Los Angeles  - LeBron James and Dwyane Wade got into an old-fashioned shootout on Monday night, but the Cleveland Cavaliers' superstar needed timely firepower from a teammate down the stretch to walk away with the win when the smoke finally cleared.

James scored 42 points with six three-pointers, Mo Williams had 17 of his 30 in the final quarter, and the Cavaliers rallied from 11 down in the final quarter to beat the Miami Heat 107-100 on Monday night.

"We're very good friends, and we don't want each other to have bragging rights, James said of Wade, his USA gold medal teammate at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. "So we definitely go at it when we play each other."

Wade finished with 41 points, nine assists, seven rebounds and a career-high seven steals for Miami, but it wasn't enough.

"A huge loss, it hurts," said Wade, the league's top scorer. "I don't like these duels if I'm going to keep coming out on the "L" side. It was two good players doing what they can to help their team win."

Wade's steal and breakaway two-handed reverse dunk put the Heat ahead, 91-80 with 8:14 remaining. Williams and James took over from there, combining for all 27 of the Cavaliers' final points.

"I went to Mo halfway through the fourth quarter," James said, "and told him that it was on us, me and him."

"When I'm scoring it takes the pressure off LeBron," Williams said. "Somebody has to do it."

Williams hit a pair of three-pointers to trigger an 18-2 run, and James capped it with back-to-back triples of his own, giving the visitors a 98-93 advantage at the 2:48 mark.

After Jermaine O'Neal's basket at the other end, James took the ball at the top of the key, blew past Jamario Moon and threw down an emphatic, right-handed hammer dunk over O'Neal from the right side, making it 100-95 with 42.7 seconds remaining.

"I thought, I didn't think, I don't know, I don't know how he did it," said Cavs coach Mike Brown, trying to find the words to describe the play.

A three-point play by Udonis Haslem pulled the Heat within 103- 100. Williams, however, sealed the gritty come-from-behind victory with four free throws in the final 24 seconds.

"It's disappointing because we had this game," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. "We were up by 11 and just had to play rock solid basketball from there. We had opportunities at the rim but we couldn't close the game."

Zydrunas Ilgauskas had 12 points with 15 rebounds for Cleveland (47-12) which moved to a franchise-best 35 games above .500, and one game ahead of idle Boston for the top spot in the Eastern Conference.

O'Neal scored 16 and Mario Chalmers finished with 15 for Miami (31-28) which shot 6-of-25 in the fourth quarter. (dpa)