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Dave McMenamin, ESPN Staff Writer
CLEVELAND — With the game all but decided early in the second half, the Cavaliers cruising toward a 134-110 win and their first 5-0 start since 2016, the Cleveland crowd started rooting for the other team Wednesday night.
Specifically for Los Angeles Lakers rookie Bronny James, son of LeBron, the greatest player in Cavaliers history.
A “We Want Bronny!” chant started midway through the third quarter and was picked back up midway through the fourth when Lakers coach JJ Redick acquiesced, subbing him in for only the second regular-season game action of his early career.
And this time, he got his first NBA bucket.
Bronny scored on a 14-foot step-back jumper from the left wing over Jaylon Tyson with 2:03 remaining in the fourth quarter, causing the wave of fans that stuck around to see the moment to stand up and show appreciation for the hometown product.
“It was insane,” Bronny said of the reception after finishing with 2 points, 2 assists and 1 steal in five minutes. “Much more than I anticipated for sure. But it’s all love. It was insane. It was a nice moment. The chants really got me. I was straight-faced, but I felt it and it felt really good, especially coming from here.
“Yeah, it was a special moment for me for sure.”
LeBron said that type of moment might have swallowed him up when he was a rookie with the Cavs in 2003.
“He’s better than I would have been in that situation — 20,000 fans screaming my name to get in the game and wanting me to be in the game, and if the role’s reversed, I don’t know if I would have been able to handle it,” said LeBron, who scored 26 points but had six turnovers as he lost in Cleveland as an opponent for only the third time in 12 games. “To see him get his first NBA basket in this arena where he grew up not too far away from here, it’s an unbelievable moment.
“An unbelievable moment for him, first of all. For our family. It’s just pretty cool to be a part of it.”
Bronny last played on opening night, subbing in against the Timberwolves in the second quarter along with LeBron, and shooting 0-for-2 from the field in three minutes. This time, he took the court with his dad watching from the sideline and his grandmother, Gloria, sitting in the stands with a Lakers hat on as she watched another generation compete in the family business.
“I’ve been just taught to play the right way my whole life,” Bronny said as he sat next to LeBron during their postgame news conference. “So, just me going in there and playing my game is always something that I’m going to do.”
The crowd clamored for Bronny to shoot the ball from the moment he checked in with 5:16 left in the fourth quarter. His teammates accounted for seven shot attempts in the next three minutes before he finally hoisted one.
The game came 10 years to the day when LeBron played his first game in his second stint with the Cavs — a four-year span when he led the team to four straight NBA Finals appearances and delivered the only championship in franchise history in 2016, breaking a 53-year title drought for the city.
Though the Akron, Ohio, native was initially vilified by Cleveland sports fans when he signed with the Miami Heat as a free agent in 2010, his return healed old wounds, and the region rallied around LeBron and his family. That was abundantly clear Wednesday, with the Cavs greeting LeBron and Bronny with welcome images of them celebrating the title over the Golden State Warriors on a video screen by the visitors locker room and then using a first-quarter timeout to play a tribute video for the father-son pair.
“We spent a lot of years here,” LeBron said afterward. “We’re part of this community, obviously. … We were born not too far from here, 35 miles south of here, [our] hometown of Akron. And I spent 11 years of my NBA career — half of my career — here.
“We have so many great moments. We have so many great moments not only on the floor at this arena, no matter what the name is, if it was the Gund Arena or the Q, and now it’s Rocket Mortgage. … A lot of great memories on the court, but a lot of great memories off the floor as well in this community. To have the mutual respect and love for what we was able to accomplish in the years that we were here, it’s definitely very humbling.”
For Bronny, who said he used to play pickup games on a practice court tucked away on the top floor of the arena while his dad was playing NBA games, he got to experience his time on center stage.
“Pretty much since I picked the ball up,” Bronny said when asked how long he has envisioned scoring his first basket in the pros. “I’ve been watching [my dad] for a minute playing in the league. Just dreaming of me being in those players’ steps, not only [LeBron’s] but players he used to play against and with.
“So yeah, it was just a dream come true for me.”