Cleveland ? The elbow’s fine.

Hours before receiving his second straight MVP award, LeBron James scored 35 points and Mo Williams added 20 as the Cleveland Cavaliers, outplayed for most of the game, stormed back to beat the Boston Celtics, 101-93, on Saturday night in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series.

James, playing with a sprained and bruised right elbow, delivered yet another memorable performance as the Cavs withstood a furious opening-round punch from the Celtics, who led by 11 in the third and seem intent on making this a long series.

James, who also had seven rebounds and seven assists, drained a three-pointer with 22 seconds left to put Boston away.

Rajon Rondo had 27 points and 12 assists and Kevin Garnett finished with 18 points and 10 rebounds for the Celtics, who were held to 15 points in the fourth quarter.

Game 2 is Monday night.

For three quarters, the Celtics looked like their old selves.

Dismissed as being washed up, the 17-time NBA champions controlled the tempo from the start. With Rondo driving past Williams and any other defender in front of him, the Celtics were on the verge of swiping home-court advantage away from Cleveland.

But James, who seemed to be bothered by the elbow early on, picked it up down the stretch.

He always does.

After Rondo split a pair of free throws with 4:30 left, James drove the lane and missed a short shot but grabbed his own rebound and banked it in to put the Cavs ahead 94-91.

Garnett’s bucket got the Celtics within one, but James countered with a floater in the lane. After Paul Pierce missed a wide-open three-pointer, Shaquille O’Neal, who looked slow and every one of his 38 years during stretches, scored on a tip to make it 98-93 with 1:02 remaining.

Following a Boston turnover, James came up with the decisive blow. Pulling up on the left side, he buried a three-pointer that finally allowed 20,000 Cleveland fans to exhale and scream their lungs out. James, called “the closer” by his teammates, scored 12 points in the fourth.

“He’s a guy that is going to deliver,” Cavs coach Mike Brown said. “As the game went along, he got more and aggressive and the shots started to fall.”

James tried just two outside shots in the first half, and came out of the locker room at halftime shaking his right arm, which he said has been bothering him periodically for a month. But the elbow appeared as healthy as ever when James needed it to respond.

“Throughout the game it loosened up,” said James, who will receive his MVP trophy today in his hometown of Akron. “I have a no-excuse policy. This team has a no-excuse policy. … We’re about coming out and competing against the Celtics.”