NBA Playoffs: King James, Cavs Claim East Crown

Cleveland will visit San Antonio for Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Thursday.

Salem-News.com SPORTS

CLEVELAND - Rookie Daniel Gibson switched roles with LeBron James on Saturday night.

Gibson scored 19 of his career-high 31 points in the fourth quarter as the Cavaliers outscored the Pistons by 15 in the period to reach the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history with a 98-82 Game 6 victory on Saturday night.

Cleveland became the third team in NBA history to win a best-of-seven conference final after losing the first two games of the series.

James scored 20 points on 3-of-11 shooting from the field and added 14 rebounds and eight assists, while Zydrunas Ilgauskas tallied 11 points and 12 rebounds.

Richard Hamilton led Detroit with 29 points, and Chris Webber finished with 13 points and six rebounds.

Cleveland will visit San Antonio for Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Thursday, June 7 at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.

Adding comments to these stories has been disabled. View the current sports stories Salem-News Sports