Dawg Talkers Message Boards: Cavs March Thread

Brian Windhorst Podcast from 03/10/10 here.

My recap of it for people who what to know what he had to say:

Brian says that the win over San Antonio without LeBron was impressive and it should have positive effects on the rest of the team, especially their morale.

He says Powe is still favoring his leg but he's getting through it. Powe likely would have played against San Antonio if Blair had played more due to matchups, and also Hickson was having one of his better games of the season defensively. Those 2 things limited Powe's floor time. Powe will play most of his minutes against shorter more physical types like Glen Davis or against smaller teams like Atlanta. When Z resigns in two weeks, Powe is out of the rotation anyway so it's probably a moot point. Doesn't think Powe should be a rotation player in the playoffs.

Powe didn't like it when Brian questioned his lack of athleticism pre-injury and seemed offended by the comment. Powe is good at playing angles and playing with leverage, and knows how to do what it takes to get the job done. He won't look impressive athletically and it won't work against all defenders. Mike Brown likes Powe's stoutness and the fact that he will throw his body around and foul people hard. Brian wouldn't be surprised to see Darnell Jackson play ahead of Powe again at some point in these next two weeks before Z returns. Doesn't seem all that high on Powe at all.

Brian said the Cavs were aware of Jamison's knee issues when they traded for him and Jamison has been wearing a wrap on his knee the majority of the season. He likely will be bothered by it the rest of the season and the rest of his career. Jamison said he just needed to rest his knee and get treatment but Mike Brown may err on the side of caution and sit Jamison on Friday. Jamison wants to play Friday if he can go and at this point he thinks his odds are good.

Brian doesn't think its a big deal at all that Jamison is missing practices becasue of his knee. He says Jamison is acclimating quickly both offensively and defensively and that Jamison will have to keep an eye on his knees the rest of this season, next season, and the year after but he knows his body and what he can and can't do. The fact that there are no back to backs in the playoffs and only two back to backs the rest of the regular season should help out in that regard. If his knee were to stiffen up in the playoffs, he would have at least a day before the next game.

Brian thinks Mo's recent play is a little alarming. Mo was facing pressure in Milwaukee and didn't respond too well like he also didn't respond well last year in the playoffs. He didn't play with confidence and it really showed in the Magic series. With LeBron and Shaq out, it was a great opportunity for Mo to respond to pressure and he handled it poorly and also took the game very personally. One good sign is that he responded well in the Spurs game, especially in the 2nd half defensively. Mo is a very emotional and streaky player; the Cavs simply cannot afford Mo to repeat his performance from the 2009 playoffs. Not a coincidence that the two big wins at LA and at Orlando both featured Mo playing extremely well.

Brian says Mo is fine with going from being the #2 option to being the #4 option. Mo relies a lot on LeBron setting him up most of the time and needs to be off the ball more. If you ask Mo to play point guard for 40 minutes, his game will likely suffer. Mo plays best when he doesn't have to handle the ball or make decisions under pressure. Mo is usually at his best when he can be fed shots in pressure situations instead of having to create his own. Brian thinks Mo is the best shooter LeBron has played with in his career, even better than Gibson. The Cavs pretty much know what they are going to get from LeBron, Shaq, and Antawn every night, but the Cavs don't know what they are going to get from Mo and Delonte every night. If those two guys are on, the Cavs are virtually impossible to beat.

Brian says that in transition offense/free flowing offense against bad defensive teams like New Jersey, LeBron is the best option at point guard. In half court/grind it out possession offense against good defenses like Los Angeles, he thinks LeBron should be off the ball. LeBron enjoys running and the team enjoys running, but deep in the playoffs things will inevitably bog down and the games will slow down and LeBron will be at his best off the ball.

Brian doesn't think playing Shaq and Z will be a problem because when one of them is in at center, the other won't be in. The real question is what to do with Hickson. Hickson is by far at his best when he starts, but that isn't going to happen when Shaq comes back. The Hickson/Shaq pairing and the Varejao/Z pairing both have worked very well this year, but with Jamison in the as the starting power forward, how do you find minutes for everyone? When you're playing Orlando, you don't really want Hickson to ever have to guard Rashard Lewis. JJ's development has been phenomenal and it will be disappointing if he isn't allowed to continue that, but it's just going to be tough for all five bigs to see minutes in the playoffs.

Brian has concerns about the Center position considering Shaq/Z's age and upcoming free agency status. Dwight Howard is not going away anytime soon and the Cavaliers will have to go out and find someone to help slow Dwight Howard down after Shaq and Z hang it up. He says you don't have to find a Shaq, but you do have to find a big body who can body Dwight up. Varejao/Hickson can both play center and will both work against 26 or 27 of the teams in the league, but not against the Magic or the Lakers. On the flip side, other elite teams are asking themselves the same questions about LeBron James and he cites Matt Barnes and Ron Artest as two examples of guys brought in to do the job.

Brian doesn't think Mo or Antawn will be given too much time off before the playoffs start. The Cavs have a pretty light schedule down the stretch, nothing brutal like 4 games in 5 nights or anything coming up. Mike Brown may try and avoid playing guys if they are injured, but for the most part the schedule doesn't seem to warrant guys needing games off.

Brian says the Cavs are 50-15 with Parker as the starting shooting guard, he says the guy makes 2.5M dollars and has done his job extremely well. He has been everything the Cavs have wanted in terms of shooting and defense. Parker off the curl has not been as big of a part of the Cavs offense as Brian expected before the year started but he is still doing a solid job. Delonte is playing great right now off the bench, but Parker has been too steady to take out of the lineup. If Delonte is playing well, he's going to be in the 4th quarter finishing lineup anyway ahead of Parker and that's what he says matters most.

Brian says the Cavs told Shaq it was ok to not be on the bench while he was injured. Shaq was instructed to take 2 weeks to do absolutely nothing while the thumb heals and essentially the Cavs gave him those two weeks off as a vacation. The team is giving him space, but they are monitoring him and making sure he isn't gaining weight. Shaq is spending time with his kids since they do not live in Cleveland with him currently.

Brian says the Magic are a huge threat still, and the Magic and Lakers are the only two teams in the NBA that he thinks can possibly beat the Cavs in a 7 game series. The Magic have the easiest schedule down the stretch, just 8 road games and 8 games against winning teams left. The Magic should be on a nice roll heading into the playoffs and that might work against us. Brian hopes Boston doesn't fall to the 4th seed because he would not want to go Boston/Orlando in back to back series. The Celtics don't have the horses to eliminate the Cavaliers this season, but it wouldn't be an easy series. Brian then switched gears and went on a rant about Rafer Alston. He is surprised that Alston had a meltdown for Miami and essentially got kicked off the team, he feels like Alston was probably the biggest reason why Orlando knocked the Cavs out last year considering he's so undependable and he came through with one of the best stretches of his career. The Cavs defense last year was based around guys like Alston and Pietrus beating them, and those guys had the best moments of their careers and beat them.

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