Overview: The Cavs got back to .500 by beating the Washington Wizards by a final score of 107-102. Mo Williams and Daniel Gibson led the charge for the Cavaliers, combining for 47 points and hitting two huge fourth-quarter threes.
Cavs-Related Bullets:
Mo Williams! 28 points, and 17 of those 28 came from either the painted area or the free throw line. Not every defense will be as porous as Washington’s, but it’s great to see Mo getting aggressive and attacking the paint like he has the past two games. And those two huge jumpers in the fourth is what this team is expecting Mo to do, but that doesn’t make it any less good.
Boobie Gibson! 11 of his 19 came from the paint or the line, and he stepped up and drilled his outside shots when they left him open. So far, it’s been the guards who were supposed to be shooters who have flourished, and Sessions has struggled mightily. Not what you would’ve expected on a “running” team, but there you go.
The second unit in general was crucial on Saturday night — Anderson Varejao (+1) was the only starter with a positive +/-, and every bench player had a +/- of +8 or higher.
Another promising defensive effort from the Cavs, who kept Blatche, Wall, or Arenas from doing major damage; Al Thornton going 10-16 isn’t going to happen every game, although it is a little disturbing that Thornton made 7 field goals from inside the paint.
Alright, back at .500. It’s a good feeling. Let’s see if the Cavs can keep it going when they play the Nets on Tuesday.
Go Browns!
Didn’t the Cavs start 3-3 last year as well?
Go Cavs!
Great couple of days for Cleveland sports…
Ryan Hollins deserves a shot out. Between Andy and Ryan, we may not have the most talented guys playing center, but we might have the hardest working duo. Ryan has been a very pleasant surprise. Especially his occasional, fundamentally sound jump hook. I don’t think it would kill him to rebound more, but he is playing solid defense and cutting and moving properly on offense.
Speaking of rebounding, how is it that JJ still quite hasn’t figured out how to box out. He is frequently in good position, but doesn’t understand how to maintain contact with the guy behind him to prevent the ball being poked out. JJ tries to jump for the ball too early, often leading to the other guy slipping in. Our rebounding right now is a huge problem. We cannot be successful if we don’t get more rebounding from our bigs and our small forwards. Moon flies in for a pretty board every now and then, I think to myself, wow, he is really hitting the glass tonight, then I look at the box score and dude has three. Sure Jamison should help a bit there, if he can ever regain control over his limbs, but everybody must pick it up.
Boobie is showing a great deal of confidence on both ends. I am happy to see that Byron is ok with Boobie and Mo out there at the same time. Despite occasional flashes, I am having a hard time watching Sessions without the word “turnover” running through my head. It is tiresome.
Happy to see Andy playing more aggressively on offense. Obviously 10 for 10 is going beyond the call of duty, but get me 10 point and 10 rebounds every night and I will be happy. He has the skill to do that.
All in all, we are proving to be what most of us in Cleveland thought we would be. A .500 team with a shot at the playoffs. Keep it up.
Gibson really seems to have improved his ability to create shots off the dribble — or else we just weren’t seeing his full game the last couple years due to his limited role and minutes. He also seemed to more than hold his own defensively.
Mo missed so much time during preseason, his 3pt shooting will probably continue to be erratic until he gets his legs back. But otherwise, he looked great.
It’s great to see the Cavs pull out a win at the Verizon Center! They had so much trouble here in the regular season (though not so much the playoffs) over the past few years.
This team MIGHT have a shot at the playoffs if they can continue to consistently score 100+. That 8th seed is still gonna be a bad team even with the improved East. Right now, we are looking at Indiana (my pick)/Charlotte/Washington/NJ/CLE/NY. One of those teams will get the 7th, I think New York, with like 43-44 wins..thats to high for the Cavs. However, if the 8th seed is around 39-40, they might be able to sneak in there.
Ramon would be such a good player if every path on his flowchart didn’t end in ‘drive to the basket even if there isn’t any opening!’
Oh, well. He’ll probably figure something out eventually.
For a Cavs blog critically regarded enough to be on truehoop, this site is pretty low on real analysis. The recaps are no better than what the AP/reuters guys with no specialist knowledge/interest in the team can come up with. Every single bit of information in this article is from the boxscore, which I can read myself.
If you check out the other team’s truehoop blogs, there are people with a real passion writing. I dont know whats happened here, but its sad.
@Isaac
i kind of agree. more “meat” would do this blog some good for sure. for some reason i don’t remember it like this last year or the year before, but something has happened..
The Cavs as a team are still learning the system, Mo is getting back into form and Jamison is on the road to recovery. Overall they should be a better team in December than they are now. With that said, the schedule looks pretty positive for the cavs this month so we should end the month over .500.
I’m not sure if it’s good news or not, but it looks like we have a very legit shot at the 7th seed in the playoffs.
Issac,
Krolik is a college student who bit off more than he can chew. He was brilliant last season, but this year I think school might be getting the better of him. Lots of empty promises about features that never seem to materialize. His contributors have had better stuff lately. And where the heck is Pestak with the links?!
cut krolik some slack, he’ll be back in form. it is boyer’s weak sauce for the plain dealer that gets to me. guess windi spoiled us.
on another topic, this is admittedly juvenile, but i absolutely made my day when the guy doing the recap of the cavs-sixers game for espn said, “but in the 4th its boobie time”
All I really want are a couple of Boobie shirts. C’mon krolik, hes earned it