J.R. Smith had one of those nights where it seemed as if every shot he took was going to go in. Actually, almost all of his shots did go in, scoring all of Cleveland’s 28 bench points, and grabbing 8 rebounds to help lead the Cavaliers to an important 97-89 Game 1 Eastern Conference Finals victory on the road in Atlanta.

The basket must have looked like an ocean as Smith kept draining 3-pointers, one after another, after another. He went 8 for 12 from behind the 3-point line in the win over the top-seeded Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday night in front of a raucous Atlanta home crowd, who were playing in their first ever Eastern Conference Finals in franchise history. “When he gets hot,” Cleveland coach David Blatt said, “he gets smoking hot.”

“Once I start shooting,” Smith said, “everybody keeps telling me to keep shooting.” Keep shooting he did. It seemed Smith made his shots at key moments when Cleveland needed him to connect.

LeBron James finished the game with 31 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 assists. All in a normal day’s work for the widely regarded best player in the world. James’ final two points on a ferocious dunk while driving down the middle of the lane sealed the game for Cleveland, who leads this best of seven series 1-0.

Timofey Mozgov had a double double with 10 points and 11 rebounds for the Cavs, who out rebounded the Hawks by 12 (49-37). Tristan Thompson also had a double double with 14 points and 10 rebounds.

For the Hawks, it was the second straight series in which they lost the opening game at home. Jeff Teague led all Hawks with 28 points, while Al Horford had 16 points and 7 rebounds. Kent Bazemore was a key player coming off the bench for Atlanta, which lost its best defender and great all around player in DeMarre Carroll to an apparent left knee injury with 4:59 remaining in the fourth quarter. An MRI on Carroll’s knee showed no structural damage, and he is listed as questionable for Game 2.

Atlanta will have to make adjustments, and find a way to match up with LeBron if Carroll isn’t able to play in Game 2. The Hawks tried putting Millsap on James in the fourth quarter, but that isn’t a good matchup in my opinion. Millsap played too close up on LeBron plenty of times in that fourth quarter, and that left him open for James to drive by him easily because Millsap doesn’t have the foot speed laterally to stay with LeBron on the perimeter.

The Hawks will also have to contend with the sharpshooting of J.R. Smith. Smith is definitely a streaky shooter, and can have outbursts like he did last night, but he can also go cold from the floor as well. We will have to see who Atlanta puts on him going forward in this series because he definitely has their attention.

Game 2 is Friday, 8:30 PM ET on TNT.

Will the Hawks bounce back and take Game 2, or will the Cavs steal the first two games on the road in this Eastern Conference Finals series?