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Cavs can't stand around waiting on LeBron to take over and score
By Patrick McManamon
Beacon Journal sports columnist
Published on Sunday, May 25, 2008
They head to the offseason with typical cries for the coach's head — (this Cleveland sports tradition once again is misplaced) — and calls for improvement.
The Cavs will have to improve. LeBron James knows it; so does the front office. The Cavs need more good players who can team with James, and they need to improve their offense.
But to improve the offense, one key question first must be answered, if not for the general public at least within the team itself.
And that relates to the times in games when the Cavs run the ''LeBron dribbles while everyone else waits'' offense.
The Cavs have been running this play for years. Sometimes it works — see Game 4 in Washington this season — and sometimes it doesn't — see Game 5 against the Wizards and Game 7 in Boston.
It worked in Game 4 against the Wizards, because the Cavs were in their final possession. It doesn't work when it's used over and over and over.
The question must be asked: Who is responsible for stopping the ball?
Is it James, who decides that because he is the best player on the court, he is taking over?
Or does coach Mike Brown call for this kind of spread-the-floor isolation over and over?
I don't know the answer, but I do know that very, very few coaches want to isolate one player on five over and over again. A coach might call it now and then, but not as much as the Cavs run it.
If it's James, then let's be blunt: He has his reasons for doing what he does.
James firmly believes he can beat the first guy off the dribble. That leaves the second and third lines of defense, and when they approach, he wants his teammates in position to catch a pass.
So he likes to spread the floor. It opens the floor for him, and it has teammates in position to catch a pass.
That is all well and good on a play to win a game or tie a game, or at specific points in a game (to stop opposing momentum, late in a quarter, etc.).
But not when the game is in progress. At that point, any offense runs better with movement away from the ball, with picks, with actual plays.
The Cavs have an offense — and it works. Brown does diagram plays. In Game 7 in Boston, he even drew up a play during a timeout that resulted in a Ben Wallace dunk. It was smart on several levels. Nobody on the Celtics expected Wallace to get the ball, so he had a clear path to the basket. The play was based on picks, passes and movement.
It was not a case in which James held the ball at the top of the key and pointed to the spot where the big guy should set a pick.
This happened too often in Game 7.
There were times when James backed the ball out with 10 or 12 seconds on the shot clock and pointed to where his teammates should go. Sometimes they did it eagerly; sometimes you could see their shoulders slump as they headed to their assigned places.
James is a marvelous player, probably the best in the NBA.
But his best game in these playoffs came in Game 6 against the Wizards, when he scored 27 points and had 13 assists. His points came within the offense. His assists fueled the offense.
If he is the guy who decides to stop the offensive flow, you have to wonder why.
I would take a shot at three possibilities:
1) James knows he's the best player on the court, and believes the best thing for the team is for him to take over.
Well, he is the best player on the court, and occasionally this is the best play. But not every time, and not several times in a row in key playoff games.
2) James does not trust his teammates.
If true, this fact goes against what he has said, that he always trusts his teammates.
He proves this with his passing. So it's hard to think this is the main reason, though at times reason No. 1 might supersede this trust.
3) James does not trust or respect the offense.
If true, this is a problem that must be rectified. Acquiring better players and putting them around James would help. James might not feel the need to dribble, after all, if there were several players on the team he believed could score.
In the final game in Boston, James scored 45 points and had a fabulous scoring duel with Paul Pierce.
Folks likened it to the 1988 battle between Dominique Wilkins and Larry Bird.
Bird won, of course. And Wilkins went on for the rest of his career to be a marvelous individual who never won a title. Bird won a bunch, because he played team basketball. He passed, he moved, he cut. He took over when necessary, but he shared the ball and most (if not all) of his points came within the framework of the offense.
Now, Bird had Kevin McHale and Robert Parish and Dennis Johnson — a caliber of players the Cavs do not have.
But the point is clear: Basketball is a team game, and a team will never win with one player dominating.
''It's a beautiful game when it's played as a team,'' the great coach John Wooden once said. ''To me, it's not beautiful when it's one individual working one-on-one and going out and making a fancy dunk. That isn't pretty to me.
''That may be what most of the fans seem to love, but I don't.''
Clearly there is a place for the fancy dunk. Just like there's a place for James to score 45. But both are best when they come within the framework of the offense.
Convincing James he does not need to do the one-guy-dribbles play might be a challenge. (What are they going to do? Take away his minutes?) But James wants to win titles, and Michael Jordan went through a time when he scored 60-some points in playoff games — and his Bulls lost.
The Bulls won titles when Scottie Pippen came aboard and the team started running the triangle offense. Most of Jordan's points came off that system.
Is Brown's offensive system championship caliber? I don't know. I do know there are times the Cavs run the system and play as a team, and when they do, they're pretty good. These same plays are available late in games, too.
James is the best player in the NBA, mature beyond his years. No other player in the league could have gotten his team as far as James did. And when we see how the Celtics handle the Pistons, we might see how good the Cavs were at the end of the season.
But imagine how good the Cavs can be if they add a piece or two, and if they all — including their superstar — realize the significance of moving the ball and playing offense within a system.
Best of show
The top 10 moments of the Cavs' 2008 playoff experience:
1) LeBron James' Game 4 slam over James Posey, Pierce and Kevin Garnett. ''LeBron James! With no regard for human life'' was how it was broadcast on TV.
2) Delonte West's game-winning 3-pointer in Washington in Game 4. If one shot won a series, that was it.
3) Gloria James entangled with Pierce and Garnett. Mom went a tad far on that one.
4) Brendan Haywood shoving James out of bounds. The most dangerous of many cheap shots from the Wizards.
5) ''A LeBron James team is never desperate.'' James' post-Game 5 comment in Boston.
6) ''There is no DeShawn-LeBron rivalry.'' Said twice during the Soulja Boy/overrated news conference.
7) James' one-handed soaring dunk in Game 1 vs. the Wizards. Daniel Gibson put it near the roof, and James went and got it.
8) DeShawn Stevenson doing his hand-wave thing with the Wizards behind by 16 points in a Game 2 rout. ''Are you kidding me?'' Reggie Miller said on TV.
9) James answering the hand wave with a 3 of his own — over Stevenson.
10) Gibson wincing in pain after being hit by Anderson Varejao in Game 6 of the Celtics series. It separated his shoulder and kept a key shooter off the floor for Game 7 in Boston.
Random thoughts. . .
• Owner Daniel Gilbert said he doesn't worry or think about James' long-term future in Cleveland, because he's confident any player would want to stay given the environment the Cavs are creating.
Fair enough.
But not even a passing thought?
Not while slicing the bagel in half or gathering the recycling or anything? . . .
• While the Cavs ponder the roster, it's worth noting that there is some age on the front line. Next opening day, Wallace will be 34, and Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Joe Smith will be 33. . . .
• Nice to see one of our major airlines is charging $15 to check a bag.
Next step: $4 per bag of peanuts, $2 to use the tray table (from the upright and locked position) and $5 to use the bathroom.
Let's see . . . let's put people through absurd security measures, squeeze the seats so close your knees are in your forehead, raise the price, reduce the service and then charge to check a bag so more people can bring on more and bigger rolling bags and jam them in the overhead while hanging their stomach in your face.
And the airline industry needs advice to find out why it's losing money?
If the airline industry were in the NBA, it would have a won-lost percentage in the negatives. Think about that the next time you want to fire Cavs coach Mike Brown. . . .
Until next time . . . there you have it.
Patrick McManamon can be reached at pmcmanamon@thebeaconjournal.com. Read his blog at http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/mcmanamon/.
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