DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Official Cavs Opening Day/October Thread

So far so good ... up 13-2.

Even AV is looking like a sharpshooter.

Mine was first!

That 3 by LeBron was sick!

Z and Shaq splitting time will help us so much over the course of the season and will keep them fresh all year.

LeBron might as well patent that chasedown.

9 points, 3 blocks for LeBron already. MVP repeat?

Did Rondo not watch game film from last year??? How could he possibly NOT know that Lebron was going to be there ready to block that?

MVP MVP MVP

So far

Is the dude we drafted from the Congo in the developmental league?

We've slowed down a bit, but Shaqs back in now.

Lets see some points.

Z,Gibson,Moon,Hickson, and Parker(once West comes back) make a very solid bench.

We've gone ice cold all of a sudden.

Started off hot but cooled off now. Put LBJ on the wing and just have Shaq back down to the basket, and we could see some points here.

Shaq on pace to get 16 points and 12 boards..very nice. Someone other than LBJ and SO'N needs to step up.

That 3-point shot is our achilles heel, isn't it?

that and our offense and bench...mike brown is clueless on how to design an offense...i hope ferry isn't patient with him and gets someone on the bench to run the offense. We really miss kuerster. Shaq looks pretty good, i think they need to run the offense through him inside out, i mean we have supposed shooters, why not force them to double shaq. Mo williams is still on vacation and this team will be alot better when daniel gibson is buried on the bench. I hope we get daniels and west comes back..we are missing west big time with that second unit..I like parker, Hes def. got the size we lacked before, just has to get to where he isn't thinking on Defense. Moon, meh, is what he is, decent defender, great athlete, below average scorer. I don't know how we are giving up so many 3's, we usually are one of the best teams at closing out on shooters. Most of those were in transition though..hopefully they come out like they did to start

Down 6 at halftime. Need to come out hot and put together a nice run here to set the tempo.

Lebron makes that chasedown block looks so easy. He must get a big smile on his face everytime somebody gets the ball on the fast break and he's right behind them.

Getting a little momentum here ... hope we can build on it and win this thing.

wow ugly game..we still have NO offense...we need a true PG, mo ain't it, he comes down, passes to lebron....mo can't break anyone down off the dribble and dish..he really is a SG, west is alot better option at PG and maybe daniels will be when he gets signed. The early part of the season is going to be hard to watch until brown settles in on a rotation..but so far our bench looks pretty bad. I really hope we gel quick. Our MO last year was beat up on crappy/mediocre teams and lose to contenders, we need to pound these teams we will see in playoffs. I LOVE shaq putting people on their azz. What he did to garnett was assault in 48 states, garnett did play his normal hard ass and get into shaqs face either...he knew better. Overall about what I thought would happen..Boston basically upgraded their bench in the offseason and it shows, we upgraded our starters..gonna take time, but MB offense is not fun to watch, he's the NBA version of daboll

FIRE THE COACH.....

The worst part was, it was almost a replay of the Orlando Series. Roll up some big points early, then fall apart ... mostly at the hand of the 3-pointer.

Granted we have quite a few new faces, and they are going to need to learn the defensive system ... as well as get some chemistry on offense.

Quote:

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You can tell that Parker is not used to playing with LeBron..

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Yeah, there was one play LeBron went back door and was wide open for a alley oop, you could see Brons eyes light up as he was about to elevate for the oop but Parker totally missed it, didnt see him.

It will come with time. We started slow last year as well, 1-2 I think? For all the bad and frustrating things I saw last night, we were still only a few buckets away at the end.

Well, hopefully we turn it around tonight against Toronto. Fortunately, DirecTv is giving a free preview of League Pass for the first week, so I can catch these next 4 games, that aren't on national TV!

glad to come into this thread and see that nobody is jumping off the edge, or claiming that mike brown needs to be fired or that lebron is going to leave because the cavs are 0-1.

my thoughts from the game:

- we need d-west back. i think parker is going to be a very good contributor, but he is better suited coming off the bench and playing against other 6th and 7th men. i really like what i saw out off him though, he's scrappy, showed some toughness under the basket, it's a matter of time with him, when he gets comfortable with the way we play.

-jamario moon did virtually nothing, it's just one game, but i expected a little more out of him

-z looked completely uncomfortable coming off the bench. i really think that is going to take time, probably more time than it will for shaq to get used to starting with the cavs.

-i thought andy had a solid game. a typical andy-like game

-lebron really hurt us in the 4th quarter. i know he does everything and it's really hard to knock him, but a charge call, a palming call and a few of his patented stupid 3 pointers really hurt. like i said, hard to knock a guy who does almost everything for you. that palming/carrying call really boned us.

-we need to go into boston and steal one, it's been the home team dominance for the last 3 years, boston gets their first win in the Q (i believe it was gund last time they won)

- it's just one game, we have the rest of fall, all of winter, and all of spring to go, so don't worry

I almost wonder if Z should start ... remember, we won most of 66 games with him starting. We only really need Shaq as a situational guy to take on guys like Yao Ming and Dwight Howard. I'm wondering if he'd be better as the 6th man, and becoming the "bench points" guy that we've been sorely missing.

And I agree about Lebron. It's hard to rip a guy, but he does seem to have a few of "those games" where he tries to do way too much and ends up hurting the team ... turnovers, charging calls, and those awful dribble-dribble-26 foot bomb shots. Granted, he'll actually hit those quite often ... but it's still horrible shot selection. I thought that charging call was a little BS though. PP was no where near having his feet set.

We just need some time, and Delonte West....I think you still start Shaq. He's gonna get their bigs in foul trouble most nights.

Alot of new faces takes some time...but this team does need Delonte back for his defense and so we can rest Lebron and Williams together. Last night we had to play Lebron more because the lack of ball handlers.

Hopefully Delonte gets his act together sometime soon.

i think he gets back at some point during this 4 in 5 stretch.

39-2 last year at home. 0-1 this year. Seems a bit early for a loss. Oh well, the Celts are for real and it's a long season. We need to gel a bit more.

A lot of sports writers are blasting the Cavs for breaking up a good thing (and the Lakers too). That we had a working formula and we messed with it by rebuilding the team. Had we held solid, I'm sure the same writers would be saying we didn't do anything and the rest got better. Oh well, can't please everyone.

It's going to be a very important season for the future of basketball and sports in Cleveland. If "you know who" leaves, it will cripple this team to the point of having to move.....and may be another deathblow to the psyche of the average Cleveland fan. With the Browns and Indians being bottom feeders, I don't think this city can cope with the death of the Cavs franchise too. Scary to think about it.

j/c

I agree in that we looked no different than the Orlando series. New faces, same results. BUT, we do have 81 more games and guys need to learn how the other guys play. I do believe Mike Brown needs an a good offensive mind on the bench.

This opening month of the schedule is pretty brutal when you look at it. We have 7 back to backs. I expected them to come out a little slow this season, but I was hoping to not see what transpired last night.

Delonte really is key, he brings a lot of flexibility to the lineup having him able to play the 2 and the point.

I really think Parker will be great and will be fine as a starter if we need him to be, he just needs to get some time playing with these guys and get comfortable on the court.

But having Delonte in that 3 man backcourt rotation will be huge.

Let me preface this by saying in no way am I panicking, HOWEVER....one game in, it's obvious we still suffer from the same deficiencies that killed us last year in the playoffs.

In crunch time, we have one player who can take a shot and control the ball. Period. For how good of a player Mo is, it's kind of telling that he never sees the ball down the stretch of games. LBJ dominates the ball and it really hurts us against good teams. One player is just not going to beat a team like Boston on a consistent basis. While having a great defensive team will win you a lot of games, if you don't have a second scorer who will take and make big shots, you are going to have a poor record against elite teams. It happened last year (LA, Orlando, etc.) and looks like it may be a problem again this season.

We STINK at defending the pick and roll, especially against teams with anyone who can stretch the floor. Rasheed killed us on the pick and pop (as I expected he might) and Orlando will do the same thing until this team proves otherwise. Really, we desperately need JJ to grow in to a contributing role. He and Andy seem to be the only two guys on our roster who have the size and athletic ability to slow it down. Shaq and Z are just way too slow. Hopefully Powe can give us productive minutes when he returns but his status will be up in the air until he proves (on the court) that he has fully recovered.

Last night was a perfect illustration on why we should seriously consider Stephen Jackson. Does he have a big contract? Sure, could he possibly be a distraction? Maybe but he possesses a skill set that we simply do not have on our roster. Without Delonte, we are really hurting at the 2. He's such a great defender and reliable scorer. Given all the unknowns, an insurance policy would be nice.

Jackson is a player who's an emotional leader, who will take and make big shots and he's a very underrated defender. Is he a great defender? No, he's not but he's a capable one. At 6'8'' He can guard a guy like Rasheed or a Rashard Lewis and do a good job on them. It would let us play small when we have to with Andy, LeBron, Jackson, Parker and Mo and not sacrifice so much offense. It would also eleviate some of the offensive burden off of LeBron.

Finally, we better hope we again get hot and chase down the #1 spot. Having to go through both Orlando and Boston (if we were the 2 or the 3 seed) is going to be incredibly, incredibly difficult for us. Especially if we get in a scenario where we don't have home court against either team. It's a long season but if Shaq can't make shots from 3-4 feet away 75% of the time he might hurt us more than he helps us against teams like Boston.

Have a string of winnable games here. Hopefully they can bounce back and go 3-1 over this opening 4 game stretch.

This first month is rough, 7 back to back game. Most are against weaker teams which helps, but thats a lot of back to backs to start the season.