Cleveland Sports Perspective

If someone had told you that the Cavaliers would hold Paul Pierce and Ray Allen to a combined four points in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semi-finals, you would have felt very confident in a Cleveland victory.  On the other hand, if that same person told you LeBron James would go 2 for 18 from the floor, you would be certain that the wine and gold would lose Game 1.  Even though both events occurred, the latter scenario held true as the Cavs went down 76-72 last night in Boston.

It was too much Kevin Garnett for Boston, as The Big Ticket scored 28 points, including two big hoops down the stretch to give the Celtics two point leads in the final minute.  And as predicted, Rajon Rondo hurt the Cavs, scoring 15 points and dishing out six assists.  Twinsburg graduate James Posey was also a key player for Boston, scoring 8 points and contributing to the tough defense the green played on LeBron James.

Boston played excellent team defense, not just on James, but also in total.  The wine and gold shot just 30% from the floor, and a paltry 4 for 18 from behind the three-point line.  As has been the story in all seven playoff games, when the Cavaliers are making shots, they win.  Last night, they didn’t and they lost a game in which they themselves played excellent defense.  You have to figure if James has even a below average shooting game, Cleveland takes the home court advantage by winning Game 1. 

However, part of LBJ’s problems was due to the design, or lack of it, of the Cleveland offense.  The Celtics decided to put two, sometimes three men on #23, in an effort to get the ball out of his hands, and also to keep him from going to the basket.  Why doesn’t Mike Brown have James come off screens and get the ball in motion?  Also, is it against the rules to have James post up from time to time?  It’s easy for a good defensive team to find LeBron James.  He’s the guy with the ball dribbling at the top of the key while his teammates flatten out or to try to run a pick and roll with him.  It’s too easy for a team like Boston.

The only Cavaliers who had a good offensive night was Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who scored 22 points on 8 of 18 shooting.  Actually, Wally Szczerbiak wasn’t bad either, hitting 5 of 14, including two of the team’s four three point shots.

Another curious decision was the DNP attached to Devin Brown’s name in the box score.  Coach Brown decided to go with the returning Sasha Pavlovic instead.  D. Brown has outplayed Pavlovic all season long, and was a key contributor throughout the regular season.  He deserves some playing time because he is such a versatile player.

The wine and gold now have to win Game 2, or they face an uphill battle.  Remember, they lost the first two games against Detroit last year, only to win four straight, so they have overcome an 0-2 deficit before.  James will be better, but so will Allen and Pierce.  The Cavs need Anderson Varajao to step up and play Garnett, because the combination of Ben Wallace and Joe Smith struggled last night.  Once again, and it sounds simplistic, the Cavs need to make shots.  If they do, they can come home all tied in the series.

JK

The Cleveland Indians are lucky.  They are lucky that no team in the AL Central has gotten off to a great start, so even though they have had a tough first month of the season, they sit just 2-1/2 games out of first place.  They are lucky that the Cavaliers won their first round playoff series, so some of the attention has been removed from their lack of hitting.  And they are fortunate that every once and awhile they score a substantial amount of runs, so they don’t rank last in the American League in every offensive category.

The hitting woes for the Tribe continued over the weekend when they were held to four hits in both games against the Kansas City Royals.  First, Luke Hochevar did it, and then Gil Meche, who came into the contest with an ERA over 7.  Not exactly Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale doing the deed, is it?  The Tribe has scored four runs or less in more than half their games this season, and in today’s era of baseball, no team can win with that sort of offensive attack.

The Indians rank 10^th in the league in runs scored, ahead of just Baltimore, Toronto, Kansas City, and Minnesota.  In OPS (on base percentage plus slugging percentage), Cleveland is ahead of only the Twins and the Royals, a lowly ranking indeed.  Surprisingly, they have dropped to fifth in the circuit in striking out, but they have only walked more than five teams.  Their team slugging percentage ranks third last, ahead of only the Blue Jays and Royals, meaning the extra base hit, which had been a staple of the offense, has all but disappeared.

What can be done?  Well, there isn’t anyone red hot at Buffalo that deserves a call up, but apparently Ben Francisco will be back with the team in New York tomorrow night.  Will the Tribe make a move with Jason Michaels, or take the easy way out by sending little used reliever Tom Mastny back to the minors?  Another move that needs to be made is sending Asdrubal Cabrera back to Triple A, and bringing back Josh Barfield.  Barfield isn’t hitting and still is whiffing a lot, but the youngster who provided a spark to the team last year appears to have no idea at the dish.

This is a broken record for this blog, but really, could Andy Marte do any worse than the rest of the guys who are playing?  He has just 13 at bats for the year, and with Casey Blake’s defensive deficiencies starting to creep up again (two key errors in the past week), what harm can come from giving the youngster a shot. 

Eric Wedge has tried just about everything.  He has shuffled the lineup; he has even started to play some small ball, something he really doesn’t like to do (and I agree with that).  The only thing left is to try some different personnel.  Swing mechanics have something to do with it as well, as this team is hitting an unusual amount of pop flies.  Perhaps a new hitting instructor should be looked at since the team hasn’t hit since before last year’s all-star break with the exception of the last six weeks of the season.

With three games at Yankee Stadium followed by Toronto’s fine pitching staff (we will see Roy Halladay on Friday night), the promise of improvement doesn’t look good.  The Cleveland Indians are wasting some excellent pitching performances.  They are lucky they have not been buried in the AL Central Division race.

KM

Nothing comes easy this season for the Cleveland Cavaliers.  They could have wrapped up their first round series against the Washington Wizards by winning at home last night.  However, they played without a lot of playoff intensity and dropped an 88-87 decision last night to force a sixth game in Washington on Friday night.  The wine and gold only have to win one of the last two games, but you have to believe the Wizards will be ready on their home floor tomorrow night.

The Cavs started off the game lethargic and didn’t show any playoff intensity until the fourth quarter.  They trailed by seven after the first quarter, and at that point, the Wizards were a one-man team, with Caron Butler scoring 16 of their first 25 points.  Cleveland trailed by two at the half, and by three after three quarters.  The Wizards backs were to the wall, and they played like it.  The Cavs didn’t match their intensity, as they didn’t even dominate on the glass, as they normally do.

Cleveland didn’t shoot the ball well, and the biggest reason was their continued use of the three point shot.  When you are making almost half of these shots, it’s a good option.  When you are hitting only 36% of these shots, it might be time to look inside.  Particularly in the closing minutes of the game when you have the lead, you need to attack the basket, especially at home.  Ironically, the wine and gold shot the same percentage from the floor overall, as no one outside of Zydrunas Ilgauskas could hit consistently from the floor.

However, I think the biggest flaw was one that is made by many coaches.  The Cavs stopped running offense too early.  With a five point lead and less than two minutes to go, Cleveland seemed to be running a stall, trying to run as much of the clock as you can, before taking a shot.  Unfortunately, when you do that, it usually results in a bad shot.  The Cavs needed to play at their normal pace until about 45 seconds remaining.  They also reverted back to the give LeBron the ball, and everybody watches offense they lapse into far too often.  They ignored Ilgauskas in the fourth quarter as well.  Yesterday, it cost them a game.

Another disturbing development has been the performance, or lack of it, from Anderson Varajao.  The Brazilian seems to be trying to do too much on offense, and it is dragging down his entire game.  In 16 minutes last night, he hit just 1 of 6 shots and grabbed just three rebounds.  Of course, he wasn’t the only one missing shots.  The quartet of Wally Szczerbiak, Joe Smith, Varajao, and Devin Brown combined to hit just 3 out of 23 shots.  One of those guys hitting one more shot would have resulted in a win.

So, now the Cavs have made it difficult.  There is no reason they cannot win in Washington, heck they did it last Sunday.  The Wizards’ backs are still against the wall.  However, the Cavs need to put this series away.  No matter how many statistics people will come up with on seventh games at home in NBA history, and how the home team almost always wins, it still would be one game, and anything can happen.  The Cavs need to treat Friday night’s game like it is Game 7.

JK