"I definitely thought he should've played," James said. "As a friend of his, I was very upset and I know he was, also."

Ilgauskas shares the record, currently at 723 games, with the team's general manager, Danny Ferry.

He is typically one of the last players to leave Cleveland's locker room after games. On Saturday, he was the first. He also declined to participate in the team's pickup football game on Monday, instead choosing to shoot at a basket with an assistant coach for a few minutes before leaving the court without speaking to reporters.

"I'm not trying to stir up anything with coach or whatever is going on with the organization, but sometimes one game is the smaller things," James said. "What was on the line was something way bigger than us playing the Mavericks. That was 'Z' breaking the record."

Coach Mike Brown said he intended on Ilgauskas playing his usual allotment of about 25 minutes, but the game's tempo prevented it from happening. Brown stuck with a smaller lineup that included playing James at center for a short stretch in what was arguably Cleveland's finest game of the season.

"That's fine," Brown said. "This is not the only time he or anybody else on my team has been upset with me."

Ilgauskas is off to the worst start of his career. He is averaging 7.1 points and 6.2 rebounds while shooting 38 percent from the floor. He entered the season shooting 48 percent for his career.

Brown said he goes into every game with a minutes sheet that he keeps in his shirt pocket, but he doesn't always follow it.

"A lot of coaching, at least for me, is by gut feel," Brown said. "You know who's in the game, but sometimes you make decisions based on the flow of the game or matchups on the floor.

"There are times throughout the course of a game when you might have forgotten a certain guy is in uniform, but that wasn't the case with Z. It was just at the time, matchup-wise, this is what I chose to do."

Ilgauskas is in the final year of his contract and has hinted he might retire after the season. James was a big proponent in Ilgauskas receiving a five-year contract during the summer of 2005.

"I think he knows I'm behind him in whatever he does," James said. "Me and Z are the only remaining two from when I was drafted. I stand behind whatever Z does because he's more than a teammate. He's a friend of mine and he's a big part in why this franchise turned around."