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LeBron scores 24 in first, then Cavaliers sit back, relax and get stomped on offense and defense
By Brian Windhorst
Beacon Journal sportswriter
Published on Saturday, Apr 12, 2008
CHICAGO: It is little wonder the teams behind the Cavaliers in the standings are hoping to face them in the playoffs.
Their unstable play and focus would seem quite tantalizing to any opponent right now. The latest display came Friday night at the hands of the Chicago Bulls, who became another team to master the Cavs in a 100-95 victory.
Make that remaster, since they did the same thing eight days previously in Cleveland. And Friday's final margin doesn't fairly represent the contest.
The sixth loss in the past nine games ended up not hurting the Cavs in the standings. The Washington Wizards lost in Detroit, and the Philadelphia 76ers lost in Indiana, keeping the Cavs' lead on the No. 4 playoff seed at two games.
That was little consolation, considering the step backward across the board.
The defeat came packaged with several lessons that already should have been learned. First, having a LeBron James-dominated offense doesn't always work. Second, when the Cavs don't play defense, they really don't give themselves much of a chance to win.
James had an amazing first quarter,
setting some scoring records and tying others, but it led to a total shutdown of the Cavs' attack and that seemed to infect the entire mind-set as the team's defense caved in as well.
''I am embarrassed with the way we played as a team throughout the game,'' said Cavs coach Mike Brown as his team dropped to 43-36. ''Something's got to change for us to go into the playoffs the right way. Because right now we will get our behinds kicked if we are not focused and not trying to play the right way.''
The right way, it is assumed, is not standing around on offense and forgetting the general help-defense concepts Brown has attempted to drill into the defense for the past three seasons. Because after James scored 24 points in the first quarter on 10-of-10 shooting — tying his own franchise record for points in a quarter and setting a United Center record for field goals in a quarter — whenever the Cavs had the ball there was a dribble fest and when the Bulls had the ball it was a dunk fest.
James ended up making only 3-of-11 shots the rest of the game to finish with 34 points, which seemed plain after his start.
In the second and third quarters, the Cavs combined to shoot only 23 percent (8-of-35) as everyone stopped moving the ball, James included. His first assist of the game came with five minutes left in the fourth quarter as the Bulls' double-teams and tilted defenses encouraged the entire Cavs team to stare at one another.
After totaling 10 assists in the first quarter by running things through James — seven of his 10 baskets were assisted — the Cavs had only five assists in the next two quarters.
''LeBron got hot, he had whatever he had in the first quarter, and then everybody stood and watched,'' Brown said. ''We have to get some movement to generate something offensively.''
The lethargy transferred to the other end, which is on par with the moody Cavs' trends this season. The Bulls are generally a poor offensive team. In fact, since they scored 104 points on the Cavs last week, they had three games in which they failed to break 90 points, all of them losses.
But Tyrus Thomas and Joakim Noah, the Bulls' two burly but often scoring-challenged big men, seemed to have no problem getting the Bulls plenty of points by striding down the lane for dunks.
Time after time they would shake their defender, receive a pass and have a highlight finish. All the Cavs' big men were at fault, from Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Ben Wallace to Joe Smith and Anderson Varejao, who is starting to make a habit of being outplayed by a comparable player in Noah. The rookie from Florida had 17 points and 11 rebounds; Thomas had 20 points and 14 rebounds.
Brown called the Cavs a ''passive team'' and they proved it by allowing the Bulls to get dunk after dunk.
''After somebody gets a dunk or two, you'd hope the next time somebody comes down the lane he's not getting a dunk even if I have to give up my body. That did not happen tonight and that is disappointing,'' he said.
The only Cav to show much fire down the stretch was Smith, a former Bull, who had 20 points, his most since joining the Cavaliers.
''Hopefully we can figure this out at some point,'' James said. ''When we don't play defense, we don't look good as a team at all. When we do, we look pretty good. You have to be consistent at one point if you want to win in the postseason.''
Brian Windhorst can be reached at bwindhor@thebeaconjournal.com. Read his blog at http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/cavs/.
CHICAGO: It is little wonder the teams behind the Cavaliers in the standings are hoping to face them in the playoffs.
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