NBA: Cleveland 112, Orlando 102

CLEVELAND, May 28 (UPI) -- LeBron James scored 12 of his 37 points in the final 6 minutes Thursday, allowing Cleveland to keep its season alive with a 112-102 victory over Orlando.

The Magic overcame a 17-point deficit at the end of one period and came close to earning the franchise's second trip to the NBA finals. Cleveland, however, prevailed down the stretch to cut Orlando's lead in the Eastern Conference finals to 3-2.

The Magic will try again to eliminate the Cavaliers Saturday when Game 6 is played in Orlando. A seventh game, if needed, would be played in Cleveland Monday.

The survivor of this series will then take on either the Los Angeles Lakers or the Denver Nuggets for the NBA crown. The Lakers own a 3-2 lead in that series, with Denver hosting Game 6 Friday.

After Orlando produced a 37-point second quarter to cut its halftime deficit to one, the contest settled into a fierce battle that seemed destined to go down to the final buzzer. That still appeared to be the likely scenario when Mickael Pietrus hit a 3-pointer that gave Orlando a 90-89 lead with 6:50 to play.

Cleveland, however, finished the game on a 23-12 run fueled by the NBA's most valuable player of 2008-09.

James put the Cavaliers in front for good with a layup with exactly 6 minutes left and then converted a free throw. Cleveland continued to build its lead while Orlando was managing just three points in a span of 4:22 -- all of them on Hedo Turkoglu free throws.

James made 11-of-24 shots from the field and 11-of-15 from the line. Mo Williams added 24 points for Cleveland and Zydrunas Ilgauskas had 16.

Orlando was paced by Turkoglu with 29 points while Dwight Howard had 24 before fouling out in the fourth period.