Overview:
In a playoff-intensity game, the Cavs scrapped to defend their home floor by edging out the Magic behind an epic 43/12/8 from LeBron James, who had a massive go-ahead three with 47 seconds to go.
Cavs-Related Bullets:
Seriously, though, what was up with 6 turnovers from LeBron tonight? I kid.
LeBron James is more messianic than you are. Not only did he completely dominate this game, but he did it against a defense that was well set up and ready to take away his bread and butter from him. The jumper was absolutely in full effect, and this is as good as you’re going to see the inside/out game working from LeBron James.
Early on, you could see him coming out with determination and energy to take over the game and feel out his game, going to pull-ups, pushing the ball down the court on every steal and rebound and looking to get the basket or make the pass.
Absolutely everything LeBron did turned to gold tonight, be it working the high/low post to feed Anderson Varejao for a layup, feeding Mo as the safety valve if the Magic got overzealous with their traps up top, and especially working catch-and-shoot on the left side of the floor and absolutely raining jumpers.
On the left side of the floor, where he often worked a modified version of pick-and-pop with Mo Williams or pulled up if the helper went under the screen, LeBron went 4-5 from beyond the arc and 3-4 on deep 2s. (On the right and center of the court, LeBron was a combined 2-10 from outside of the paint. That about lines up with the general trend of perimeter players, who prefer to pull up to their weak hand and drive to their strong one, and LeBron’s hot spots.) It’s not a shot you can take away from LeBron, and by getting 22 of his 43 points tonight from out there, he was completely unstoppable.
As for crunch-time, he came up fairly large. In the fourth quarter, he had 15 points on 9 attempts and two assists for Mo Williams threes, which makes him responsible for 21 of the 25 Cavalier points in the fourth quarter. (A Joe Smith put-back and a Mo Williams pull-up accounted for the other four.)
And in the final moments, he was more than a little clutch. That three in front of the Magic bench? I mean, what can I say? He was absolutely feeling it, if he misses we likely as not lose, and the degree of difficulty was through the roof. Absolutely amazing. And sealing it with a savvy pump-fake and foul draw and two clutch free throws instead of getting caught up in the moment and trying a fadeaway dagger? Fantastic. And it’s about time we got some “M-V-P!” in the Q, and you’ve gotta love LeBron pumping up the crowd before icing the free throw to put the Cavs up two possessions. This is maybe the most talented player ever to pick up a basketball on an absolute mission. Enjoy every game.
As for the rest of the cast, there are fewer nice things to say. The two guys who absolutely came to play are Andy and Mo, which has become the norm over this stretch. Andy’s off-ball movement remains gorgeous, as he exploited Dwight Howard’s odd zone-like positioning for a few layups, and if he doesn’t pull down his fourth offensive rebound, there’s no LeBron three with 48 seconds left. This is the guy who was the second-best player on a finals team.
Mo Williams also didn’t have his game in full effect, but damned if he wasn’t the guy to knock in 8 absolutely gigantic fourth quarter points, including two perfect threes to catch the Magic cheating on traps of LeBron.
Meanwhile, the guy who used to play the role of clutch shooter spent his 2nd consecutive game benched, and Pavs failed to get a point with his minutes. Wally sprained his knee, so it MIGHT FINALLY BE TK time. I gotta say, this is not the best time of year to be inconsistent with our player rotations and defensive fundamentals. But it’s not the worst time of the year, either. You take what you get.
Okay, maybe I was a little excited about Joe Smith.
Delonte and Z really need to get their shots back working-it makes a world of difference when they’re spacing the defense from deep and midrange and the offense can start to snowball rather than making every possession a two-man game or ISO. And Delonte missing two open threes in crunch-time nearly killed us. Slump happens, I suppose.
Bullets of Randomness:
This is pretty much the game to show why Howard isn’t quite on that MVP level yet (as I see it, tier one is LeBron, Kobe, CP3, and Wade)-he was dominant defensively and pulling in rebounds, but after looking like a bona fide offensive force the last time we saw him and the last game he played, he was almost invisible on that end tonight, showing some nice hooks and even passes out of double-teams but ultimately only getting 13 points on 8 shots.
A lot of that isn’t his fault-this team loves the three-ball, and doesn’t play as disciplined as it should. This is where going from a Jameer to a Skip really hurts you, even if Skip’s drilling his shots.
Speaking of, SCREW YOU DARYL MOREY FOR GIVING AWAY SKIP AND KEEPING THE MAGIC CONTENDERS. I WILL NOT READ THE BASKETBALL VERSION OF MONEYBALL IF IT’S ABOUT YOU. (Actually, if Michael Lewis writes it, I’ll definitely read it.) BUT I WILL BORROW IT. I REFUSE TO GIVE MONEY TO YOUR EVIL.
Actually, since Morey got Lowry, the best player in that deal, the blame would probably go to Grizzlies GM Chris Wallace. So of the four championship contenders, two are there because of Chris Wallace handouts. I don’t like you, Chris Wallace. Real contenders do it the honorable way-with handouts from Kevin McHale and John Hammond.
So, Courney Lee, who went 9-13, D-d up like a monster, and almost beat us during crunch time: 1.2 million dollars. Rashard Lewis, who went 3-15, took terrible shots early in the clock, got 4 rebounds, defended nobody, and kept the Magic from winning: 16.5 million dollars. That’s just fun.
Why nobody wanted Mickael Pietrus, the French Bruce Bowen, as he begged out of Golden State for three years, is completely beyond me. Championship teams have guys like him. That he, unlike Bowen, doesn’t give a crap just makes him more intriguing.
If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go die. Happy St. Patrick’s day.
A hard-nosed win. Forced the Magics weaker player to beat us. They played well and almost got us tonight, but over seven games I don’t see it. LeBron bailed us out, but if Z and Delonte make the shots we’ve seen them make regularly all season we win by 12. Viva la Cavs. Great win.
Everytime LeBron creates space with his dribble on the perimeter, then takes an extra step forward making sure his beautiful long range bomb only counts for 2 points I die a little inside.
It’s too bad your boy over at truehoop labeled this a “hollow” vicory. I know it’s probably not in your best interest to call him out on it… but even you must admit that he’s full of crap about this game. On a night where the Cavs were the only team of the big four to get a victory, Truehoop and the Daily Dime both dished out Cavs hate articles. What gives?
@Tadcalabash-couldn’t agree more. Absolutely. He’s A LOT Better when he gets that dribble going forward and can step into the shot instead of just flicking it up there, but I cringe anytime any player takes a non-three 20+ footer, let alone when LeBron does it. Still, he’s been consistent with that shot and hasn’t shown comfort from the 15-18 range, so I guess more power to him?
@Thetafarm-believe me, if I had something to call Henry out on I would. I don’t think he’s off about this one. For one thing, it’s him being consistent-this is what he wrote after Kobe’s OT win over the Celtics: http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-38-135/Kobe-Bryant-vs–LeBron-James-vs–Boston-s-Defense.html
And for another, they definitely took us out of what we wanted to do offensively and forced us to shoot long jumpers. The glass-half full side of that is we stepped up and made some incredible plays, especially LeBron James, to bail the team out and grab an amazing win. The glass-half empty side is that if we see this team in the playoffs “bail ourselves out with 28-footers” isn’t a great blueprint for victory. Being a Cavs blogger, I looked at the glass half-full and look at it as a great win. A more objective guy might choose to see it as half-empty.
I definitely wish this was a playoff win so that it could matter more, because this was more unique gem than solid example of why we’re going to win a championship. As for Jon Barry, I don’t lose too much sleep over him.
Krolik, Abbott is not being objective. Just before this game, in fact, he wrote “The Cavs can’t beat Orlando this season to save their lives” when we had only had one previous meeting.
I know he has trouble getting behind us because we’re not Portland or we’re in a small market or whatever, but the lack of objectivity there is a little ridiculous, and does nothing to dissuade me from believing that ESPN is nothing more than a Jon Barry/Jalen Rose/Stephen A Smith/Henry Abbott circle-jerk that takes any opportunity to remind us (typically with a giant shit-eating grin on their face) that we’re the worst 54-13 team in history, and that we don’t deserve a talent of LeBron’s proportions.
Cleveland has a bad enough complex in this regard as it is, but the coverage they’re offering is completely out of hand. Every time we get a big win I feel like I’m reading the internet equivalent of a funeral procession.
If you ignore the Associated Press game summaries and the existence of John Hollinger, I dare you to try to tell me that anyone else on that site is covering the Cleveland Cavaliers objectively. It is completely absurd and insulting to anyone with half a brain for Jon Barry to use an article that is ostensibly about a big win we had to talk about how the Celtics and Lakers will play in the finals.
Fair enough… though, Abbott is getting baptized in his comments section about that article. He doesn’t mention the fact that Cleveland outrebounded Orlando, got to the foul line more, and outscored them 25-18 in the 4th. He also doesn’t mention Orlando’s like-minded offensive philosophy down the stretch. Howard didn’t even touch the ball on the offensive end the entire fourth quarter. Not 1 single FG attempt. They chucked up 3 after 3, just like the Cavs did. Only difference, Orlando was packing it in, much like Boston did in the playoffs last year.
On that 3 second call alone, Howard was 1-on-1 with Z, lingering in the lane with nobody else around. If they don’t get whistled for that, they didn’t deserve the ball on that possession because of sheer stupidity.
For Abbott to boil the game down to a couple of plays (the Lebron 3, and the 3 second call) is just silly. The Cavs did a ton of good things in this game (putting LeBron on Turkoglu to start the game, pure genius), and some really stupid things as well (letting Pavlovic guard Turkoglu late first quarter/early 2nd, idiocy).
I agree that ESPN seems to not like us too much, and they continue to talk about how LeBron will go to NYC in 2010, even though he has a great cast here and would have nobody on the roster there. Nonetheless, its late in the season, there are not too many races left that are exciting, so they need something to talk about. They are welcome to their opinion, and I have never put much stock in what Jon Barry says. Bill Simmons likes the the Cavs this year (a Celtic fan no less), and that’s good enough for me.
As far as the 3-second call, I think SVG is out of his mind to think about that particular call never being made. You have the most dominant big man in the league (maybe Shaq is still there, but I would give the nod the Superman). If the refs were to all him to stand in the middle as long as he wants, during a crucial last possession, you might as well just award them the two points, and see what happens on the offensive side! Also, despite what he said, it was nice to get a home call FOR ONCE! I feel like the refs hate us no matter where we play.
Guys, I’m just going to interject and say that I’ve been on a lot of message boards and comments sections in my life, and I’ve never seen a comment to the effect of “It’s a good thing ESPN/The National Media likes us,” or “Man, having that respect from the refs really helps our team out.” Not once.
LeBron to NYC is the world’s most photographed barn. I can tell you with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that Lakers and Celtics fans are positive that ESPN hates them. And in Sacramento, we would not have won that game were it not for a large number of borderline calls going our way.
Was I maybe expecting a little more favorable coverage than we got after LeBron dropped a clutch 43 and Kobe went 5-15 while Wade’s also coming off being shut down? Probably. Is that because I’m a huge Cavs fan? Probably. I’ve been working with “big media” in one form or another for almost 8 months now. Trust me, THERE IS NO CONSPIRACY. It’s a lot of guys working very hard to cover the game they love as best they can, and a lot of times their opinions (mine included) are very strong and aren’t favorable to one or several fanbases, but it doesn’t make them invalid.
We can continue to debate points of the article, but just know straight off that I’ve been at this for almost two years now and been called all manner of stupid things by people with no interest in approaching my work rationally, so I’m going to come down on the side of nipping accusations of “_____ hates Cleveland and is a bad man who worships ______ secretly!” in the bud. In general, attacking motive instead of data is the worst way to go about trying to dissect an opposing viewpoint. If you’re truly right, you should be able to do better.
Barry is basically a message board troll who gets to appear on television. I don’t really let what he says bother me.
But, Re: that TrueHoop article, I just think it’s silly for any professional journalist to write something along the lines of “The Cavs only won because they made shots” regarding a matchup between arguably the two best jumpshooting teams in the league, in an attempt to discredit (if only partially) a big victory, or demonstrate some potential weakness come playoff time.
Specifically, Abbott details a sequence at the end of the game where we missed a bunch of shots, but doesn’t mention that a) we got crucial rebounds in that stretch, and b) Orlando did not score in that stretch. It’s completely misleading. To anyone who actually watched the game, Abbott is basically trying to argue that we would not have won if we hadn’t won, which goes without saying, or maybe that in the future if we don’t win we’ll lose. Thanks for pointing that out, Henry! I should certainly hope we don’t win by making no shots, or through a systematic, massive series of clerical errors on the part of the official game scorer!
The point of basketball was to score more points than your opponent, last I checked. The Cavs have done this more than any other team in the league this season, but you would not be able to discern this by reading anything the majority of national media has to say.
If this is how Abbott summarizes games in which he, as a fan, has no pressing interest, then I look forward to seeing how he spins our inevitable victory over Portland on Thursday.
Also, Krolik, I have to disagree with you about the calls during the Sacramento game. Of course I like it when those calls are in our favor, but really, the perceived referee bias is almost always towards the team that’s trying harder. There are times when it seems like we can’t buy a call (particularly in the first 3 quarters of that game and the Clippers game) but it’s funny how that sort of turns around entirely the moment we start playing the game the right way and stop looking to them for help.
It’s like you guys expect every article about Cavs game in which the Cavs won to praise them unconditionally. I love the Cavs, but the fact is we played terribly against some bad teams in the past week, and needed that incredible three by LeBron to beat the Magic without Jameer Nelson at home. And Abbott usually writes great articles, you can’t expect him to glorify the team every time. We won the game, we are up by 4 games over the Celtics and fighting for the best record in the league, so Jon Barry and whoever else can say whatever they want, I’m still happy. Go Cavs!
I love Abbott’s work. I don’t expect him to praise Cleveland unconditionally, or do I praise them unconditionally. I’ve been the biggest critic of LeBron’s shot selection. I cringed when he took that three just like anybody else would. But that article was a total drive-by. If he wants to promote his site as being the pulse of the NBA, he has to do a better job of summing up one of the bigger games of the regular season thus far. LeBron, even before that three, had one of his better floor games of the season. Cleveland did an excellent job defensively. Dwight Howard didn’t touch the ball the entire fourth quarter on the offensive end (look it up, 0 FG attempts), which to me is the biggest reason they lost. The Cavs also took over the best record in the NBA. This was all relevent stuff that Truehoop should have touched on, but didn’t. Instead, plastered all over the site this morning is nothing but reference to a textbook 3-second call and a “lucky 3 pointer.” It was sloppy. I mean, yeah, let’s just write an article talking about the “crunch time” offensive philosphy of the winning team when the losing team didn’t get the ball to it’s best player for the entire 4th quarter. How out of touch is that?
@Danny Tartar, thetafarm pretty much sums up how I feel too. But, re: your comment. I don’t see what good it is mentioning that we should’ve done better against the Magic minus Jameer Nelson when a) they picked up another starter who is performing admirably (not to mention the fact that Alston does not miss shots when he plays against us; he scored like 21 points for Christsakes) and b) we were playing them without Ben Wallace, who is the 3rd highest rated defender in the league (after Howard and Garnett). The fact that we held them to 9 points below their average is pretty good under those circumstances. It was an awesome regular season basketball game that does not signify anything. Plain and simple.
I was shocked that the three second call became the story of the game, but leave it to GrandSTANd Van Gundy to whine is way into the national spotlight. Here’s the thing Stan – It WAS a three second violation, and even if it wasn’t, Mo rebounded Lewis’s miss as the call was being made. The refs did not steal the possession from your team. Your team buckled under the Cavs’ defensive pressure, and threw up another brick. So Stan – shut the hell up & instead of whining COACH your team to get the ball inside to the most dominate big man of his generation! Got it? Good.
Now that I have that off my chest – the Cavs do need to work much harder to get more shots inside, and LeBron needs to get a post up game going. Watch out world if he does.
I’m looking forward to watching Kinsey play with Wally out. I think his defense will lead to many more fast break opportunities.
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