CLEVELAND — LeBron James scored 27 points, J.R. Smith made seven of Cleveland’s NBA playoff record-tying 20 3-pointers, and the Cavaliers opened a 2-0 lead in their series with a 107-90 victory over the Pistons on Wednesday night.
The top-seeded Cavs put away the up-and-coming Pistons in the third quarter, outscoring them 27-15 to protect home-court advantage.
There was nothing easy about their first two wins and the Cavs, favored to win the Eastern Conference and return to the finals, will have their work cut out when the series resumes on Friday night at Detroit.
Kyrie Irving added 22 points for Cleveland, which went 20-of-38 on 3s and tied the postseason record shared by Golden State (2015), Dallas (2011) and Seattle (1996).
Andre Drummond scored 20 and Reggie Jackson 14 for the Pistons, who have lost 10 straight playoff games against Cleveland. Drummond was just 4-of-16 from the line.
Heat 115, Hornets 103•MIAMI — Dwyane Wade had 28 points and eight assists, Hassan Whiteside made all eight of his shots and finished with 17 points, and the Heat beat the Hornets to take a 2-0 lead in the first-round series.
Goran Dragic scored 18 points, Luol Deng had 16, Josh Richardson finished with 15 and Whiteside grabbed 13 rebounds for Miami.
Kemba Walker scored 29 points for Charlotte, needing 29 shots to get there. Al Jefferson had 25 on 12-for-17 shooting off the bench, and Jeremy Lin added 11 for Charlotte — which has dropped 12 straight postseason contests.
It was the 100th 20-point game of Wade’s playoff career. The Heat is 64-36 in those games.
Game 3 is Saturday at Charlotte.
“You want to be able to get stops. You want to be able to put some runs together,” Wade said. “And we did that. We didn’t play a perfect game, by no stretch of the imagination. We’ve got a lot of things that we can get better at — that we need to get better at.”
Trail Blazers vs. Clippers•LOS ANGELES — Late game.
