06-05-2009

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Amazing Encore – LeBron and Co. Cruise By Hawks in the Series Opener »

After nine days off in between sweeping their first round series against Detroit and Tuesday’s tipoff against Atlanta, there was a very real concern that the Cavaliers might be rusty. And after the Hawks ran out to an 11-4 lead, it looked like that might be the case. But the Wine and Gold, led by their newly-crowned MVP, stormed back to knot the affair midway through the first quarter. Three minutes later, the Cavaliers were up two didn’t look back the rest of the night. Before Tuesday night’s game, NBA commissioner David Stern presented LeBron with the Most Valuable Player trophy, who was surrounded with 20,562 fans – more than half of them wearing black “Wit–MVP–Ness” shirts from Nike. James wasted no time illustrating why he won it – crushing home a baseline dunk to open the scoring. The young King continued to set the tone, going 5-for-6 from the floor for 16 first-quarter points. “I’m just taking what the defense is giving me,” said James. “It felt good. Warmups felt good. I just wanted to be a little bit more aggressive knowing the time that we had off. I wanted to try to get a good flow on the offensive end.” More pics and highlights after the jump.

Photos Copyright Notice: Copyright 2009 NBAE via Getty Images. Photos by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images, Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images, David Liam Kyle/NBAE via Getty Images.