DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Cleveland Cavaliers...The Run for the Ring!!!!

Holding the ball for 20 seconds than lobbing up a crappy shot isn't going to win the game.

well.. Jump ball w/ 1 sec.. game over...

Another classic Cleveland choke job.

Extremely disappointing game. Too much holding on to the basketball in the second half.

Hopefully this will be a good wakeup call for the Cavs

We lost.

Still a ways to go, but maybe all this ring talk needs to stop.

we will not win a championship with Z as our center and the bench we currently have...not happening..magic in 5 no doubt, and i was laughed at when i said that magic could very easily take the east. Besides Lebron, we have no matchups we can exploit while they have several especially when they go to their bench. and now since we lost home court...can't see anything we can do. Z isn't going to all of a sudden had 40lbs of muscle and be able to move faster than a 4 day 40. He has been worthless all playoffs which really hasn't matter because of who we played..Orlando/LA will exploit it also. lebron played out of his mind and we still lost..very circa 2007

Last two possessions pretty much summed up the game. They hit a rediculous 3 pointer with a guy in his face .... we missed a wide open 3.

Quote:

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magic in 5 no doubt

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lol

Lets see a week or so ago I came on here and said the Western Conference was a stronger conference and that the Cavs have not played anyone to this point.

I got totally berated.

Now it looks like I was right and the fact that the Cavs have no one to help LeBron is going to show up.

The west winner will beat the east winner in 6 games!

I can't blame the hiatus for this. We blew them out in the first half. No reason why couldn't do it in the second half. I will lose it if I have to watch the Cavs let the Magic take wide open 3's from the corner for the rest of the series.

it was close because lebron played lights out..thats the only reason it was close, and playoff hiatus..glad to see you're keep tabs on me Its the truth..with the teams in power right now, a strong dominant center is needed...Z was never that, he's a great shooter and offensive rebounder, but don't stand a chance against stronger centers, his feet aren't quick enough. And prove me wrong about our bench, smith is the only productive one off it, Gibson has disappeared, wallace isn't nowhere near what he was..usually if one of the lebron/mo/delonte trio is on it don't make much difference..but its becoming evident now that we need more consistency off the bench and we haven't gotten that in the playoffs. Sorry if thats doom and gloom to you, but that has nothing to do with how i see it, i've watched every game and loved watching this team. But i'm not as blind as some to think we got a ring wrapped up..we had a chance to put these guys away in the first half and let them in it with our 5vslebron offense and crappy bench. Bench could barely go 2 minutes in the 4th before MB had to put starters back in

I think they almost got complacent. They came out in the 2nd half like we were going to breeze to another double digit win, and the defense let up a tad. Orlando started hitting shots, and got some confidence. After that, they couldn't miss, even when we had a hand in their face. We on the other hand couldn't hit the broadside of a battleship. We went completely cold, except for Lebron ... who gassed himself trying to make up the difference.

Barkley made some really good points on the post game show, and it reminded me once again that basketball is all about matchups. He basically said the Cavs have no one to guard Howard, Turkoglu, or Lewis with the exception of LeBron ... but he obviously can only guard one guy at a time.

Should this game be a cause for worry? ... yes. Panic? Not yet. Let's see what Brown cooks up in Game 2.

When the Magic shooters are on ... it's pretty scary ... 5 or 6 guys that can shoot 3s...

...I believe Game 2 will tell us a ton about this series.

All season and even in the playoffs it has come down to our bench. If they score 15 to 20 points we have done well. Tonight they only scored 5 points to Orlando's 25. They also only rebounded 6 times.
Brown needs find out the best matchups for our bench and get production from them if we are going to take this series.

J/C

- Orlando isn't going to shoot like that every night.

- We didn't get complacent in the second half, we got winded.

- There was no way we were going to sweep the Eastern Conference.

- We lost a one point game. - It's the playoffs, you're going to lose a few close games.

- Just relax.

I honestly think the Cavs only need to change one thing.....

Be INCREDIBLY physical with Howard.

When he initiates the contact, he seems to love it. When others initiate it, he seems to hate it.

I would put Big Ben in there to do one thing and that's beat the absolute hell out of him. He's a terrible free throw shooter. Make him beat you from the line.

Not only that but over the course of the series, if you HAMMER him every time he goes to the rim, it's going to do two things: one, make him absolutely exhausted and two, make him start to pass the ball out of the post (instead of attack the basket). Either result favors Cleveland. The one thing we clearly can't do is go one on one against him. Z is absolutely helpless.

Complete mental lapse lead to this loss. When Howard fouled out, I literally said "do not, under any circumstance, give up a 3." And what happens? How Andy even honored the drive is beyond me. 3 points is the only thing that hurts you and what does he do? Goes for the weakest jab step I've ever seen and allows Lewis to shoot the 3, Unreal.

J/C...

I think I have said this before, but I will say it again.. playoff bball is funny.. when you win, you never feel like you will lose, and vice-versa...

Orlando played a VERY solid game, you gotta give them credit... To shoot 55% on the road against ANYONE in the NBA is extremely solid... The 2 buckets that Lewis made down the stretch were solid, contested jumpers... All you can do is contest the shots, and take your chances...

Interesting decision by MB to sit LB for the first 2 minutes of the 4th.. LB musta been REAL gassed after the 3rd... Also an interesting decision by MB to have 2 bigs on D for that last Orland posession where Lewis hits the game winning 3 over Andy... MB was not even close to the reason we lost this game, though...

We really got away from solid ball movement... It was the LB pound the ball at the top of the key show.. LB is amazing by the way, AMAZING...

Our bench struggled.. This is a HUGE concern, cause the home team bench should always play better at this stage of the game.. much easier to be a role/bench player when you have the home floor with the crowd support...

From a mental/grittiness standpoint, Orlando showed me a lot tonite... You can tell they really believe... Gonna be a tough series, but I really have faith that our mental toughness is gonna shine in the next week and a half...

With that said, my main concern still rests in the battle of the benches, just as I said before the series...

The ring talk does not need to stop. This is 1 game.

Cavs in 6.

This is why I did not want to play Orlando in the ECF. I really don't think we match up well against Orlando. I could see us very well losing this series. I hope I'm wrong...

Just looked at the shot chart ... take away Lebron, and two layups by Andy ... everyone else went 3 for 18 in the second half. That's just under 17%. And the sad part is ... most of those were open looks! That's where we lost the game.

The way I see it we have been playing lights out all playoffs and were due for one of these games. Now we have 6 more games to pull it out, and I don't expect to play like this the rest of the playoffs. They needed a wakeup call.

My thoughts exactly. I really hope this leaves a very bitter taste in the mouths of the Cavs. Every once in a while, you need that little punch in the mouth like the Magic gave.

For a while, it seemed the Cavs would roll easily. But, everyone needs to be reminded that they're human. Hopefully last night was that night for the Cavs.

I liked their strategy early of letting the Magic score the 2s but not the 3s. Once Orlando started hitting those 3s, it was game over.

Also, I hope Lebron is alright. He looked phenomenal last night. The problem was the rest of the team.

I don't know that shooting was a big problem.

The problem was D.

If we can't man up on them, I think I would play some zone.

Orlando is a team I think a zone would be effective.

I disagree Peen, I think the poor shooting was the biggest problem. Outside of Lebron, who else was even close to shooting well?

I will agree that the D at times was very poor.

Also, are you allowed to play a zone in the NBA?

Poor shooting is never a problem when you play good D. The real problem wasn't that they shot bad - although that didn't help - it was that the poor D on top of that allowed Orlando to get back in the game. Terrible transition D, and they couldn't defend the "pick and pop" to save their lives.

West and Williams won't continue to shoot like they did, but if the Cavs don't figure out the matchup problems on D, if they don't devise a better D game plan, all these games will come down to the wire (or worse) ... and at that point it will be anyone's game.

This series may very well be won by Brown. I'm anxious to see what he does in Game 2.

IMO, if the Cavs make half, hell, even a quarter of the shots they missed that were open, they win that game by, what, 8? 10?

I do agree that the defense wasn't what it should have been. But are we to expect that Orlando will shoot that well every game? Hey, maybe they will.

Early on, it looked like they were perfectly content to let Howard and the others score from the paint. Beat us with 2s, not 3s seemed to be the philosophy. Then, the Cavs just match buckets, get a 3 thrown in there and a defensive stop here and there and, wham-o, you're up by 10.

Then the 2nd team comes in and Orlando just starts chipping away. Then, you put Z who has lead feet on Howard, and he just starts hitting from close. But, fine, you haven't given up the threes.

But, as they start hitting underneath, you have guys start to drop off to help. As soon as they do that, bam, kick out for a wide open 3. So, you have to keep your discipline to not help.

Once again, the D was a problem, but I think the shooting was the bigger problem.

I will say that Lebron took the air out of the ball a few times when Orlando was coming back, and that seemed to hurt the cause. I think he realized it was on his shoulders since his teammates couldn't hit the ocean from the shore, so he just took matters into his own hands. As the 4th quarter comes around, and he hasn't played that hard for that long in a long time, his legs aren't there. That's when you see those missed free throws (he makes 1 of those, it's a whole different story).

Lebron does so much with his shooting, but he also passes so well. He needed to keep doing that.

A couple other points:

1) Like I said, this might be the wake up call the Cavs needed.

2) How, HOW does Turkoglu not get called for a foul when he leads with his arm while he's dribbling? Seriously, I haven't seen that kind of crap since grade school.

On Orlando's last possession why didn't we foul them and let them take 2 free throws instead of giving them a chance for a 3?