May 7, 2010 – NBA Blog – NBA Basketball Blog

Game 3: Cavaliers destroy Celtics in Boston

The AP reports:

LeBron James scored 21 of his 38 points in the first quarter to help the Cleveland Cavaliers beat Boston 124-95 on Friday night, handing the Celtics their worst home playoff loss ever and taking a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinals.

Showing no ill-effects of an elbow problem that was the talk of Cleveland during the long layoff, James finished with eight rebounds and seven assists. The 21 points in a quarter was a franchise postseason record.

Antawn Jamison had 20 points and 12 rebounds for Cleveland, while Shaquille O’Neal added 12 points and nine rebounds.

Rajon Rondo, who had 19 assists in Boston’s Game 2 victory on Monday, had 18 points and eight assists.

The Celtics missed 10 of their first 13 shots, hitting just 27 percent in the first quarter to spot Cleveland a 21-point lead.

They were never able to recover as the Cavaliers shot 59 percent from the field for the game.

Fan discussion of the game was in this forum topic.

Cavs owner Dan Gilbert fights the Goliath of ticket sales

Tom Walsh of the Detroit Free Press reports:

Dan Gilbert’s innovative digital ticketing company, Veritix, has already set records for paperless tickets to a sporting event and concert — a Cleveland-Boston NBA game last week and a 2009 Billy Joel-Elton John show in Houston.

But can Gilbert, the Detroit-based owner of Quicken Loans and the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team, really make a big success of Veritix in an industry dominated by the behemoth combination of Ticketmaster and Live Nation?

Yes, insists Sam Gerace, CEO of Veritix, a business born 3 1/2 years ago with the introduction of Flash Seats digital ticketing at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, home of Gilbert’s Cavs and the Lake Erie Monsters hockey club…

Ticketmaster retains a stranglehold on most U.S. ticketing for concerts and sporting events, because of longstanding relationships with the venues. More ominously, its clout grew in January with its marriage to Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promoter, which staged 2,100 concerts and sold 140 million tickets last year.

Gilbert Arenas finishes halfway house time

The AP reports:

Gilbert Arenas pleaded guilty to felony gun possession in the District of Columbia in January and was sentenced in March to a month in the halfway house. His sentence also includes two years of probation, a $5,000 fine and 400 hours of community service that can’t be performed at basketball clinics.

His sentence started April 9 with two days in jail before he was moved to the halfway house in the Maryland suburbs of Washington. He was allowed to leave the facility during the day. A fan tweeted about seeing him at a local grocery store and posted a picture of him posing near the bottled tea.

Arenas’ sentence called for 30 days at the facility, but he was released slightly early because the Federal Bureau of Prisons doesn’t release offenders from halfway houses on weekends.

The 28-year-old point guard is now free to resume his basketball career. His NBA suspension expired at the end of the season, and he has four years remaining on a six-year, $111 million contract he signed with the Wizards in the summer of 2008.