ATLANTA -- No, the Cavs weren't surprised by LeBron James' performance. So accustomed are they to his exploits that they barely batted an eyelash at his 47-point, 12-rebound explosion in a 97-82 cakewalk that put them up 3-0 on the Hawks in their best-of-seven series.

But the rebounding margin? Yes, that raised a few eyebrows. The Cavs outrebounded Atlanta 46-23, providing ample support for James en route to a seventh consecutive playoff rout.

"Is that what it was?" Cavs forward Joe Smith asked. "Wow."

And on a night when all of Atlanta's walking wounded summoned enough strength to take the court and play reasonably well, the Cavs' dirty work on the boards proved just as important to the victory as James' 3-point shooting exploits.

Cleveland regained position 16 times off its missed shots, which is pretty amazing when you consider the Cavs hardly missed any shots, shooting 50.7 percent. The Hawks finished with a piddling 20 defensive rebounds, including five team boards, while at the other end the Cavs grabbed 34 of the Hawks' 43 misses.

Smith, a 13-year veteran, couldn't remember the last time his team had doubled up an opponent on the glass. And he was a big part of it, as he pulled down eight boards in 26 minutes to go along with 12 from James, 10 from Anderson Varejao and eight from Zydrunas Ilgauskas.

"Smith and Varejao were tremendous on the glass," said Cavs coach Mike Brown, who may have helped provide some fodder by calling out his star for a missed block-out in the previous game during the team's film study.

"In our last game, LeBron did a terrific job on the weak side coming to help a teammate, but then he did not go box out Mo Evans, and he had an uncontested putback layup. That was on the tape twice, once during our film session the day before and again today when we were going over our personnel tape. We were straight with him: That can't happen. One of the things we talked about was keeping these guys off on the offensive glass."

Apparently Brown's message sunk in, as James picked up 10 rebounds on the defensive end to help fuel Cleveland's board domination.

Oh, his offense was pretty good, too. We're used to seeing James beat a team by himself, but rarely this literally. Between his shots and passes, James accounted for 66 points -- while the Hawks scored only 65 with him on the floor.

James nailed 5 of 10 3-point attempts and several other long jumpers, and after each, he glared over to the side of the court where a fleet of R&B stars were sitting (Nelly, Jermaine Dupri, T.I., Polow Da Don and Young Jeezy, to name a few). He wasn't so shabby inside the arc, either, hitting a long, banked 2-pointer when he tried to go up through Joe Johnson's arm to draw a foul and ended up with a basket instead of a whistle.

"I'm just a guy who takes what the defense gives me," James said with almost comic modesty. He left out the part about taking the Atlanta defenders' lunch money, too.

"I've seen him do everything," said Ilgauskas, the only Cav who has witnessed his star teammate's entire pro career. "Sometimes people take it for granted, but he played a great game tonight. He had 12 rebounds and almost had another triple-double. Amazing."

Part of the key to James' success was Cleveland's continued ability to flog the dead horse that is Mike Bibby, who seems unable to defend. In all three games, Cleveland has relied heavily on pick-and-roll plays involving Bibby, and Saturday night's specialty was having him caught against LeBron on a switch. On one play, James waved Delonte West over from the far corner of the court simply because he saw Bibby on him.

"We're pretty effective once we get the switch," West said. "A 6-0 Mike Bibby having to check a 6-9 LeBron? We found the mismatch, and we tried to exploit it."

If the game had a turning point, it came late in the third quarter, when Zaza Pachulia was ejected for an over-the-top protest of an obvious blocking foul. After an initial T for charging toward one official, the man who speaks five languages appeared to say something in the mother tongue of referee Bill Spooner that got him sent to the showers.

At the time it was a one-point game, but the two free throws sparked a 20-6 run by the Cavs to put the game away -- partly because the loss of the Hawks' most physical interior player exacerbated their yawning disadvantage on the glass.

For the Hawks, about the only positives were the return of Johnson, Al Horford and Marvin Williams, after the latter two didn't dress for Game 2 and Johnson left with an ankle sprain. Johnson moved surprisingly well, and in fact had his best game of the series, with 21 points; Horford and Williams were less effective, with six and four points, respectively.

They'll probably suit up again for Monday's Game 4, given that they'll have all summer to heal, but after three straight lopsided losses, the handwriting is on the wall. With King James shooting the lights out and the King's court retrieving the rare misses, it will take a far more powerful basketball team than this one to knock the Cavs off their championship course.

John Hollinger writes for ESPN Insider. To e-mail him, click here.

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