Eastern Conference Finals Game 4 Open Thread
May 26, 2009ECF Game 4 Numbers and Words
May 27, 2009While We’re Waiting aims to be the round-up of the recent WFNY-esque information for your morning viewing. Have something you think we should see? Send it to our tips email in the sidebar.
“It is an ode to LeBron James’ greatness that the Cavs have been within two points in three games in this series. Seriously, the fact that the Cavs could have won all four of these games is just as high of a line on James’ resume as his last conference finals series. He’s having one of the best series in the history of the NBA and the Cavs are trying to avoid a five-game sweep. If you can appreciate it but you probably can’t. Do you realize how tough of a shot he made on the 3-pointer inside 10 seconds in overtime. That’s almost as hard of shot than he made in Game 2. Folks, he’s averaging 43 points a game in this series. Did you read that? He’s averaging that on 50 percent shooting.” [Brian Windhorst/Plain Dealer]
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“One more win. This is the only way the NBA will know that maybe it is marketing the wrong superstar. This the only way Nike will know it should have locked up Dwight years ago, put him in that puppet commercial and instructed the world to witness his greatness.” (See what he did there?) [Mike Bianchi/Orlando Sentinel]
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No, James is not above criticism. You can feast on those flaws if you want. You can say or Bird or Kobe Bryant never would have thrown the ball away four times in the fourth quarter. You’d be wrong, of course, but you can say it. You can also regurgitate how James needs titles to validate his greatness. All I know is if that’s the case, Will Perdue is at least four times the champion James is. And with all due respect to Perdue, he never hit a 3-pointer to win a game like James did last Friday. […] James can still salvage his reputation, at least temporarily, by winning Thursday night in Cleveland. It pays to remember Orlando closed out its first two playoffs with road wins at Philadelphia and Boston. [David Whitley/NBA FanHouse]
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“The defensive strategy for most of the series has been for James to begin by covering Orlando point guard Rafer Alston, then leave him to help on defense with Dwight Howard, Rashard Lewis or Hedu Turkoglu. Three words: It’s not working! Yes, James needs help. But the team needs do to better than allow Orlando to shoot 50 percent, night after night. Or this series will end in Cleveland Thursday night.” [Terry Pluto/Plain Dealer]
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I know the Cavaliers are upset to be down 3-1, but they should at least take solace in the fact that they forced the Magic to overtime, on the road, despite yielding a whopping 17 made three-pointers. On the other hand, there’s really no excusing how wide-open they left the Magic on a lot of those threes. I suppose they can live with some of Alston’s looks because he is the Magic’s poorest outside shooter in the rotation, historically speaking, but they consistently left Mickael Pietrus open in the corners, his favorite places to shoot. Cleveland dared Alston to win the game for Orlando, and he delivered more often than not. 26 points on 10-of-17 from the field and 6-of-12 from three-point range. Taking what the defense gave him, which is to say taking a lot. Stellar play from Orlando’s deadline-day acquisition. [Ben Q Rock/Third Quarter Collapse]
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“In the end, there’s nothing Mike Brown’s disciplined defense can really do to slow down the Magic and their gimmick offense. His system is based on help and recover. Against the Magic, helping only digs you into a grave, one Michael Pietrus three at a time. The Magic have forced LeBron to work overtime on defense, which has partially slowed him down towards the end of games (eight turnovers combined in the fourth quarter and in overtime).” [Cursed Cleveland]
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“If one less thing goes right for Orlando, or Cleveland manages any more, the Cavs win, and we’d be tied 2-2. But based on what we’ve seen, the Magic also have far more things that could go right. Even if the Cavs get big games from Delonte West and Mo Williams — West was very good, not great, tonight, while Williams started hot but disappeared late — you’ll still need a lot more out of those two plus LeBron to put together a clear-cut win. Even if the Cavs had tied the series, you’d still have to go with the Magic at this point.” [Bethlehem Shoals/The Baseline]
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Other Cleveland News and Notes:
Your No. 2 starting pitcher: “[Carl] Pavano is certainly an unheralded MVP so far for the team this year. Without him the Indians would be that much further in last place.” [Let’s Go Tribe]
Lance Allred’s book gets a review by Vince Grzegorek. [’64 and Counting]
Digging Rod Hood: “Those who are still with us, that is 10 cornerbacks on the Browns with the addition of Hood. Unlike most of the players Mangini has brought in, Hood should be in his prime at 27 years old. It is not clear whether Hood was brought in to replace Brandon McDonald or Eric Wright in the starting line up or if Hood will finally be the nickel corner the Browns tried, and failed, to find last season. This move also should provide the Browns some depth at the corner position. The last time Hood was a free agent, the Browns tried hard under the leadership of Phil Savage to sign him. This is an excellent signing that provides starting caliber depth to a position that is growing in need as teams run more and more three and four receiver sets.” [Don Delco/No Logo Needed]
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(Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images)
23 Comments
A guy from Cleveland named Scott Raab was quoted about the Cavs season in the SI cover story last week. He said:
“I have no doubt this will end in sorrow. I don’t know how. I just know I’ll be watching how on ESPN Classic for the rest of my life.”
Of the billions of words that have been written about our town’s sports failures, none has ever summed up Cleveland’s soul like these have. We ought to etch these words on a giant slab of granite on Public Square.
I know that Bianchi dude is just sticking up for his hometown boy, but to put Howard in remotely the same class as James is a joke.
Howard is a dominant rebounder and shot blocker, but he has no offensive game outside of 5 feet, is mentally and physically rattled by physical play, and consistently violates the basic rules of the game – by setting blatant moving screens and camping out in the lane indefinitely.
He’s got a LONG way to go before he’s even close to James, who has the potential to be one of the best ever.
If Orlando gets to the Finals they better pray LA wins – Howard has no chance against physical players like Nene and K-Mart. It just so happens that he’s a mathup problem for our aging center who lacks foot speed and prefers to take pick and pop jumpers.
What a miserable last 12 hours.. Well if you wanna look on the brightside (assuming there is one) the Cavs now have nothing to lose and arent the team with all the pressure on them. Seems like it was just yesterday the Red Sox came back from down 3-1 and beat us, why can’t we do the same? No matter what anybody says I KNOW we have the better team, not to mention the best player in the world. It makes me wanna pull my hair out watching Pietrus, Lewis, Lee, Alston, Turkoglu whomever go off every night. Seems like they take turns lighting up the score board. This is so frustrating to watch but Im not gonna give up.. We won 66 games this year, winning 2 home games and 1 road game seems pretty easy compared to that. GO CAVS!!!!!!
LeBron is incredible. It frustrates me to no end how smug the O fans and media have become after the 3 wins. I yearn to be complaining about Boston media and fans. At least they care and pay attention all year round.
Mo Williams – FAIL
Zydrunas Ilgauskas – FAIL
Entire Bench – FAIL
Mo Williams – FAIL (again)
Throughout the season, the Cavs have demonstrated time & time again that anything is possible. We’ve come this far, why give up and start doubting them now?
One game at a time.. go Cavs.
LeBron truly is having one of the best statistical playoff series in history (even with his eight turnovers yesterday). The big problem he is having is the countless missed shots by his teammates. He was in “distribution mode” but by the time the end of the game came around, he was forced to give it up, and try to put the team on his shoulders. The only problem is that he was tired as heck by that point. I think we forget he is human at times. He hadn’t sat out a minute in the second half. Now I do not think he should be playing as the point guard, as our offense runs much more effectively when he is moving without the ball, but I do think he just got fed up with his teammates’ performance. Frankly, what worries me now is that he is so fed up with giving his all that he does not want to resign with us. I thought for sure before this series that he would resign with us. Unfortunately now I have giant doubts about that. Obviously this worries all of us Cleveland fans. I think Lebron would have been fine if Orlando just beat us. The problem lies in that they are not the better team, but are playing like it. We have the better team, but for whatever reason, we are playing like a shell of the team that we were in the regular season.
Now I have by no means given up, but as a lifelong Cleveland sports fan (only of 20 years) I am beginning to feel that desperation and hopeless feeling that my dad has been feeling since the Browns left town 15 years ago. Yes I have not been alive for more than half of our championship drought, but I have lived through enough heartache to understand the hopelessness. I am not hopeless yet, and even though I can see the strong possibility of this season “ending in sorrow”, I’m still pushing that sorrow away for the moment. We can overcome this…but it is going to take a monumental effort from everyone on the team (including Mike Brown), and in this city, for us to do so.
Well at least this feeling is nothing new!! I’ll still watch and believe they could win Thursday and even Saturday and Sunday, but honestly this just feels so much more right than how we felt after the 1st two rounds.
I’m disappointed but by being through so many seasons and heartbreaks this is like riding a bike.
What was Ben Wallace doing on the floor “guarding” a perimeter threat (Rashard Lewis) at the end of regulation? I’d rather have Sasha out there on him . . . he IS taller than Ben, no?
Ben is 6’9″, Sasha is 6’7″. I would have rather had Joe Smith in there personally.
Ben may be listed as 6″9″ but I believe that he is actually closer to 6″7″ or so. Coupled with the fact that he -and Joe Smith- are fairly immobile and I would take Sasha chasing Lewis through screens in that situation.
http://www.82games.com/trueheight.html
” Ever wonder how teams missed Ben Wallace? I did. From what I can tell it was fairly simple. Wallace measured at 6’7 in pre-draft workouts.”
Regarding the Rashard play…
After ORL took the timeout when they didn’t like the defense, why not switch James to Lewis? Obviously, ORL was going to adjust something. I wish we would have considered adjusting as well.
Then again, it was a heck of a shot…
#7 – I’m sorry to say that Orlando is the better team right now. We were better in the regular season, but they are absolutely better right now. This is readily apparent to anyone watching the games.
We also have to stop complaining about how many 3’s Orlando is making. The reason they are making so many 3’s is because we are not guarding the perimeter well. Any NBA guard can hit 50% from 3 with no one in his face.
That being said, I still think we will win this series. But, that is just my blind faith in LeBron talking. Nothing I have seen so far gives me any indication that the Cavs have nearly as much talent as the Magic
Have to give it to Lewis. He keeps taking and making the big shots. Can’t really get upset about that, just impeccably clutch shooting.
“Any NBA guard can hit 50% from 3 with no one in his face. ”
Apparently AND 1 Mixtape guards as well…
As much as you have to tip your cap to Lewis for the turnaround three at the end of regulation, here’s what I don’t get:
This is the only way the NBA will know that maybe it is marketing the wrong superstar.
Umm, for as much complaining as they do about James, they ought to recognize that Howard does nothing more than set moving screens and camp out in the lane. Oh, but yeah, it’s James that gets all the calls.
This is like the Diamondbacks winning the World Series in ’01. Their fans had no idea what was happening while it was happening.
#13 – Obviously not EVERY guard in the NBA can hit 50% from beyond 3 with nobody within 10 feet (see Mo & Delonte)
@JK: “We won 66 games this year, winning 2 home games and 1 road game seems pretty easy compared to that. GO CAVS!!!!!!” well when you put it that way… yeah!
@scott: i was thinking the same thing. they obviously adjusted and we just went out there with the exact same defense? sounds ludicrous to me. can you imagine having a quarterback call an audible and the defense not even think about adjusting to it?
@#13- I agree, Orlando is the better team right now…that is they are playing as the better team. The thing is…we are the better team, at least we used to be. For whatever reason, we are playing as the worse team at the moment. I sure hope we do win this series, God knows we have the potential to do so, especially after we let them hit 17 threes and only lose by 2.
Noone should be surprised by clueless bandwagoneering in Florida… let’s not forget all those Marlins “fans” from the *pukes* 1997 *pukes* World Series *pukes 20 times*.
#20: you mean, the best World Championship team money can buy and then fire-sell?
Wow didn’t even think of the Marlins.. awful. Anybody see the guy in the Florida Gators polo doing that gator chomp to the camera? Why does it always have to be Florida?
@22: Hey, it’s Boston *and* Florida. Six times (going on seven) in the past 12 years our teams have had their hearts ripped out by Boston (Indians 99 & 07, Cavs 08) or Florida (Indians 97, OSU 07 x2). I hate them all.