Cavs v. Suns - Postgame Quick Hits - The Cavs Defense is Doughnut-Shaped
Posted March 13th, 2009 by Michael Curry
Quick Postgame Quickhits for the quick turnaround between last night’s solid win over the Suns and tonight’s “game” against the Kings:
The Good:
- LeBron James with another Hall-of-Fame caliber performance, notching 33 points, 13 assists and 10 rebounds, the last one coming in the last four seconds of the game to give LeBron his third triple-double in a row (shouldn’t there be a name for this, like a “turkey” in bowling?). But the highlight might have been LeBron telling TNT courtside reporter Craig Sager that he didn’t know that last rebound gave him 10 and the triple-double. Anderson Varejao certainly knew, playing hot potato with the ball to make sure LeBron could secure it for the necessary stat. His rundown block of a Jason Richardson 360 dunk, while obviously a foul that wasn’t called, was also pretty spectacular.
- Sasha Pavlovic has looked great this year when he’s been healthy, and he played well last night after West went down with a bruised tailbone (or, as the Cavs call it, back spasms?). Sasha finished the night with 16 points on 6-for-9 shooting while adding two rebounds and two assists. With every good game Pavlovic plays himself closer to a trip out of town this Summer, but the Cavs will take what they can get for now.
- Mo Williams probably deserves the third star with his 30 points, but they were almost exclusively on the perimeter, and the “point guard” finished with just three assists in 40 minutes of action. He is a virtuoso on the perimeter, but he has been pretty one-dimensional of late, basically a poor man’s Ray Allen. That’s still good, but the Cavs will probably need more from him down the stretch.
The Bad:
- Delonte West took another hard fall, this time landing hard on his back and leaving the game in the third quarter. West may have been thrown off by the wind resistance of his Ben Wallace-like hairstyle last night, but the end result was pretty rough. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sasha gets the starting nod tonight, as the overnight flight from Phoenix to Sacramento was probably pretty rough on any kind of back problems. There were some rumblings about West’s psychological condition after Tuesday’s game against the Clippers, and another physical setback could be hard for West emotionally. All reports are that the team and the entire organization have been supportive of Delonte and his pursuit of normalcy and stability, but anyone would get frustrated at missing time due to injury at this point in the season. Just ask Greg Oden.
- The Cavs were outscored 64-20 on points in the paint. That’s…remarkably bad. The team is tired, and they’re playing against non-contenders of late, but the trends are getting troubling. This is like a team whose starting pitchers all of a sudden start giving up a run an inning, but the offense carries them to wins anyway. You like the wins, but you know that starting pitching (and interior defense) wins playoff games. The only silver lining is that the Cavs again dominated the fourth quarter, outscoring the Suns 30-18.
- LeBron missed two more dunks tonight, which is becoming a regularity. I don’t remember this happening at all prior to the Celtics game last week, but now it’s happened at least four times in the last week. It appears that LeBron’s legs just aren’t giving him the lift that he is expecting, and his rhythm is off. Not a major concern, but to me it means that the Cavaliers coaching staff had better find a way to get the kid some more rest soon. He’s been killing it on the road lately (and the Cavs have been on the road all practically non-stop since the All-Star Game), but the long season and last Summer’s Olympic run are starting to take their toll. I can’t wait for the Cavs to start this end of March home stretch to get the team back in gear.
The Questions:
- The Cavs game and the Akron-Bowling Green game are on at the same time tonight. Which one are you watching?
- Anyone else getting a little scared every time LeBron hits the deck with a leg “stinger” or a sprained ankle? The Cavs have suffered a number of (relatively small) injuries this season, and done well because of solid depth. But I would argue that “depth” is more the result of LeBron’s flexibility and ability to play multiple positions than it is the quality of the bench players stepping into the starting lineup.
- Anyone else really excited that after tonight the Cavs are done with the West Coast, at least until the NBA Finals?
Go Cavs.
