-  All indications are that Joe Smith will be bought out and that he will be coming to Cleveland.  Obviously nothing is certain until the deals are announced.  I expect we’ll hear a bit more during and after the game tonight.

-  Still no word on who the mystery buyout Brian Windhorst was talking about today is.

-  The Cavaliers got a break today, with both the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers losing this afternoon.  The Cavs are now even with the Lakers in the loss column, and two games ahead of the Celtics.  The team is still in the middle of a rough stretch of games, but now they know that if they play really well, they can make some extra hay against the other two elite teams in the league.  I am sure they would like some momentum heading into next Friday’s battle in Boston.

-  I’m interested to see how Joe Johnson looks tonight.  He has been fairly quiet against the Cavaliers this season, scoring just 4 points in the Hawks’ loss at The Q, while scoring 17 in the Hawks win in Atlanta in December.

And we’re off…

First Quarter:

-  Until Joe Smith is in a Cavalier uniform, Anderson Varejao needs to stay out of foul trouble.

-  Three straight free-throw line jumpers for the Cavaliers to start the game.  Wonder if they saw a hole in the Hawks defense there.  Bears watching throughout the night.

-  Mo Williams has been a disaster in transition so far tonight.  A turnover, a shot blocked, a missed three, and a foul on Marvin Williams when the Hawks were in transition.  Hey Mo, when LeBron passed it to you on the break, it was so he could finish the play, not so you could get punked by Josh Smith.  

-  At the first break, the Cavs lead 15-11 thanks to some very solid perimeter shooting.

-  I’ve been trying to figure out what could put the Hawks over the hump.  They have above-average players at the point guard, shooting guard, and power forward.  They have a young double-double machine in Al Horford, and they have a couple of nice bench players in Flip Murrary and Zaza Pachulia.  The rest of their bench is pretty atrocious, but it seems they could take a major leap forward if they could add a star-level big man.  But with the way the NBA economics are looking these days, I don’t expect them to get one.

-  Delonte West picks up a technical foul.  I would love a transcript of what he said to the official to earn it.  At the end of one, the Cavs lead 30-23.  

Second Quarter:

-  Joe Tait lost it for a second there, clearly annoyed by people in his ear reminding him to promote the Sherwin-Williams Sure Shot contest.  Can’t say that I’ve heard anything like that from Joe before.

-  Zydrunas Ilgauskas is off to a very hot start tonight, and has 11 points in the first quarter and change.  Z has been dominating teams without respectable big men, while struggling against teams with quality bigs.  Another break, Cavs lead 33-29.

-  Because I could tell you were wondering, Zaza Pechulia’s real first name is Zaur.  Well, it makes more sense than Sasha being short for Aleksandar.

-  J.J. Hickson has plenty of weaknesses in his game, but man does he jump very high very quickly.

-  I’m not complaining, but the Hawks are getting jobbed by the officials in this quarter.  

-  LeBron with an acrobatic and-one, then he gives Delonte West a side five hard enough that you’d half-expect Delonte’s wrist to shatter again.  

-  I’m beginning to wonder just how many teams could survive the anchor that is Daniel Gibson?  Boobie is 0-for-4 despite getting numerous good looks, and just picked up a cheap foul to send Mike Bibby to the free throw line for two easy points.  At the break, the Cavs lead 53-43.  Really like the rebounding in the first half, with the Cavaliers outrebounding the Hawks 20-16, including 7-4 on the offensive glass.

Third Quarter:

-  Loving the Cavalier defense in the third quarter, hating the way the team is settling for jump shots offensively.  They should be up by 20 with the way they’re defending.

-  Yes, ESPN announcer Dave Pasch confused Mike Brown with Mike Woodson after a clear-path foul call.  They’re both bald, they both sometimes sport a goatee, but I’m pretty sure that Woodson has about six inches on the Cavalier coach.

-  Color me officially worried about Flip Murrary taking on the Mike James role from when the Cavaliers lost to the Wizards.  And I was thinking that before he knocked down the last shot of the third quarter to give Atlanta the lead, 68-67.  The Cavs scored just 14 points in that quarter because they got too comfortable with the lead and settled for jump shot after jump shot.

-  Delonte West is currently shooting 33% from the floor and has 5 turnovers.  And since he was sitting because Mike Brown thought he had four personal fouls, Joe Johnson finally got off and scored 11 points in the third quarter.

-  We’re heading into the first interesting fourth quarter since the All-Star break.

Fourth Quarter:

-  The Cavs picked up three fouls in the first 2:07 of the fourth quarter.  That is not a recipe for success on the road.  The Hawks are attacking the rim, the Cavs are not.

-  Zaza Pachulia is murdering the Cavs with his offensive rebounds.  When you’re having trouble scoring, as the Cavaliers are, it’s emotionally devestating to give up second-chance points, which the Cavaliers are.

-  I might have been premature in saying this fourth quarter will be interesting.  The Cavs are getting run out of the building here in the fourth.  Mike Brown and the coaching staff opened the door for this by failing to adjust in the third quarter; now they seem to have no solution for what the Hawks are doing.  The Hawks are up 7, 79-72.  

-  The Cavalier bench has scored 6 points.

-  The Cavaliers can’t even get the ball in after a timeout, having to waste another one.  Again, Mike Brown and Co are not getting it done right now.

-  The Cavs don’t even get a shot off after the timeout.  Miserable coaching.

-  Flip Murrary vs. Mo Williams scares the heck out of me down the stretch.

-  Anderson Varejao keeping the Cavs in the game by himself, with five points on a tough tough fadeaway jumper and an and-one bucket.  He also drew and offensive foul on the other end.  Cavs still in this one, trailing 82-80.

-  The ball finds Marvin Wiliams after a great defensive possession by the Cavaliers, and he knocks down a huge three to give the Hawks a five point lead with less than two minutes remaining.  Ouch.

-  Delonte West wastes 20 seconds before lauching and making a 20-footer.  Hate the shot, like the outcome.

-  LeBron gets whacked but no call, gets it back, finds Mo Williams who knocks down an even HUGE-ER three-pointer!  We’re tied at 87!

-  The Hawks have Bibby, Murray and Johnson together on the floor.  That seems to play right into the hands of the Cavalier defense, who want to use Mo, Delonte and LeBron to guard that trio.

-  LeBron gets the whistle this time, and he’s at the line.  Misses the first (ouch), but hits the second.  Cavs lead 88-87.

-  Hawks with 1.6 seconds to shoot trailing one.  Here we go.  No fouls please.

-  Joe Johnson got completely free, but his shot is just a bit long and the Cavs somehow escape this one with a win.

-  This was not a good game, but the Cavs will take it, especially with the Celtics and Lakers falling earlier today.  Late in the game, Doris Burke said “this is what good teams do,” referring to the Cavaliers staying alive.  That may be true, but I think I would flip it in this case.  The reason the Hawks are still a second-tier team is because they have trouble finishing games like this.  They are good enough to play tough in games like this, even good enough to win one or two.  But they aren’t good enough to win these games with any kind of regularity, and they will beat themselves too often.   

Go Cavs.  More tomorrow.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 1st, 2009 at 7:00 pm and is filed under Running Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.