The King isn’t dead – but his streak of opening the NBA playoffs with a win certainly is.
For the first time in his career, LeBron James failed to win the opening game of his team’s first-round playoff series, a streak that began in 2006 when the Cavaliers defeated the Wizards 97-86 to open their postseason matchup.
To break James’ streak – which has held through 12 postseasons – the Pacers rallied behind leading scorer Victor Oladipo, who dropped 32 points during Indiana’s surprising 98-80 victory.
Sunday was the fourth time the Pacers have beaten the Cavs this season and Indiana has to be feeling confident heading into the second game of the series in Cleveland on Wednesday night.
“We believe that we can win,” Oladipo said. “We came into this game with a mentality that we wanted to attack on both ends of the floor and play the way we’ve been playing all year, and we did a great job of that. It’s only one game, it’s only Game 1.”
Elsewhere in Game 1s on Sunday, the Celtics edged the Bucks 113-107 in overtime in Boston, the Thunder bumped off the Jazz 116-108 in Oklahoma City and the Rockets defeated the Timberwolves 104-101 in Houston.
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