Browns Show Some Life Against Chargers
December 7, 200912 Days of a Cleveland Christmas: Day 1
December 7, 2009The Bucks scored the first 11 points in this one. If you tuned in late you might be surprised to hear that because the Cavaliers dominated the rest of the first half. Sparked by the second unit, the Cavs scored an obscene 29 straight points, and Milwaukee missed on 17 consecutive shots. It was pretty ugly.
Delonte West was your POG, finishing with 21 points, 3 helpers and some timely defense on rookie of the year Brandon Jennings. West and James got key blocks on the rookie after he started to heat up. Jennings finished the game with 24 points on 22 shots. Mo Williams wanted to shut him down. You could see it in his intensity and read it all over his face. But he couldn’t. Jennings was a little too quick for Mo on Sunday. Somewhere in the third quarter Jennings realized the only person on Milwaukee’s roster capable of scoring was going to be him and he started going at Mo. This led to a sick behind the back move into the paint to shake Mo, but LeBron was there waiting on the rookie and swatted his ball a few rows deep.
So what do we need to take away from this game? First off, Jamario Moon is hurt. if you watched the Bulls game you saw him cringing when he came out of the game. He does have a bit of a groin issue, and is listed as day-to day. That didn’t really matter in this one, but will soon as the Cavs face young athletic teams in Memphis, Portland and Oklahoma. Secondly, LeBron James scored only 14 points on 10 shots. In fact, over the last 4 games LeBron has taken 10, 15, 17 and 20 shots respectively. All games in which the Cavs won handily. The point here is that the team is relying on LeBron to be the offense, and LeBron isn’t determined to keep up his scoring average. That’s a good sign-
“That’s what it’s all about, team sports,” James explained afterward. “You want to see your teammate compete. You want to see him go out and do just as well as you can do. When you have that time of camaraderie and that type of belief that I have in my teammates. … I’ve always been that type of player, I’ve always been that type of person. I just love the success of my teammates when they’re out there doing that. We’re all about chemistry and we’re getting better every day.”
Andy Varejao played a fantastic game, not that you would really notice it in the box score. (Typical Varejao I suppose.) Shaq got into a bit of foul trouble and didn’t have a great game offensively. The Bucks decided not to double Shaq, and he wasn’t getting getting his low post shot to fall. He did have a couple of monster dunks because of cuts and excellent passes. Really though, every Shaq dunk seems like a monster dunk.
(Lebron quote courtesy of the PD. Photo credit: Gary Dineen/NBAE via Getty Images.)
10 Comments
Pogs!
I know I called someone out on not getting the concept of bocce ball recently … but I really never really got the concept of pogs (not to say I still didn’t collect some sweet ones).
I’ve been giving LeBron a hard time for dominating the ball and taking the Cavs out of their offense in some games (I’m sure my criticism has been hard on him) and I’m glad he’s starting to let his teammates play a more prominent role in games. We’ll see what happens in some closer games. My and maybe others’ complaints are probably a little misguided since LeBron has been surrounded sub par supporting talent up until this year. It’s probably been a struggle for him to have faith in this squad when before he had the likes of Wally Zoolander coming in off the bench as a key member of the rotation.
@ Clown Baby –
@ Denny-
Uncanny isn’t it? Thanks for that, made my day.
I’m so excited to see Delonte have another great game. I don’t want him to start because I like what he brings off the bench, but I hope this game will help ensure that he gets more consistent playing time.
HaHa @ Wally Zoolander. Quality entertainment.
It’s interesting to me that a lot of commentators are attributing the 29-0 run to poor shooting by Milwaukee. And that’s sort of true, but I’m enough of an optimist to think the Cavs keeping everyone but Jennings out of the paint and quickly closing out on shooters might have made a difference.
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