CLEVELAND -- LeBron James still isn’t shooting the ball like he’d wish but he doesn’t appear fazed. James was 5-of-16 from the floor in Game Three but he still filled the stat sheet with 8 assists, 4 steals, 5 rebounds and 3 blocks. Most importantly, the attention the Celtics’ defense pays to James helps open up room for his teammates.

“Of course I haven’t shot the ball like I would like but the win is all that matters,” James said. “I can’t worry about the way I’m shooting the ball. I still think every shot is going in. If I’m not making shots, I do so much more than just shoot the ball.”

The Celtics say they appeared to slide too much help toward James on Saturday and that helps create too much of a cushion for shooters such as Delonte West and Wally Szczerbiak, among others. James is shooting 22 percent in the series, 20 percent from behind the 3-point stripe, and still averaging 18 points a game. Kevin Garnett leads the Celtics with 19.3 per game.

“There’s a fine line. You have to know when he’s attacking and know when he’s passing,” Allen said of James. “We’re helping him out and putting some pressure on the back side of our defense. He was in attack mode a lot in the first two games and we shadowed him. (Saturday) he was attacking but he was doing a lot of passing and drifting on the perimeter.”

Rivers noted that James can swing the ball from one side of the court to the other in amazing fashion, catching the defense off-guard. “[James] and Magic [Johnson] are the only guys to ever do that with the velocity and speed. To throw the ball from one elbow to the deep-side corner at 90 miles an hour is a gift. You have to have a gift of vision and a gift of strength to do that and he has both.”