LeBron James stars as Cleveland Cavaliers beat Chicago Bulls in overtime

LeBron James scored 36 points and the Cleveland Cavaliers rebounded from a home loss to New York to beat Derrick Rose and the Chicago Bulls 114-108 in overtime on Friday night.

“It was an opportunity to go out and redeem ourselves,” James said.

James was 14 of 30 from the field and had eight rebounds, four steals and only three turnovers after going 5 of 15 and turning it over eight times on Thursday night against New York in his return to Cleveland after four seasons in Miami.

The first meeting between teams expected to fight for the Eastern Conference title was tight, with several late swings.

“Tonight, we played good basketball,” the Cleveland coach, David Blatt, said after his first NBA victory. “Tonight was just about playing well and consistently throughout. We did that. We beat a very good team tonight. We did not have an easy way coming off the game last night.”

Derrick Rose scored 20 points for Chicago, but his first meaningful home game in about a year was spoiled by a sprained left ankle. Sidelined for most of the past two seasons by knee injuries, he came up hobbling in the first half and went to the locker room in the fourth quarter.

Cleveland rallied from five down in the closing minute of regulation after blowing a nine-point lead to start the fourth quarter.

James took over in OT, flipping in a wild reverse layup and scoring Cleveland’s first eight points in the extra period.

Tristan Thompson iced it with a dunk after rebounding James’s jumper to make it a four-point game with 24 seconds left. Thompson tied a franchise record with 12 offensive rebounds.