Lil Red Machine

http://www.cleveland.com/cavs/index.ssf/2009/04/signs_point_to_cavaliers_coach.html

It couldn’t have happened to a nicer, more hardworking guy.  He deserves this honor.  Is Mike Brown one of the elite coaches in the NBA?  Probably not.  He’s not in the same category as guys such as Gregg Popovic, Phil Jackson, and Jerry Sloan.  Did Mike Brown suddently develop skills and strategies for coaching that he didn’t have before?  Nope.
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Wow, what a sudden reversal of roles.

In the recent playoff history between these two franchises, it was always the Pistons who were the heavy favorites, and the Cavs who were trying to pull off the upset. Now, the Cavs have achieved elite status, and the Pistons are barely hanging on by a thread. This Detroit team has no real leadership. Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince are fine players, but have always been complimentary pieces. They can’t take over games. Outside of the obvious thing that people talk about with Rasheed Wallace (his legendary temper), even if he manages to stay out of trouble with the refs, he will probably jack up too many three-pointers.
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………..is going through the Q! Many franchise firsts have been achieved this season, but none as important as this. The Cavs not only have home court advantage through the eastern conference playoffs, but in the finals as well, should they get that far. That awful Sunday afternoon in Boston where the Cavs were oh so close to winning game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals in Boston motivated the team to take a step back, asses their areas of need, and fill those voids. They have done so, and what Cavaliers fans see right now is a team that seemingly can do no wrong.
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There were plenty of reasons to be nervous heading into this game against San Antonio.  The Cavs were coming off a huge thumping courtesy of the Orlando Magic.  The night before that, they got beat by the lottery bound Wizards.  In addition to that, another key frontcourt member was out, as Anderson Varejao sat this one out due to a wrist injury.
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There are rumors that Jason Kidd wouldn’t mind teaming up with LBJ and the gang after the season

http://www.cleveland.com/cavs/index.ssf/2009/03/cavaliers_insider_no_kidding_a.html

Please, PLEASE don’t do this.  Jason Kidd is how old?  He would probably want too much money.  They could sign him to the mid-level exemption without going over the luxury tax, but the bottom line is, they have more pressing issues to attend to.  Cleveland has an aging frontcourt, and it has to decide what to do with Wally Szczerbiak and Anderson Varejao coming off the books.  Keep them, or let them go?

Perhaps Kidd could be to the Cavs what Gary Payton was to the Miami Heat when they won their title in 2006, but that’s a base case scenerio.  He’s actually been a pretty decent 3-point shooter this season, contrary to the popular belief of those who say he can’t shoot, but I think once Gibson is fully healthy next season (he’s been playing with a bum foot all year), he’ll be able to capably fill that backup poing guard spot–and is much younger.  Besides, Kidd’s specialty is having the ball in his hands, and the Cavs already have a guy who specializes in that.  You have have heard of him.  His name is LeBron James.

So, I’m hoping the Cavs don’t “Kidd around” and sign this aging liability.

I keep having all of these random thoughts about the bigger picture while I’m watching Cavaliers games in the present.  Obviously, the ultimate goal at this point is a championship, and anything short of that is a major disappointment.  With that said, coming from somone who has spent most of my life following just AWFUL sports teams, it’s an absolute joy to watch this team, and to have the confidence that no matter what, on most nights, they WILL find a way to win, no matter the circumstances.

Speaking of said circumstances, they were rough going into last night’s game against the Trail Blazers.  More bad news, as key reserve Wally Szczerbiak found out that he will miss up to three weeks with a knee injury.  Also, they were going against a young and hungry team fully immersed in a western conference fight till the bitter end.  Young teams that run like Portland does give the Cavs fit, as Cleveland isn’t a very good transition defense team.

The first half was brutal.  Absolutely brutal.  36-34 Portland at the half?  That’s right.  Not a 1st quarter score, but a HALFTIME score.  However, in the second half, LeBron showed off some excellent post moves, scoring from a position on the court where his critics said he didn’t score enough from.  Clutch shooting, and committing only two turnovers is a good recipie for victory.

One thing I have to say is, it’s a crying shame that Brandon Roy of Portland doesn’t get more pub than what he gets.  He is a fantastic player that hit big shots last night to help send the game into OT, but playing in the pacific northwest for a small market team is what keeps him largely out of the public eye.  Assuming they make the playoffs, rest assured, he will make a household name for himself.  Him, and the team as a whole, is a complete 180 removed from the “Jail Blazers” teams from the early part of the decade.  They are young, athletic, and have good heads on their shoulders.

I don’t think the Cavs want homecourt so much as they need it.

Quicken Loans Arena has turned into a madhouse.  Back in the Lamond Murray/Chris Mihm/DaJuan Wagner era, I could go to a game the day of, and get courtside seats off of a scalper for $40, and hang out with a few thousand of my buds, and count by hand the number of people sitting in the upperdeck.  It was a depressing place.

Now, it’s amazing to see the place light up the way it has.  Who cares if the majority of the fans are fair weather?  They are there, and they are making a difference.  The crowd really helped propel them to victory tonight against the Magic 97-93.  Everyone who follows Cavaliers basketball knows that the Magic has given them fits lately.  Only one home loss on the season, and it’s mid-March.  LeBron did his thing, pouring in 43 points.  Mo Williams had 21.  Both men hit clutch shots.

Orlando has a bright future, though, and they aren’t a team I would want to face in the playoffs.  They kept it close, despite a relatively quiet 15-point game from Dwight Howard, who only took 8 shots.  That’s the same number of three-pointers that Rashard Lewis took–and missed.  Both of those occurances are statistical anomylies.

Here’s Hughes when asked by the Cleveland Plain Dealer if he missed playing in Cleveland.  This was right before the Cavs’ Sunday night game against the Knicks:

“No”

And here he is again when asked if he was happier in New York than Cleveland:

“Yeah, I’m definately happier.”

Larry got paid.  Being a respectable NBA player and being on a good team are clearly secondary goals to Hughes.  In a sense, I guess part of that mentality really isn’t that objectionable.  We tend to judge all guys against the hypercompetitveness of one Michael Jordan.  Most people, though, aren’t like that.  They just want to go to work, get paid, and go home.  NBA players shouldn’t be expected to carry a different mentality.

However, Hughes ought to remember that the Knicks are using him.  He’s happier?  Really?  All he is to them is an expiring contract.  He had it all when he came to Cleveland.  He managed to fool the NBA scouts when he declared for college.  He was terribly inconsistent during his short stay.  He fooled everyone in Philly and Golden State.  “He still has potential” everyone was saying.  In Washington, he greatly beniffitted from having volume scorers around him to take the pressure off of him.  He could go out there and average 20 PPG, shooting percentage be damned.  The Cavs saw that big number on the stats page, and Danny Ferry then went on to make one of his worse moves as a GM in giving him a 5-year, $70 million deal.  His scoring average was empty, much like a .300 hitter on baseball who never walks.

His tenure in Cleveland was a disaster.  To be fair, he had some personal tragedy in his life, as his brother passed away.  At the end of the day, though, the Cavs were so desperate to get rid of him, that they didn’t care that Ben Wallace was a bust for the Chicago Bulls.  Chicago could’ve sent him over, or merely just a bag of new basketballs and a peanut butter sandwich, and it wouldn’t have made any difference to them.

In a salary dump, the Bulls dealt him to the Knicks about a month ago.  He’s getting minutes for them.  Big minutes.  Maybe Hughes is a diabolical genius.  10 years after being drafted, he’s STILL fooling people.  In Mike D’Antoni’s system, Nate Robinson looks like an all-star and Chris Duhon is looking like an elite level PG.  Hughes is getting his, and laughing all the way to the bank every two weeks.

We don’t miss you either, Larry, by the way.

I had a random thought last night during the Cavs’ 119-100 victory over the Phoenix Suns:

Just how good would that Phoenix team be if their key guys were all in their primes? A superfluous discussion, certainly, but interesting to still sit back and ponder. Their core is old, or hurt (in the case of Amar’e Stoudamire). I was trying to picture the 2004 version of Steve Nash running the ball up the court, with several delicious options at his disposal. Obviously, you want to get the big man going, first and foremost. That being Shaquille O’Neal from roughly 2000. If for whatever reason, the nine guys guarding him are actually able to hang on for dear life, then you have a 1996 Grant Hill, who can handle the ball and play very similar to the current LeBron (minus the power game). Also, you have pre-microfracture surgery Amar’e, who could power it to the hole and dunk on anybody at anytime.

Welcome to 2009, boys. (and thank GOD the Cavs didn’t have to play THAT team last night in which I just described)

Nash and Shaq are still capable of putting up numbers, but are clearly on the decline (Shaq much more so than Nash). You can’t even call Grant Hill aging anymore. He’s aged. Obviously, Stoudamire is out for the season with an eye injury, but even when he was healthy, he was forced to play more of the perimeter game due to his condition.

The Cavs feel no pity, though. They have their own battles. Every game is very important from this point on. The Cavs have Boston in their rear view mirror, but the term “object in mirror are closer than they appear” clearly applies here. Cleveland has no room for error. The lack of urgency that was missing at the start of the game against the Clippers was there last night from the start. Phoenix, led by Matt Barnes who had 21 and Nash who had 20, kept up, but Lebron James put up his second consecutive triple double with 34 points, 13 assists, and 12 rebounds. Mo Williams had 30 of his own.

Down 97-95, Phoenix looked to have a breakaway opportunity, but Jason Richardson did something unbelievably stupid. Maybe he thought the 360 dunk attempt would give them more points than just 2, but that’s what he tried. LeBron came up from behind, and swatted it. TV replays showed that LeBron got his wrist as well. Richardson understandably grew upset, and got a technical for it. When you are on a sinking ship, and you are playing against one of the elite teams in the NBA, you aren’t going to get the benefit of the doubt on those calls. Just go for the simple play.

Sasha Pavlovic…….SASHA PAVLOVIC(!) hit three 3-pointers in the 4th quarter. The (deservedly so) much-maligned guard has had yet another rocky season, so you take from him whatever you can get.

The Cavs have an “easy peasy, nice and easy” game vs. a dreadful Sacramento Kings team tonight. Isn’t that what fans were saying about the Clippers game, though? Don’t let those cowbells at Arco Arena get warmed up.

I should’ve known.

I mean, it’s the Los Angeles freakin’ CLIPPERS we are talking about.  They are right in that same conversation for ineptness as the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Cincinnati Bengals (gulp) are.  They are the joke of L.A.  The red-headed stepchild, if you will.  Their arena, from observing it on TV, has the Lakers purple seats, the retired jerseys in the background, and for all I know, they keep out those championship banners for Clippers games as well.  I guess that leads to an interesting question: Do the Clippers have ANY banners up?  Did they have a banner raising ceremony commemorating their last playoff appearance?

OK, enough Clippers bashing.  Honestly, I can’t rag on them too much, because unlike Lakers games, you have actual human beings that are able to attend.  The glitz and glamor crowds stays far, far away.  Anyone who supports that team is a true fan–and being a Bengals fan, I know what a true fan is.  As for the game, it looked like the Cavs were dead in the water.  If you had been hiding under a rock and had no prior knowledge of which team was shooting for a 60-win season, and which one was lottery bound, you would’ve thought that it was Cleveland that was the moribund franchise.  The Cavs came out dead.  No energy at all.  I think that playing in L.A. is a tough deal for the visiting team, due to all the distractions that Hollywood can present.

Down by 19 in the 4th quarter, I shut it off.  I awoke this morning to a text saying that the Cavs won 87-83.  Eh?  After burying the palm of my hand into my forehead in a reactionary move for missing this, I go to read up on it.  The whole team, outside of Lebron, really played like crap.  King James poured in a triple double, totalling 32 points, 13 rebounds, and 11 assists.  If you want to make an MVP argument for LeBron, last night was a good case to present to the table.  The starting backcourt shot a combined 5-23, and they got a whopping 15 points from the bench players.

I do have to give Mo Williams a lot of credit, though.  He played well in the 4th quarter, hitting a gigantic three-pointer with six seconds left to give the Cavs an 85-83 year.  It was interesting, but not totally surprising, to see the numerous arms that went up in the arena when that shot went through the bottom of the net.  After all, the Cavs are the top road draw in the NBA.

As for the Clippers?  I have to wonder about a team like that.  Are they afraid of success?  When they had that large lead in the 4th, did they panic and say “oh crap, we better not blow this!”  They probably did.  Bad teams play well for large stretches of any given game, but they don’t know how to close the deal.  I can only imagine having to also deal with all the negative energy in the arena when the other team starts making a few shots as well.

Most importantly of all, the Cavs increased their lead in the Eastern Conference race to 1.5 games over Boston.  Given that they seemingly can’t win in Boston, every game from this point is so critical, so that they can get that homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs.