NBA Game Summary - Boston at Cleveland

Cleveland, OH (Basketball News) - LeBron James scored 32 points, grabbed eight rebounds and handed out six assists, as Cleveland remained alive for the final Eastern Conference playoff spot by defeating Boston 100-86 at Gund Arena.

Robert Traylor added a career-high 22 points and grabbed 10 boards for the Cavaliers, who remain tied with New Jersey as the two teams continue to battle for the final spot in the Eastern Conference playoff race. The Nets defeated Washington on Tuesday to keep pace with Cleveland.

The Cavaliers, though, will have to finish ahead of New Jersey to garner the eighth seed because the Nets own the tiebreaker should the teams finish with identical records.

Cleveland closes out its regular season Wednesday night in Toronto while the Nets will travel to Boston.

Antoine Walker netted 22 points for the Atlantic Division champion Celtics, who had their four-game winning streak halted. Ricky Davis scored 15 for Boston, which has already locked up the third seed.

The Celtics trailed 77-71 after three quarters, but Davis’ basket with 7:46 remaining trimmed the deficit to one point and capped a quick 6-0 run. Boston did have several chances to take the lead in the next few minutes, but could not capitalize and Anderson Varejao’s putback with 4:10 left gave the Cavaliers some breathing room and made it 90-83.

A three-point play by then Kendrick Perkins cut the lead to four points, but the game would not get any closer as Cleveland sealed the win by scoring the final 10 points of the game.

Traylor had six of the points while James’ emphatic dunk in the waning seconds capped the scoring and put an exclamation to the crucial run.

Boston led 25-23 after a tightly-contested first quarter, but the Cavaliers responded in the second period.

Leading 43-40 midway through the second quarter, Cleveland used an 8-0 surge to take a double-digit edge. Traylor had four points during the run and capped it with a basket from in close to make it 51-40 with around three minutes left in the half.

Cleveland eventually led by 11 as it took a 58-47 lead into the locker room.

James netted 24 points as he hit on 10-of-16 shots for the Cavaliers, who connected on 55 percent of their attempts in the first half. Walker scored 14 for Boston, which made only 17-of-40 shots in the opening 24 minutes.

The Celtics got back into the game in the third quarter as they pulled within 73-68 on Walker’s three-point play with 3:15 left in the period. Cleveland maintained its lead throughout the period and led 77-71 after three.