OSU Advances to the 2nd Round
March 20, 2010Tribe Roster Moves – Chisenhall, Hodges, Donald Sent Down (UPDATE-Kerry Wood out 6-8 Weeks)
March 20, 2010
At the beginning of this month, I wrote that the Cavaliers March schedule was perhaps the easiest monthly stretch of games that any team in the league would face all season. They have won 9 of 10 so far with the only loss coming in Milwaukee sans LeBron. They continued their run through the Central Division last night against a depleted Chicago Bulls team. The Cavs played with low intensity and with little regard for their opponent. The game was closer than it should have been but the Cavs appeared to show no concern or doubt that they would not end up with the victory when all was said and done. The main takeaway from this game was yet another milestone achieved by LeBron: youngest player in NBA history to reach 15,000 points.
There were simply few notable moments last night in Chicago other than your typical LBJ “wow” athleticism (we are spoiled) and some much needed improved free throw shooting. LeBron finished with 29-11-7 which came quietly until he scored 13 points in a fourth quarter takeover as the Cavs kicked into gear to finish off Chicago. The Bulls were without Luol Deng, Joakim Noah, and Derrick Rose and had lost 9 in a row. Brian Windhorst expounded on the easy schedule and March lethargy:
The Cavs are very clearly restless with what is going on right now and they need a challenge. Some would say they could use a loss. They are winning by giving somewhere around 70 percent effort because, not only are they in an easy part of the schedule, but they continue to face teams that are decimated by injuries.
You could clearly see it during the fourth quarter when they were behind a few times. There was no concern whatsoever on the bench or on the floor that were going to lose the game. It may be easy to feel that way when playing against a team like the Bulls, who are on a miserable losing streak because of their injury problems. But they looked the same way when beating Boston on Sunday.
The Cavs won last night with little contribution from Antawn Jamison on the offensive end. He scored on 2 points and took only 4 shots. Mo Williams was shooting well and scored 18 points. But aside from Anderson Varejao, who was his usual active self, the Cavs seemed to coast throughout the game. While most of the basketball world is focused on the college game, the end of March in the NBA is often used to begin to round out a playoff rotation and ramp up the intensity heading into the stretch run and playoff season. The Cavaliers’ “stretch run” may consist of simply resting their players due to their success throughout the season.
Mike Brown is concerned with the lethargy and stretch of weak opponents because of potential bad habits that can develop when a team is not playing at its highest level with intensity and purpose. A microcosm of this coasting has been the continual struggle to maintain large leads in games over the past two seasons. This is a nitpick of a deep and successful team but has to be a concern as the regular season winds down.
It was beneficial to have some easier games after Shaq initially went down and Z was traded away. Antawn has been incorporated into the offense and Z should be back this week. The Cavs appear to be destined for the best record in the league with a 3 game lead on the Lakers who have a tougher schedule and are now dealing with what could be a serious injury to Andrew Bynum. The Cavs hit the road and take on more injury riddled teams in New Orleans and San Antonio this week but it should at least provide a more intense competition than we have seen over the past two weeks. But first they must take care of business against the woeful Detroit Pistons for the 3rd time in two weeks at the Q tomorrow evening.
(AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
15 Comments
But we are not finishing in the right way. Last night’s fourth was ugly. Do you think that we will ever run screen and rolls with LeBron and Antawn? Wasn’t that the highlight of picking him up?
I don’t mind coasting. But the offensive execution is terrible. My big fear is the lack of conviction when initiating offensive sets. It’s so lax. They are turning the ball over, setting weak screens, not cutting hard, and struggling with entry passes. Against heightened defensive pressure, those problems will be exacerbated.
Let’s hope the first round or two of the playoffs will be all the time the Cavs need to turn it up.
The Cavs have secured themselves the easiest schedule in the NBA by earning the best record, thus saving themselves the trouble of having to actually play against the best team, themselves. Is this a bad situation? Should they rather prefer to have the second or third best record, and not to have to face too many weak teams at once?
In any case, I don’t think the team is mailing it in, despite what Windy wrote, in one of his most impressionistic pieces. The Cavs always have some kind of motivation. Facing a former coach now at the helm in Detroit, roundly despising the Bulls’ players, etc. When they start dropping games to sub-par teams, let’s maybe have this discussion. I don’t personally care if they are not stellar in execution every quarter of every game. What team ever was?
The schedule might be easy, but the wins haven’t been. Pulling out all these games at the end might actually be a good thing because we are learning how to finish. Or it could be a bad thing because it might wear us out. Who knows? Not me.
The easy March schedule is about to give way to a tough April schedule.
If we can avoid injuries it will be a good warm up for the playoffs when we have little at stake by that point.
I like how the schedule worked out this year. We’ll have home court wrapped up by the time we face Atlanta, Orlando, and the Celts.
@8 — That’s what I remember after looking at the schedule. They play San Antonio away, too, which I don’t think can be considered “easy”.
Whoa, don’t know what happened. My response was for arian_O, though.
Dblock to the Bayhawks…Z incoming for the splashdown!
@Phil – I agree completely. What team executes well for all 4 quarters in every game? If they had not beating the Lakers, Celts, Magic, etc then I might be worried. But coasting against these crappy teams is expected.
I think getting Z back will inject some new life back into these guys. It’s like playing your little brother to NBA players in this part of the season. They’ll pick it up for better teams, but really only Dallas, Denver, Orlando, LA, and MAYBE the Hawks can beat us going 100%.
we have to play the pistons (play us hard), boston, orlando and Atlanta before the regular season ends..not easy.
Sun, Mar 21 Detroit 6:00 PM W
Wed, Mar 24 @ New Orleans 8:00 PM W — Z’s Back
Fri, Mar 26 @ San Antonio 8:30 PM ?
Sun, Mar 28 Sacramento 3:00 PM W
Wed, Mar 31 Milwaukee 7:00 PM W
Fri, Apr 2 Atlanta 8:00 PM W
Sun, Apr 4 @ Boston 1:00 PM W
Tue, Apr 6 Toronto 7:00 PM W
Thu, Apr 8 @ Chicago 8:00 PM W
Fri, Apr 9 Indiana 7:30 PM W
Sun, Apr 11 Orlando 1:00 PM ?
Wed, Apr 14 @ Atlanta W
10 – 2 in the last 12 IF we have something to play for throughout.
Probably more like 8 – 4 since they won’t have much to play for after April 8th. That’s my Prediction
Can’t wait for some competent, intact teams. These games have been SO DULL. Watching the Cavs sleepwalk through three and a half quarters is just ponderous. It is terrific that our team is so great they don’t even have to try hard to beat pro basketball squads from other towns. And it is equally terrific that the Cavs are essentially resting their starters while they are actually playing games. But this is about me, and me is very bored. Is this a lame complaint? Yes, it is.
Who cares it’s the regular season. Remember what playing hard got us last year.
@13
I hate this argument whenever I see it. Just because we didn’t win last year (because of horrible matchup problems that Windhorst had been projecting for months ahead of time) doesn’t mean we should do the opposite of everything we did.
It’s not bad to play hard in every game, it’s not bad to rest starters in the 4th, and it’s not bad to have the best record in the league and home court throughout.
The lessons from last year should be that we can’t relax despite being the best. All of those ancillary things aren’t enough by themselves to win championships, but they are certainly helpful little things that can make the winning easier.
@1 Jack I’m with you that fourth quarter watching LeBron’s teammates watch him try to single handedly win that game was terrible. It’s been awhile since we saw that customary offense down the stretch but that’s due in large part to the Cavaliers coaching, I believe. It’s still my opinion that Mike Brown and his staff aren’t quite up to a championship level which come a potential finals appearance could be an issue.
I’m waiting for a runaway victory over one of these playoff pretenders instead of this Eric Wedge like performance, “Grind it out win.” Maybe today against Detroit, I hope.