscoring the Cavaliers 9-3 and building an 87-74 lead by the time James returned with 8:40 remaining.
Brown said he wants James, who played 45 minutes on Tuesday, to average 38 minutes in the regular season. James played 40 minutes against Toronto.
"The bottom line is this is the second game of the year and I've got to make sure I don't play him too many minutes," Brown said.
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