Category: Cleveland Cavaliers (Page 29 of 88)

Game 7. One shot. One opportunity.

The Cavaliers weren’t supposed to be in this situation. They weren’t even expected to make their semifinal matchup against the Pistons a competitive series. But the Cavs have proven most of the NBA wrong and find themselves facing a Game 7 against the Detroit Pistons, arguably the best team in the league.

Win, and advance to the Eastern Conference Finals. Lose, and go home. As young ballers hooping it up on the playgrounds, most of the Cavaliers I’m sure dreamt about one day playing in game like this and Sunday they will get their chance.

Damon Jones’ three against Washington. LeBron’s baseline layup. The Cavaliers’ exciting playoff ride undoubtedly has had its fair share of drama. The Cavs have played with a renewed sense of passion and desire since the untimely death of Justin Hughes. The passing of Larry’s brother has provided inspiration for the team and the Cavs have a chance to continue their unforgettable postseason run with one more victory. Can LeBron lead the team to victory one last time? That remains to be seen. No matter how you look at Game 7 against Detroit, it will be one with great intensity. Both teams will leave everything on the floor. At this point, both opponents know pretty much everything about one another. Scouting reports and watching tape is helpful but what it really comes down to is heart and who wants it more. The Cavs have one game to show the world what they are made of. Let’s do it!

Second chance points and offensive rebounds down the stretch abled the Pistons to barely edge the Cavaliers for an 84-82 Game 6 win Friday night at “The Q”. With the Cavs down 84-81, LeBron could have tied it with a three but was fouled before he could attempt to do so, sending him to the line for two free throws with less than two seconds left. He made the first and intentionally missed the second which resulted in a missed tip-in. Rasheed Wallance led the Pistons with 24 points on 4-8 from beyond the arc and LeBron James finished with 32 points and 11 rebounds. Cleveland couldn’t knock down any long range jumpers, going only 2 of 12 from three-point land.

“Nobody thought we would be here,” James said. “Nobody thought we’d be in a Game 7 against the Pistons. We proved the doubters wrong. We have to prove some more wrong.”

Whenever the Pistons needed a basket in the game, someone managed to deliver. They never allowed the Cavs to sustain their runs for long periods of time. I don’t know whether it was lucky bounces or lack of hustle but the constant offensive rebounds by the Pistons at the end of the game was just a killer. This loss was frustrating not only because we could have closed the deal on our home floor but we have to play a Game 7 in Detroit, who has all the momentum now. Sure, we beat them on their court in Game 5 but it makes it that much more difficult to do it two straight times. Win or go home!

Rewind your internal calendars to a week ago. The Cavaliers were staring at a 2-0 deficit after getting beaten handily by the Detroit Pistons in the first two games in the series. Anyone who bet on the Cavs winning the next three, when Detroit hadn’t lost three games in a row all season, sure would be a pretty rich man by now. After Game 2, nobody, including those in Cleveland, gave the Cavaliers a chance to win the series, let alone win another game. However, the Wine and Gold have done the unthinkable and have taken the lead in the series with an 86-84 nailbiter in Motown Wednesday night.

LeBron led the charge with 32 points and had 5 assists. His biggest dish came in the final minute when he passed to Drew Gooden in the paint for the game-winning bucket. Tayshaun Prince attempted a driving runner but was rejected by Donyell Marshall, who finished with 14 points and 13 rebounds. The Cavs built a 10-point lead midway through the third quarter but the Pistons battled back to close to gap to two to start the fourth quarter. The Cavaliers once again toughened up defensively in the clutch and never allowed the Pistons to take the lead.

Zydrunas Ilgauskas finally woke up temporarily from a month-long nap and contributed 14 points and 10 rebounds, before fouling out in the fourth quarter. Varejao again had an outstanding game, taking charges and elbows in the face all night long.

The Cavaliers have given the Pistons a taste of their own medicine the last three games with aggressiveness, hustle, and strong late-game defense. Cleveland is playing like a former championship team right now, not the Pistons. The James Gang has constantly given LB support even when the young star has not been on his “A” game. Everyone seems to know their role on the team and are playing like they’ve been there before. The Cavaliers and their fans are witnessing something extremely special.

“Everybody wrote us off, but we started to get some confidence in the second half of Game 2 and we’ve just kept it going,” Cavs reserve Damon Jones said.

No, Cavalier fans, this is not a dream. We have a chance to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals Friday night. Let “The Q” rock!

Kenny Roda will be writing a weekly blog on Cleveland Scores covering the entire Cleveland sports universe. Check back often for his updates!

Have you ever been called to testify as a witness in a trial? I haven’t, but have been on the jury. In fact, I was the jury foreman over 20 years ago and had to read the not guilty verdict that we decided on. I can’t remember if Denny Crane of Boston Legal was the winning lawyer in that case or not.

For me, this NBA basketball season is the first time I have ever been a WITNESS. I always thought that being a WITNESS would be scary and nerve-racking, but it has actually been quite exhilarating. There’s no courtroom drama, but there is plenty of drama on the court. I’m having the time of my life and so are thousands upon thousands of other Cavalier fans, or should I say “WITNESSES,” in Cleveland and across the nation. That’s because we are all WITNESSING the development of a true superstar before our very eyes faster than any in the history of the NBA.

FACT…At age 21, in only his third season in the league, LeBron averaged 31.4 points to go along with seven rebounds and 6.6 assists every time he stepped on the court. FACT…To give you an idea of how those numbers stack up in the annals of NBA history, only Oscar Robertson, Jerry West and Michael Jordan averaged those numbers for a complete regular season. FACT…Let’s not forget that he shot 48% from the field, 74% from the free throw line and 33% from three-point country. FACT…His team won 50 games and finished with the third best record in the Eastern Conference, a stat that the team-oriented King James perhaps would rank above any of his individual accomplishments. The big 50 secured a playoff spot for the first time in eight years and home-court advantage for the Cavaliers in the first round of the playoffs against the Washington Wizrads. We’ll get to them in a minute. FACT…It’s only the fourth time in franchise history that a Cavalier team has reached the 50-win plateau. FACT…The pre-LeBron Cavs managed only 17 wins. Once LeBron came on board, obviously everything changed. LeBron doubled the team’s win total in his rookie season and led them to 42 victories in his second year. With this year’s 50 W’s, LeBron has improved the Cavaliers’ win total by 33 games in just three seasons.

So you’re probably saying with those numbers he must have picked up the league’s MVP trophy. Nope. That honor, for the second year in a row, went to Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns as voted on by 125 media panelists from around the country. Nash received 57 first place votes to LeBron’s 16. Nash totaled 924 points in the balloting to LeBron’s 668, which put King James in a distant second. What a joke! Ask any General Manager in the league today who they’d rather have, and that vote would be unanimous in favor of number 23. Nash averaged only 18.8 ppg, led the league in assists with 10.5, but only pulled down 4.2 rebounds per game. His shooting percentages were better than LeBron’s and his team’s win total eclipsed the Cavs by four games, but he also had the fortune of playing with another All Star in Shawn Marion, who averaged a double-double with 18.7 ppg and 10.5 rpg. James was able to put up his numbers without having an All Star sidekick as well as a player who averaged a double-double. Both the Suns and the Cavs played without key players in Amare Stoudemire and Larry Hughes, both of whom were out with injuries. So you tell me who helped his team more, carried his team more, and truly deserved the MVP!

Now to the playoffs, where legends are made. The playoffs are pressure packed. As the old saying goes, pressure will either burst pipes or create diamonds. Well if that statement is true, then the Cavaliers’ plumbing at “The Q” is just fine and team owner Dan Gilbert has a $100 million jewel in his pocket. In his first ever playoff game, LBJ stared pressure in the face and threw up a triple-double against the WITNESSES of Washington with 32 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists in Cleveland’s first postseason victory in eight years. King James would go on to lead the Cavaliers to a 4-2 series win over Washington. In those six pressure-filled games, he hit two game-winning shots, averaged 35.7 points, 7.5 rebounds and 5.7 assists, and shot 51% from the field, 75% from the free throw line and 38% from three-point land.

The only players in history to post a higher scoring average in their playoff debut? Wilt Chamberlin and Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Not a bad fraternity to be a part of. One final note on the Washington series. It was the first playoff series the Cavaliers won since 1993, when they defeated the New Jersey Nets. LeBron was just eight years old.

So as a WITNESS, are you believing my case that we are seeing something, or in this case, someone, who is destined for greatness, someone who should have been the NBA’s MVP even if he is only 21? If not, let me give you some more evidence. It’s Round 2 of the Eastern Conference playoffs. It’s the Cavaliers against basketball’s best regular season team, the Detroit Pistons. The Motown Maulers won a franchise record 64 games and secured home-court advantage throughout the playoffs by doing so. They won the NBA title two years ago, lost in the Finals last year to San Antonio, and were favored by many to regain the crown this year. And after games 1 and 2 in this series, both convincing wins by Detroit, it looked like Cleveland was nothing but a mere speed bump on the road to glory. Enter King James and over 20,000 screaming WITNESSES at “The Q” in Cleveland for games 3 and 4.

Once again James defied the odds that Charles Barkley loves to bet on and posted his second triple-double of the postseason in Game 3 with 21 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists in an 86-77 win. Only Magic Johnson has posted more triple-doubles in his first ever playoff season. Then in Game 4, LeBron knocked down the game-winning free throws and had a huge block and steal in the last minute to secure the victory and even the series at two games apiece. In the 74-72 Game 4 win, James finished with 22 points, 8 rebounds, 9 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocks in 48 minutes. Before games 3 and 4 Detroit was thinking sweep. After Game 3 the Pistons’ Rasheed Wallace guaranteed Detroit would win the next two games and end the series in five games. One thing the Motor City motor mouth forgot to take into account was LeBron James. Add Rasheed to the list of thousands of WITNESSES. The series is up for grabs now.

Regardless of the outcome of the Cavs-Pistons series, one thing is for certain. What we have WITNESSED already is greatness in the making. LeBron’s destiny seems to be that of a hometown kid, leading his hometown team to the city’s first professional sports championship in decades. How soon will that happen? I’m not sure. It took the great Michael Jordan seven years to win his first title and a lot of people feel LeBron is ahead of MJ’s pace. Cleveland fans can only hope so because they have been waiting to WITNESS a title for far too long and would love nothing more than to close the case against their city and put to rest that they are losers no more.

There will be a Game 6 in Cleveland…Guaranteed! Sorry, Rasheed, your bold prognostications may have worked before but not Monday night. In a game that came down to the final possession, the Cavaliers evened up the series by edging the Pistons 74-72 at the Q. With the Cavs up by one and time winding down, Rip Hamilton drove the lane but failed to convert a leaner. LeBron split a pair of free throws at the other end to give the Wine and Gold the final two-point advantage. James continues to somehow will his team to victory when they need it most. He didn’t have the best night from the field (8-23) but still almost managed a triple-double, finishing with 22 points, 8 rebounds, and 9 assists. Anderson Varejao was a force once again. In addition to scoring 10 points and grabbing six boards, he made one of the best plays of the night when he stood in front of a driving Chancey Billups late in the game and drew a charge.

Rasheed The Great sprained his ankle early in the first half and finished a whopping 3 of 13 from the field. He was sorely mistaken with his Game 4 prediction but continued to run his mouth after the game, saying he’s not concerned with the Cavs.

“I ain’t worried about these cats,” he said. “There’s no way in hell they beat us in a series.”

Mike Brown and the Cavs really impressed me the way they clamped down on the Pistons. The Cavs didn’t take care of the ball that well on offense but it was their defense that kept them in the game. Whatever defensive scheme Brown put together, it worked. The Cavaliers held Detroit to 33% shooting from the field in the game and allowed only 13 points in the fourth quarter. In the last three games, the Cavs have showed some tremendous fourth quarter intensity, especially on the defensive end.

They displayed a lot of heart and determination at home but now comes the tough task of going to Detroit. The Cavs have made it a series again but if they are truly serious about winning it, they must show they can overtake the Pistons on their home floor. The first two road games were pretty brutal and served as a massive wake-up call but they get a third shot in Motown on Wednesday.