Indiana Pacers F Dahntay Jones (Darron Cummings/AP Photo)
INDIANAPOLIS -- The way Danny Granger saw it, there was a pretty simple choice in the Indiana Pacers' 105-95 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Let LeBron James shoot outside.
SEE PACERS-CAVS SLIDESHOW BELOW
Or let him drive inside.
As is often the case with James, neither was a good option Friday night, with the result being not just another dominant performance from James, but a second consecutive late-game disappointment for the Pacers, a team suddenly no longer quite as hot as it was this time last week.
“It's kind of like pick your poison,” Granger, the Pacers' All-Star forward, said after James' 40-point, nine-rebound, seven-assist performance in front of a solid-out crowd of 18,165 at Conseco Fieldhouse in downtown Indianapolis. “You either let him get to the lane or let him pull up for a jump shot.
“He was really hitting those from the perimeter.”
The poison the Pacers picked late was really one James picked:
A 25-foot 3-point field goal with just under a minute remaining as the shot clock expired with the Cavaliers (9-4) hanging onto a four-point lead they earned by overcoming a five-point deficit at the end of the third quarter.
James converted it for his first 3-point field goal not only of the quarter but the game.
“Sometimes, there's not a lot you can do when you're playing one of the premier players in the league,” said Jim O'Brien, who was ejected for the first time as Pacers coach in the first quarter.
Such was the case throughout for the Pacers (5-5), who lost a second consecutive game after a five-game winning streak pushed them two games over .500.
With Granger, who led the Pacers with 19 points and nine rebounds, scoring nine first-quarter points and forward Dahntay Jones scoring 12, Indiana matched an equally hot-starting Cleveland team early. The first quarter ended tied 38-38, and Jones hadn't missed any of his seven shots.
The Cavaliers pulled ahead, 66-61, at halftime, outrebounding Indiana, 22-15, in the first half and shooting 55.8 percent.
Indiana took a 10-point lead midway through the third quarter and led by 82-77 entering the fourth quarter, but Cleveland rallied quickly to tie it 82-82 a little more than a minute into the period. The Cavaliers, holding the Pacers to 22.2 percent fourth-quarter shooting, shot 52.9 percent in the fourth quarter to pull away.
“Our defense wasn't that bad down the stretch,” Granger said. “Offensively, we got some decent looks, but they played defense and pushed us to the shot clock.”
The Pacers, who squandered a 19-point lead Wednesday against the Knicks, have made 8 of 35 field goals in their last two fourth quarters.
“Our offense was stagnant and there was a lot of standing around,” Pacers F Troy Murphy said. “We moved the ball well the first three quarters, but not so good in the fourth.”
Granger shot 7 of 21 wirh nine rebounds, five assists and three blocked shots while Jones finished with 17 points and Brandon Rush finished with 16. Point guard T.J. Ford finished with 14 points for the Pacers, who shot just 4 of 18 from 3-point range.
Murphy, after missing six games with a bruised back, returned with a double double, finishing with 12 points and 10 rebounds.
“I felt alright,” Murphy said. “I was kind of rusty at the beginning. But conditioning wasn’t an issue."
In other Pacers news:
• F-G Mike Dunleavy, out since undergoing knee surgery last March, could return next week, O'Brien said.
• G Travis Diener will miss 4-to-6 weeks after undergoing toe surgery Friday.
• C Jeff Foster, out the last eight games with an ankle injury, said he expects to play against Charlotte in Charlotte Sunday.
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