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LeBron still confident, but sense of urgency must return quickly
By Patrick McManamon
Beacon Journal sports columnist
Published on Saturday, May 10, 2008
In the movie Airplane!, Lloyd Bridges plays the guy who runs an airport as a plane heads toward it with the pilots stricken by food poisoning. (Rest easy; the autopilot was present).
''Guess I picked the wrong week to give up smoking,'' Bridges says. Of course, when he says it he has a cigarette in his hand.
As the situation proceeds, Bridges continues to lament what he has just given up — and it proceeds through some, well, not so healthy things.
Rest assured this was slapstick and mere humor — ''Surely you must be kidding. . . . I'm not kidding and stop calling me Shirley.'' — and no endorsement implied or stated of any kind of odd behavior.
But it makes a person wonder if the Cavaliers are looking at the basketball floor and saying to each other: Guess I picked the wrong week to give up shooting. Or rebounding. Or moving the ball. Or playing offense.
Because that's what happened in Games 1 and 2 in Boston. The Cavs basically gave up pretty much everything related to good basketball.
While it might have seemed like the Atlanta series exposed Boston's weaknesses, it now seems that it might have awakened the Celtics. Yes, the Celtics played poorly in Game 1, but the Cavs let them off the hook by not stealing the game.
The Celtics took it to the Cavs in Game 2, especially in the
second quarter, when they were sparked by two guys who remember when Bridges was in Sea Hunt, P.J. Brown and Sam Cassell, and a second-year guy named Leon Powe.
That's right, the Cavs were done in by the Celtics' reserves.
Outplayed, outhustled, outfought and outshot.
Boy have the Cavs been outshot. In two games, they've thrown up enough bricks to extend the Great Wall of China.
LeBron James gets most of the attention because he's the star and the leader, and when a star and leader shoots 8-for-42 in two games (17 percent) it's worthy of attention. Guess he picked the wrong week to give up dunking.
Cavs TV analyst Austin Carr wrote on the Cavs' Web site that the Celtics are committing four defenders to James when he has the ball, which cuts off his drives and clogs passing lanes.
But there are gruesome numbers beyond James' that go up and down the lineup. The Cavs follow their leader, and when James does not go well they do not have another guy who is strong-willed enough or talented enough to take over.
Daniel Gibson (2-for-8) has been invisible. Delonte West has some steals but is shooting 20 percent, and one of his three makes was a breakaway dunk.
Wally Szczerbiak continues to chuck them — to the tune of 36 percent. (Somebody has to shoot, right?)
Only Zydrunas Ilgauskas has played with any consistency offensively (17-for-30).
As a team, the Cavs averaged 72.5 points, shot 33.1 percent and were outrebounded 88-80.
Guess they picked the wrong week to give up fundamentals.
Coach Mike Brown does not seem to have had his best two games on the sideline either. This situation cries out for shooting, and perhaps at times a small lineup that could spread the floor might help.
That lineup might even include (gasp) Damon Jones.
Might not work, but it might have been something to try. It worked at times against the San Antonio Spurs a year ago.
If not that, perhaps some more plays to get the ball to James when he's not standing 18 feet from the basket might help, like the one back-door dunk he got in the first quarter Thursday.
The Cavs clearly need to do something, because what they were doing wasn't working. Or maybe they need to do what they are doing a lot better.
After these two games, you expect the Cavs to look like Bridges did late in the Airplane! movie — hair standing up and screaming to a plane that doesn't exist: ''It's coming right at us!''
In this case, it's the Celtics who are coming right at the Cavs.
When Game 2 ended, James got up and slapped hands with everyone on the bench. Instead of turning and walking off the court immediately, as most NBA players do, James went on the court and greeted every one of his teammates.
He left head high, almost defiant.
His message was clear: The series is not over. I'm not giving up. We don't need to give up.
He's right. It is not over.
These seven-game series have intriguing psychology. If, for instance, the Cavs were to look at their situation as a whole, they'd see they need to win 4-of-5.
That is why they can only look at it in terms of tonight's game.
If they win, they would regain momentum and continue the Celtics' road playoff troubles. (They lost all three games in Atlanta.) With a win, Cleveland could sneak into Boston's head a bit.
For that to happen, the Cavs need to rediscover their offense and their urgency. It can happen, as the Cavs showed in the Detroit series last year.
Guess this is the wrong week to give up hope.
Patrick McManamon can be reached at pmcmanamon@thebeaconjournal.com. Read his blog at http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/mcmanamon/
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