Running Thoughts - Cavs v. Bulls
Posted January 2nd, 2009 by Michael Curry
Here we go, another Friday matchup at the Q. The Cavaliers have three of these in a row in January, including tonight, next Friday against the Boston Celtics, and the Friday after that against the New Orleans Hornets. The schedule makers have been nice to Cavs fans to start the new year.
- While a lot of people are taking notice of Derrick Rose, right now he’ll be taking notice of the rest of the first quarter from the bench, as he picks up two fouls in the first 1:21 of the game. Rose is averaging 17.4 points and 6.1 rebounds per game, but he’ll head to the bench with nothing but personal fouls so far.
- Ben Wallace is very active here to start the game against his most recent former team. Ben has 6 points, 4 rebounds, an assist and a steal already in the first quarter.
- It is much more fun watching Larry Hughes hoist deep jumpers when he’s wearing another team’s uniform. He is, no surprise, 0-for-2 to start the game from a combined 40 feet.
- The Cavs lead by 4, 17-13 with 5:15 left in the first quarter, but the sloppiness of the Bulls has been contagious, as the Cavaliers aren’t doing a great job taking care of the ball.
- J.J. Hickson gets some first quarter minutes with Z unavailable. Unfortunately, he’s matched up against Andres Nocioni, a hard-nosed veteran who knows just about every trick in the book. Nocioni pulls Hickson away from the paint, something every rookie learning a defensive system is hesistant to do, and knocks a jumper over the rookie. The Cavs feed Hickson three straight possessions, and while he isn’t able to do much on those possessions, he does sneak in for an offensive rebound and a foul.
- Talk about Z’s injury, which is revealed to be a slight fracture that will keep him out 3-4 weeks. That is going to be an issue for the Cavaliers with those big Friday games coming up. So, yeah, that sucks.
- Great job by Hickson running the floor on the break and getting a nice, atheltic layup to put the Cavaliers up by ten, 27-17. Now that’s something you’re not going to get from Z, injured or not. He also knocks down two free throws off a loose ball foul, and Hickson has 6 first quarter points. Good stuff.
- The Cavs end the first quarter on a 9-0 run and jump out to a 15-point lead after one, 32-17.
- Larry Hughes had to fill in point guard duties after Rose went down with foul trouble, and he proceeded to go 0-4 with two turnovers and a +/- of -14. Ah, memories.
- The only bright spot for Chicago has been Thabo Sefolosha, who has ten points after a high-flying putback dunk. Sefolosha is like the Lakers’ Trevor Ariza, but with out the media market or the All-Star teammates. In other words, lots of talent, not a ton of skill, but he can look really good on some nights.
- LeBron is wearing a practice jersey, over a short-sleeved shirt, over a long sleeved shirt, over his jersey, over a tank-top. What, is Daniel Gilbert turning down the thermostat at the Q?
- Speaking of jerseys, I’m no fan of the Bulls’ black jerseys. I thought the black with red pinstripes jerseys in the MJ era were kinda cool, but these are just uninspired.
- Daniel Gibson, what are you doing? He had a nice 3 at the end of the first quarter, but his other two shots have been a jumper that never got over the front of the rim, and an airball that might have been tipped. He’s still operating without anything approximating rhythm.
- Ben Wallace continues his solid play, blocking a shot to nullify a Joakim Noah offensive rebound, then drawing an offensive foul on Tyrus Thomas.
- Aaron Gray is a big man. LeBron skies for a rebound and collides with Gray mid-air, only to tumble backwards like he was hit by a truck. Gray is listed at 7 feet, 270 lbs, and he is thick.
- The Bulls can’t get a shot in the halfcourt at all, but Anderson Varejao and Sasha Pavlovic take turns picking up dumb fouls against Ben Gordon, which sends him to the line where he makes all four. Then Andy picks up another foul on a Cedric Simmons dunk. And yes, that answers the age-old question, “What ever happened to Cedric Simmons?”
- Ben Wallace stands a good six inches behind the free throw line for some reason. It works for the first one, but the second is an airball, not because it was too short, but because it was too far right. Must be a breeze in the Q tonight. That might explain all of LeBron’s shirts.
- Ben Gordon has 17 first half points, partly do to some circus shots, partly due to gifts from Andy and Sasha. Once again Gordon is the only Bull scoring with any kind of consistency against the Cavalier defense, as the Cavs seem to have trouble identifying him as the one Chicago threat.
- At the end of the first half, the Cavs lead 61-47. The lead was as high as 19 at one point in the first half, but a 14-point lead is nothing to sneeze at, especially when LeBron has been held to just 6 points (though LeBron has added 6 assists in the first half).
Second Half:
- The Cavaliers start the second half cruising, as Delonte West hits a couple of 3-pointers, putting the entire starting five for the Cavaliers in double figures for the game. With less than 5 minutes to go in the third quarter, the Cavaliers have opened up a 25-point lead, 81-56. The good for Chicago is that Larry Hughes is coming back into the ball game.
- Now the Cavs have gotten sloppy, but the Bulls refuse to take advantage. Lots of cheap fouls, sloppy offensive possessions, etc., but the Cavs still lead 85-62. The Bulls are now shooting just 37% for the game, while the Cavaliers are knocking down 52% of their shots, and that’s all you really need to know about this game. The Cavs are getting everything they want offensively when they exert even the slightest bit of effort (which is about every other trip down the floor in the third quarter), and the Bulls can’t make much headway.
- That being said, the Bulls managed to cut the lead to 17 points at the end of the third, as the Cavs lead 89-72. We’re not quite in “LeBron sits the entire fourth quarter” territory yet, but if the lead is still comfortable with eight or seven minutes left in the game, LeBron might get the rest of the night off. At this point, LeBron is just 1-for-5 and has 10 points, 9 assists, 5 rebounds, 3 blocks, 1 steal and a +/- of +20. Hard to complain about that if it ends with a blowout home victory.
- Color me surprised that LeBron is out there to start the fourth quarter, he must want to push that point total (and assist total) a bit higher.
- Anderson Varejao just scored his 19th point on a free throw, setting a new career high. More and more, Andy is proving that he can be a starting center in the NBA. Coming into the night, Varejao was averaging 13.7 points and 8.7 rebounds in games he started, and those numbers are just going up after tonight. The Cavaliers are going to be faced with a very difficult decision this offseason, when Varejao becomes an unrestricted free agent. More than a few teams will be willing to have Varejao as their starting center, which means he’s looking at a contract in the same $9-$10 Million a year level he was hoping for when he held out last season. That’s a rich contract for a Cavaliers team that has been coveting salary cap flexibility for LeBron’s free agent Summer in 2010, and the Cavs might not be willing to give Andy the contract he’d prefer. But replacing Andy is going to be a tall order should he head out of town for a bigger paycheck this Summer.
- And even as I’ve been typing the previous paragraph, Andy has tossed in a pretty hook shot and slammed home another one, giving him 23 points on the night. There’s no other way to put it, Andy looks great tonight. If he had avoided a couple of silly fouls (he has 5 at the moment)
- LeBron has grabbed every rebound the last few times down, and now he is one rebound away from a triple-double. Here I thought he was looking for more points…he just wanted more rebounds! LeBron then knocks down a three, grabs that tenth rebound, then hits another three to end his night, and the crowd explodes. With 5:33 remaining, the Cavs are back up 24, 104-80.
- Larry Hughes misses another jumper, and he is now 0-for-8. Hughes hasn’t taken a single shot that wasn’t a jumper; he refuses to go to the hoop. It’s a shame. Whatever you think of Hughes as a person, and by all accounts he is a stand-up guy, there’s no doubt that his commitment to the game completely disappeared after he signed his big contract. He’s content to recklessly toss up jump shots regardless of the situation, and he sees no use in getting into the lane and drawing contact. Larry Hughes could have been a good player here in Cleveland, he just wasn’t willing to sacrifice anything to do it. As a result, he’ll be paid very handsomely for this year and next, and he’ll end his career playing for losers.
- Tarence Kinsey comes into the game, and not 5 seconds later has his first turnover and first foul. I don’t know what he’s doing in practice, but Kinsey has been the least productive Cavalier when the lights come on.
- And that’s your ballgame. Cavs win 117-92, blowing the doors off the Chicago Bulls. That’s 17-0 at home for the Cavaliers, and barring some sort of disaster against Charlotte on Wednesday, the Cavs will have an undefeated home record when Boston comes into Cleveland next Friday. The Cavaliers rebounded nicely from the loss on Tuesday, and as least for a night looked like the dominant team we saw throughout most of December.
Go Cavs.
