Community Picks: San Antonio Spurs 0% vs Cleveland Cavaliers 0%

LeBron James has two signature highlights — the contest-ready breakaway dunk and the chase-down block. He's done them often enough that YouTube has several full compilation videos for each play . These abilities are part of why he's one of the most entertaining players in NBA history. [ Follow Dunks Don't Lie on Tumblr:  The best slams from all of basketball] One play in the third quarter of Friday night's game between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Detroit Pistons saw James pull off both highlights on the same play. Roughly halfway through the period, LeBron chased down his own breakaway dunk attempt: All credit to Zach Harper of CBSSports.com for noting this strange self-rejection . If you just watch the highlights from this one, you'd probably think that LeBron had a rough night. The second quarter saw Kentavious Caldwell-Pope swat away what looked like an open transition jumper: Then, after the Pistons scored on their final play of the first half, cameras caught James chewing out Tristan Thompson (Kyrie Irving joined in later, too): But it was actually a pretty great night for LeBron. He put 20 points (8-of-17 FG) to go along with nine rebounds and eight assists, which made him the 17th and youngest player to 26,000 points in NBA history. The Cavs led by 18 to start the fourth and held on for a 114-106 win . Kyrie Irving was stellar, too, with 28 points on 11-of-19 shooting: Kevin Love put in a team-high 29 to make Friday the first time this season when the Cavs' three biggest names have all scored 20 points. New head coach Ty Lue may value that fact as a better sign for the team's future than their three-game winning streak. - - - - - - - Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at efreeman_ysports@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @FreemanEric Continue to Article

January 30, 2016 2:04:am EST

Tyronn Lue will be there, and the Cavaliers' newly named coach will have a chance to match wits with his counterpart for the Feb. 14 extravaganza when Gregg Popovich's San Antonio Spurs visit Cleveland for Saturday night's marquee matchup. The NBA's decision to appoint Lue, who's just four games into his tenure, as the Eastern Conference's coach has sparked a mild controversy. It's hard to argue with his recent job performance, however, with Cleveland (33-12) having won three straight following last Saturday's 96-83 home loss to Chicago in Lue's debut in place of the fired David Blatt. Continue to Article

January 30, 2016 1:59:am EST

Kevin Love scored 19 of his 29 points in the first half, Kyrie Irving had 28 points and the Cleveland Cavaliers rolled to another high-scoring win, 114-106 over the Detroit Pistons on Friday night. The Cavaliers have won three straight since losing to Chicago in Tyronn Lue's first game as Cleveland's coach. Cleveland has scored at least 114 points in each of the past three games. Continue to Article

January 29, 2016 10:12:pm EST

When the Cleveland Cavaliers and San Antonio Spurs square off on Saturday night, we'll get our first look at something besides how Tyronn Lue and Gregg Popovich interact following the Spurs boss' close-to-the-bone zinger about how the Cavs' new head coach got his job. We'll also get a glimpse of the maiden voyage of a new addition to ABC/ESPN's game presentation that has some worried fans thinking back to the bad old days that our man Greg Wyshynski once wrote about . [ Follow Dunks Don't Lie on Tumblr:  The best slams from all of basketball] From The Associated Press : ESPN said Thursday that it is using new technology to show viewers when a player attempts a jumper from beyond the 3-point arc. ''ESPN Virtual 3'' will debut for Saturday's matchup between the Cavaliers and Spurs. For a made 3-pointer, the line will briefly remain lit up. For a miss, the illumination will end immediately. In some quarters, the immediate response to the light-up line — which will be used on ABC's Saturday night primetime games throughout the season — was, shall we say, cautious, with the general tone among basketball fans on Twitter seeming to tend toward, "Why do we need this again?" The latest from the Overthinking Things Department: https://t.co/bEuYOJ2BTe pic.twitter.com/7mnXFRNDgN — Taco Trey Kerby (@treykerby) January 28, 2016 @treykerby they know it's in the same place every time, right? — Amin Vafa (@AminNBA) January 28, 2016 And, moreover, it's not like it's hard to see that steady stripe on the hardcourt ... except, of course, for when it is. From Sam Laird of Mashable : “The idea has definitely grown over time. One good example of an aha! moment was the Ray Allen three-pointer during Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals on ABC," Tim Corrigan, senior coordinating producer for the NBA on ESPN, told Mashable via email. "The shot he made in the near corner – when he made it, the first thing everyone wanted to know was, ‘Is that a three?’ This technology would have provided clarity and let the viewer definitively know it was a three-pointer, in the moment. "More and more in the NBA, the near side coverage is blocked to the viewer," Corrigan added. "Sometimes it’s fans standing on the court in that spot, so you can’t see the three-point line and it’s hard to make a judgment. We’re always trying to enhance the viewer experience and make what we do better, but in terms of one moment that jumps out – it would be the Allen shot.” The idea, then, is to produce something closer to the yellow first-down stripe in football broadcasts than the famously obtrusive and diehard-discontenting FoxTrax glowing puck that Fox debuted in its NHL broadcasts 20 years ago. Here's a before-and-after mockup of what the illuminated arc will look like after the shot goes up: Continue to Article

January 29, 2016 12:51:pm EST