Postgame (not so) Quick Hits from tonight’s absolutely fantastic game between the Cavaliers and the Orlando Magic:

The Good:

-  It was a beautiful day here in Cleveland, Ohio, as thousands of people rushed downtown for the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and stayed for the typical festivities.  Dark wool coats were abandoned for bright green t-shirts, derbies and striped socks, and smiles replaced the weary, downcast eyes of Winter.  And as the bright Spring-like sun was dipping below the horizon, it was time for a battle royale inside Quicken Loans Arena between the best home team and the best road team in the NBA.  The game inside the Q did not disappoint.  I don’t think I’ve felt this much electricity in downtown Cleveland since Game 5 of the 2007 AL Championship.  Yes, it was that kind of night.

-  LeBron James was otherworldly.  He made impossible pass after impossible pass.  He hit HUGE three-pointers.  And his drive to the hoop at the end of the third quarter was a freight train of unstoppability.  LeBron finished with 43 points, 12 monster rebounds, 8 assists, 4 steals and a block.  And the numbers do not do justice to his performance.  This is a very good Orlando Magic team, and LeBron destroyed them in every way imaginable.  

-  The Cavaliers were excellent on the glass tonight, holding a slight rebounding advantage over the taller Magic 43-40.  Howard was a beast as expected with 15 rebounds, including four offensive rebounds, but the Cavaliers secured nearly every rebound in the fourth quarter, and that was the biggest reason they limited the Magic to just 18 fourth quarter points.  Zydrunas Ilgauskas did not have a great game, but his 11 rebounds were very big tonight.

-  This Magic team is really, really good.  Their ability to make shots over the defense is unparalleled; you can defend them perfectly and they will still have a chance to score, especially with long shooters like Hedo Turkoglu.  If they are making jump shots, they will beat you.  I’m just not sure that they wouldn’t be more of a contender if they settled for a few less jump shots and really made Dwight Howard the focus of that offense.  Throughout LeBron’s time in Cleveland, there have been times where he goes into a mode where he won’t move the ball and just pounds it into the ground 30 feet from the hoop before heaving something ridiculous.  People have called this lack of ball movement a problem, and I won’t disagree.  But my counterargument has always been “I want the ball in the hands of the most efficient offensive player in the league.”  I think that Dwight Howard is always the Magic’s best offensive option, and I don’t think he’s being used enough.  

-  Courtney Lee had a fantastic night, scoring 19 points on 9-13 shooting.  That race to be the steal of last year’s draft is on between Lee and the Miami Heat’s Mario Chalmers.  

-  Rafer Alston was great as well, outplaying Mo Williams for most of the night, getting to the rim at will and knocking down the open threes created by the Magic’s impressive ball movement.  Alston looked much better than I expected, and he was able to make up at least 90% of what the Magic were getting from Jameer Nelson.

-  The Magic were running an interesting two-screen offense.  First Howard would pop out to set the first pick, then Alston would come around a second pick set by Rashard Lewis.  The Cavaliers had a tough time dealing with most of the pick-and-rolls tonight, as Alston was regularly able to turn the corner around the pick and head right to the rim.  The Cavs will need to find a better way to defend it should they meet the Magic in the Playoffs.

The Bad:

-  I think that Stan Van Gundy is a fantastic basketball coach.  But there is simply no excuse for Dwight Howard only taking 8 shots tonight.  On the flip side, Rashard Lewis took 15 shots, and I don’t remember a single one of them.  Lewis was 0-for-8 from beyond the arc, and finished with just six points in 36 minutes.

-  I thought that Mo Williams was an absolutely necessary second scorer tonight, but he took too many well-contested shots.  He’s been hitting those shots regularly of late, but he took two very tough shots late in the fourth quarter that just weren’t the looks you want at that point in the game.  And his back-to-back missed free throws were nothing short of shocking.

-  Delonte West missed four WIDE OPEN threes tonight.  It was a problem. 

Random Notes:

-  A few weeks back, Henry Abbott of TrueHoop asked a question about the likelihood that you would high-five the person next to you at today’s supposedly “buttoned down” NBA games.  Well, I can attest that I participated in what might have been the perfect high-five tonight.  After LeBron hit his last three-pointer of the night, a long-distance bomb that blew up the arena, this behemoth of a man sitting next to me raised his arm high, and I raised mine in reponse.  The resulting hand-on-hand collision was high, it was loud, and for a while there I thought it broke my hand.  We’re talking perfect contact, the kind you feel when you lace a 300-yard drive down the middle of the fairway.  We turned back to the game, my hand screaming, and two or three plays later this green-clad monster turns back to me, and almost reverently, he says, “That was an amazing high five.”  That’s right, he knew just as well as I did that he had been part of something rare.  We’ve all been a part of bad high-fives, from glancing blows to that weird guy who grabs your hand for some reason, to the flat-out whiff.  But when you hit that perfect high-five, I’m here to tell you, it’s something.  It’s the kind of thing that makes you turn to the guy next to you two minutes later and say, “that was an amazing high five.”

-  The “M-V-P” chant at the end of the game was the loudest I have ever heard at the Q, with the deafening roar of the letters rocking the building, while the space in-between the letters was nearly as deafening in its silence.  The fans were in a great mood tonight, and they might have been a bit more “lively” than usual, but the Q is going to be absolutely rocking come Playoff time.

-  The Cavaliers gameday crew didn’t go on vacaction while the Cavs were on the road, but instead were tightening up the presentation as the team heads towards the Playoffs.  The Cavalier Girls had excellent, well-coordinated performances tonight, despite the tragedy of their first-round elimination in the NBA’s Dance Team bracket.  The scoreboard crew threw in a couple of St. Patrick’s Day twists to the standard fare of break entertainments, including a “Kiss Me I’m Irish Cam,” which, as it always should, ended on a pair Magic players sitting on the bench.  The Q is going to be non-stop entertainment over the next three months, and only the most uptight, mirthless sportswriter would want it any other way.  

-  After the Akron Zips made the NCAA tournament, LeBron made a crack about it being the NIke LeBron-brand shoes that propelled the Zips to the Big Dance.  Tonight LeBron was in his St. Vincent-St Mary’s green-and-gold colorway shoes.  Does that mean that LeBron’s iconic performance tonight was also because of the shoes?

All in all, a great win tonight.  Go Cavs.

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