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Published on Friday, Feb 01, 2008
SEATTLE: About an hour before game time Thursday, LeBron James came off the floor at KeyArena, plopped into a chair in front of his locker and asked for a tape cutter.
In that moment, all the air seemed to come out of the room, and, too, the Cavaliers' chances in the game. For all of the growth since Christmas, the Cavs are still extremely vulnerable. As a twisted James ankle showed against the Seattle SuperSonics in a 101-95 loss.
The Cavs played the first three quarters as if they were in shock that their superstar wasn't going to play. They made an impressive recovery — after all, they are probably the best fourth-quarter team in the NBA — but ultimately, they were unable to persevere without James.
After some of the Cavs' worst defense of the season and listless offense allowed the Sonics to build a 23-point lead in the second half, the Cavs battled back and cut the lead all the way down to three points with less than three minutes to play. But Kevin Durant, who led the Sonics with 24 points, came up with six clutch points late to hold off the Cavs.
Larry Hughes, who had 28 points and five assists, and Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who had 17 points and nine rebounds, led the failed comeback effort.
James suffered a low right-ankle sprain in the first half against the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednes
day. He was able to fight through it and led a comeback victory in that game, but the ankle stiffened overnight, and a brief workout session before Thursday's game revealed he didn't have much lift or agility. So he stripped off the tape and put on street clothes.
His status for Saturday's game against the Los Angeles Clippers is unclear. The team is listing him as day-to-day and doesn't expect to give an update until Saturday morning because today is an off day after flying back from the West Coast.
It was the sixth time James has been unable to suit up this season, and the sixth time the Cavs have reacted poorly to it. All have been losses.
Playing the second game in two nights far from home and still figuring out how to play without the injured Anderson Varejao and Sasha Pavlovic, losing James just might have been too much of a blow, even against a Sonics (11-35) team that had lost 14 of their last 15 games. But that still didn't explain the overall effort level the team put forth for much of the game.
This was especially true at the defensive end. On offense, the Cavs are never going to be quite the same without James, who is the league's leading scorer. But on defense, James is just part of what has been a working machine recently, one that has always kept Cavs in games no matter how the offense was performing.
Their defense was loose and a step slow for most of the night. They gave up 40 points in the first quarter, the most they've given up in a quarter this season, and 62 percent shooting through the first three quarters as Seattle built its huge lead.
As is their custom, the Cavs mounted a comeback. They were finally able to get some defensive stops in the fourth quarter, when the Sonics started relaxing and briefly benched their starters. Seattle committed six turnovers in the fourth that helped the Cavs.
Offensively, without James, the Cavs struggled for much of the night. Much of their offense relies on James' creativity and the way the opposing defense collapses on him. Thursday, they settled for lots of jump shots. They managed just 20 points in the paint, which tied a season low.
Damon Jones scored 15 points and Daniel Gibson added 13 off the bench for the Cavs, who shot just 39 percent.
In the locker room
• The All-Star reserves were announced Thursday, and Ilgauskas was not among them. Although he was somewhat of a long shot to make his third All-Star team, Ilgauskas sounded a little bit upset he didn't get the call.
''What I expected to happen happened. It's a tough group to crack,'' Ilgauskas said. ''Those guys were having great years. I won't mind the four days off; my body could probably use it.''
There were no true centers named behind Eastern Conference starter Dwight Howard. The coaches went with power forwards Chris Bosh of the Toronto Raptors and Antawn Jamison of the Washington Wizards.
• The mood was lightened on the Cavs' bench in the first quarter, when Donyell Marshall, checking into a game for the first time since Nov. 2, accidently took off his uniform top with his warmup. All the bench players were in stitches, especially James and Ilgauskas, who were laying on top of each other laughing.
Brian Windhorst can be reached at bwindhor@thebeaconjournal.com. Read his blog at http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/cavs/.
SEATTLE: About an hour before game time Thursday, LeBron James came off the floor at KeyArena, plopped into a chair in front of his locker and asked for a tape cutter.
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