DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Cavs/Celtics Part 3

I think they're both gone,...

I liked what coach Brown did as far as instilling defense, I thought he was the right guy. This team took great strides once he took over....

But unfortunately, you have to score points to win.

There's some "other" problem there that we are not privvy to.

Anyway,...Good Night Everyone, and thanks for the great ride Mr. James !

Looks like a good time to get my yard caught up, because I'm going on a little vacation from ESPN. Those tards couldn't even talk about the series, future series, who they thought would win the title. It's obvious what will be "discussed" for the forseable future on those channels.

To them it's all about LBJ to NY. There literally isn't anything else that's important. I wonder if it has been considered by these idiots that other franchises have made themselves respectable without the help of a media empire. I wonder if they know that the Knicks are not in the playoffs.

Perhaps NY should hire some FO people who are not completely without skill at managing a franchise first, and let them decide what players should be targeted to improve the team.

But what do I know, if I'm not bagging on Cleveland like everyone else and assuming that only Chicago, NY, Boston and LA are allowed to have championships, I just don't have a realistic view of the league, right?

I know it's not breaking news or anything, but ESPN has reached a new low. What's the opposite of pinnacle?

This coming from a Utah fan, BTW. I would like to add that I don't think the Cavs neccesarily need a new HC. It's more the chemistry of the players that is the problem IMO. This group wasn't the right one.

For the record, you gotta appreciate the Boston fans for chanting that NY KNICK garbage, that might be the straw that keeps LBJ in Cleveland.

what do you think of what that one insider had to say on the cavs message board. Wine and gold is his username.

he claimed james has distanced himself from everyone in the cavs org including brown, ferry, gilbert the past few weeks.. thinks he will end up in chi-town and calapri will be the coach. never trusted brown since the orlando series a year back. was intereseting to see what he thought.

Ha ha, the Cavs message board...

You're probably the only registered poster here that can stomach that thing.

I only read time-to-time to read the opinion of wine and gold, and for trade/free agency rumors.. he claims to work for the cavs. Not sure if he's a scout, but that was my guess. his posts about Lebron are interesting nonetheless.

I actually know who that is and that's what makes it extremely troubling because he comes in contact with the team on a daily basis and he probably knows what their attitudes and demeanors are better than anyone in the press. I really hope that he was just upset like everyone else and ranting but coming from him it does concern me quite a bit.

On the other hand, we can take some solace from the fact that he's a scout and not someone from LeBron's inner circle, so he doesn't truly know what LeBron is thinking, he only has a better view from the outside than we do. He has inside information on quite a few things, but its more to do with players we are looking at and moves we are trying to make and not something like this.

But when I read what he had to say my initial reaction was "oh, god"

The board he is talking about is not the Cav's message board. That board is probably worse than the official Browns board, I tried to post there and just couldn't deal with it. The board he is referring to is like this one, a group of fans who want a place with (mostly) intelligent discussion who can't get it on the official boards. I can't link to it as linking to other message boards is against this boards rules, but its in the picture at this url (too big to use img tags):

http://ilovethehype.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/banner36.jpg

You may recognize that banner if you've been to that part of town or watched any of the pre-game coverage, they used it as a backdrop for a few interviews about the Cavs.

it's crazy becuase windhorst was blasting lebron the past few days, and now that guy comes out with this info, and I have to admit it doesn't look good. I trust windhorst more than anyone in the press. he seems to think something is up as well.

Yeah, no kidding. Windy is one of the best beat writers in the business and he never just says things to say it.

I sent you a pm explaining a little, by the way.

At this point, who cares if Lebron goes? He's achieved nothing of true substance in a Cavaliers uniform. Plenty of personal accolades, no team accomplishments. Choked against SA in the Finals, choked last year against Orlando, and probably the biggest choke job of his career in games 4,5 and 6 of this series. Style over substance is what Lebron is about at this point. He's achieved nothing that really matters, despite all his talk about how he's no longer interested in personal accolades. He talks a lot about winning, but he doesn't do it.

I also think its worth noting that, after game 3 where the Cavs embarrassed Boston on their home court, they dropped 3 straight, by an average of 20 points.

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At this point, who cares if Lebron goes?

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id like to think 90% of this board, but ill settle for 75

i know you dont mean that

A team that won 127 regular season games the past two seasons hasn't been able to sniff the Finals. And as talented a player as Lebron is, I've never been a fan of how boom-or-bust the Cavs are with him on the team. So yeah, I do mean it. Choke jobs in three consecutive playoffs is something I can do without.

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Choke jobs in three consecutive playoffs is something I can do without.

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who couldnt? some have done it for much longer, 5 decades long

i think we need to band together and support our local product

http://www.cleveland.com/cavs/index.ssf/2010/05/cleveland_cavaliers_at_boston_4.html

In the final analysis, time for some hard truths for Cavaliers: Windhorst Beat Blog
By Brian Windhorst, The Plain Dealer
May 14, 2010, 1:50AM

BOSTON, Mass. -- Let's have some stone-cold realism now.

The Celtics were the better team in the series, which isn't breaking news. They had a better plan, better poise, way better execution. If the Cavs had given better focus and better effort in Game 2, 4 and 5 then they may have had a chance to stretch it out. But none of the four losses were truly close. Game 5 will be the scar from the series and, no matter what anyone says, it will hang over the top of LeBron James for a long time. He will have to shove it away with a championship and that doesn't seem all that close right now.

Now for the harsh, real stuff.

The Cavs were closer to beating the Magic last season than they were the Celtics this season. This is regression. Playing the way they did against the Bulls and the Celtics, they would not have beaten the Magic this season. Or the Lakers. Or probably the Suns. Right now the Cavs maybe, maybe are the fifth-best team in the league and James and Shaquille O'Neal are headed for free agency.

This was not the team that won 61 games, obviously. The Cavs haven't been that team since they beat the Milwaukee Bucks and Atlanta Hawks in the first week of April to pretty much wrap up the No. 1 seed. They took the foot off the pedal after that and they never recovered. It was compounded by the fact that O'Neal didn't return until the start of the playoffs, which had him in the starting lineup with Antawn Jamison for the first time ever and pushed a player who started 73 games in J.J. Hickson out of the rotation. Stuff like that doesn't just happen and everything is OK, there's damage from those types of changes.

With a couple exceptions, when frankly they just got red hot shooting the ball, the Cavs were a shell of themselves in the playoffs. Some of it was rhythm. Some of it was effort, actually a lot of it was effort. Some of it was chemistry problems. Some of it was coaching. Some of it was the opponents they were playing. The Celtics were masterful. Guess what? The Magic would have been even tougher.

O'Neal was a great idea but he was a move made for the Magic. In such a series he would have been worth $20 million probably, the Cavs never lost to the Magic with O'Neal in the lineup this season. But there are more teams than the Magic.

The Jamison trade was a great move and he probably would have been a great matchup for Rashard Lewis, he might have even been the difference-maker in such a series. But against the Celtics and Kevin Garnett he was a matchup disaster. The matchup was every bit as bad as Ben Wallace vs. Lewis in the conference finals last season. The irony is Wallace would have probably been a pretty good matchup against Garnett. Those are the breaks of the game.

Mo Williams was Mo Williams. He was streaky and ultimately let the Cavs down in the clutch. He has done this for five playoff series now. He's not a kid. It is hard to think this would change in the future.

Mike Brown's decisions and adjustments were not enough obviously. His offense failed in the last three games. But that isn't the worst of it. The Cavs allowed 100.5 points and 47 percent shooting in this series. Worse than the regular season. In a series when the game should have slowed down and defense should have been at a premium. Last season against the Magic, the Cavs gave up 104 points and 48 percent shooting. His defense failed when it was needed most two years in a row and that is his strongsuit. That is why he has the job.

Not all of it is his fault. O'Neal is a liability he tried to coverup all year but ultimately failed. Williams is a liability Brown tried to hide him but couldn't. And Jamison on Garnett is a no-win that Brown tried to stop with a series of bizarre Band Aid that came off desperate. None of it worked. The defensive coach's defense let him down. He's probably going to be fired because of it among other things.

So the brutal truth is this: say what they want, the Cavs are a great regular season team. But no more. Following them for seven years now and trying to be as truthful as possible along the way, I missed it. I thought it would work in a series, too. But obviously I was wrong with my predictions. So were the Cavs with everything in their planning and preparation.

Now to LeBron.

The blood of this series is on him. It was his second-worst series of his career from a stats point of view, The Final were worse. But from a reality point of view it was worse. He averaged 26.8 points, 9.3 rebounds, 7.2 assists. But he shot just 44 percent and he committed 27 turnovers in the six games. In the losses, James averaged 22 points on 37 percent shooting and six turnovers Figure in the points all those turnovers cost the team and it was probably like he averaged closer to 12-15 points a game to the good probably.

After he averaged 36.5 points against the Celtics in the regular season and scored 35 in Game 1, I said the Celtics had no chance if they couldn't stop LeBron. They did and they're chances were great after that. Though LeBron stopped himself, too.

His leadership was severely lacking. Like the Cavs, he will now have to live with the burden of being a regular season player until he proves different. The MVP is a regular-season award. Like the Cavs, right now he is a regular-season superstar. He has not carried his team to greatness in three consecutive postseasons. He's had better supporting casts each year but he's in neutral and it was plain to see in this series. He did not bring it.

As for his future, he's got to be honest with himself. He has got to sharpen his focus. It is easy to talk about caring about nothing but the postseason but that isn't true. You could see it in this series. No one with a killer postseason instinct would have allowed Game 5 to happen. That will be the pill he'll have to swallow before he can get to his dreams even if he is defiant to the people to tell him it.

But that is only part of the truth. The other part is the Cavs may not be the best team for him. It is known now that they are not close to a title, it only seemed that way. He's 25 years old. The seasons are racing past. He's in his prime. Despite all the stats and the trades and the money spent, the Cavs are farther from a title than when he was 22.

It is no one person's fault. Danny Ferry and Dan Gilbert have done great jobs. The Cavs fan base is remarkable, it shows him so much love and defends him and the city fiercely against all attacks. It will continue to show him such support even after this finish, I know because I have lived there all my life. And there are plenty of attacks. LeBron makes the Cavs fans believe, he offers so much promise. But that promise, seven years in, has gone unfulfilled despite all the dedication from the men with the hard, pressure-filled jobs.

There are many reasons for LeBron to re-sign. No. 1 is it is home and he's deeply bonded to the area. No. 2 is he knows the Cavs will make more changes and spend more money and attempt to do whatever it takes to get better. No. 3, with him committing long-term, it would free up the team to make moves that might make more sense than the short-term stuff they tried over the last year. Deep down, he is happy with everything the Cavs have done for him.

But with the other opportunities in front of him, he must also be real. He must also consider whether making a move now is the right decision for his career. He says he wants to win championships. For a long time, it looked like Cleveland made so much more sense than New York or New Jersey or Miami or Chicago.

In the cold and lonely light of another playoff ouster, the truth may be that it isn't the truth. And that may create the worst-case scenario for Cavs fans in about six weeks.

Good luck with that message. Its the one I've been advocating this entire season and I've gotten nothing but attacked over it. Hope you have thick skin

And as disappointing as it was, its not the end of the world or the Cavaliers. People want to get rid of LeBron because they assume since he hasn't won anything yet he can't get it done. The guy is 25, we're to the point with him that we're done and ready to move on when he's already the most talented guy in decades at the age of 25? That's insanity. He won't even hit his prime for another season or 2. I for one want him to do that here.

we lost this series because of chemistry issues.

how many games did JJ start this year? 85% of games?

we tried to fix something that was not broke

A ring for the king, or so Shaquille said.

It's unfortunate Shaquille didn't get the chance to go against Dwight, he wasn't much of a factor in this series.

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We need Lebron and Jamison to get hot.

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Who's Jamison...Where has he been this series

It is rather ironic that we went out and got Shaq to deal with Dwight Howard, Jamison to cancel out Rashard Lewis, Moon and Parker for length on our perimeter defense to bother Orlando's 3 point shooters...and then didn't make it to the series with Orlando.

Did anyone read Bill Simmons game 5 retro Diary? Here is an excerpt I found interesting

(Important note: The Cavs' biggest advantage in this series was/is athleticism. The Celtics can't match up with Hickson-LeBron-Moon-West-Williams or Hickson-LeBron-Varejao-Williams-West. In a Feb. 25 game in Boston, Hickson-LeBron/Moon-Varejao-West-Williams turned a 78-77 deficit into a 101-86 rout in just eight minutes. They blew the Celtics off the court. Tuesday night, Varejao played 17 minutes, Hickson played four and Moon played seven. It's illogical. It makes no sense. You could argue that Varejao should play 48 minutes a game in this series, and that Moon should be the one defending Rondo. Wait, why am I pointing this out? Um, keep playing Shaq! Twenty-one points in Game 5! Looked great!)

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/100512&sportCat=nba

So after a loss like this I usually don't watch sportscenter for a week,

wait, the fate of the cavaliers won't be decided till after July?

Make that 6 weeks of no sportscenter. Only in Cleveland could things get worse than losing in the playoffs

yes I'll take 6 weeks of that

I'm not concerned what decision James makes..I always felt he would stay...but right now I want to know what the heck happened..I hate this ..

I have a hard time believing that James or ANY other pro sports athlete would leave 30 mill on the table. My guess is he stays, Brown goes.

Looks for LeBrons flying circus in the future.

I saw the same thing from the cavs in the early 90's. Make moves to counter Jordan. That didn't pan out well either. Maybe they should concentrate on building a solid team that other teams have to worry about countering.

What two drafts are you refering to? The only draft in which we had a lottery pick after LBJ was 2004 with Luke Freaking Jackson. God I hated that pick even then. Going back and looking at some of the players taken after him too...

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more than anything, this is on lebron though. this entire series is more his fault than anyone else's. and if he leaves, he's gonna have to live with that the rest of his life. his promises will have come up empty. and maybe thome and belle and ramirez didn't care, but this is lbj's home, even if he leaves, it's still his home, and he's gonna live with that scar the rest of his life.

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I pretty much alluded to the same thing in the other thread. I agree that this is the reason he isn't leaving.

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it'll cost him $14million/year at least. Glad It's not my money.

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I believe it was Forbes that estimated that the value of Gilbert's franchise could easily go down by $100 million if LeBron leaves.. so as a businessman, hopefully he will see that spending $14 million to save $100 million just makes sense.

Also while I don't consider myself any kind of a prophet.. while a lot of people were hyping on NY and the endorsement money to be made if he goes there. I finally heard some guys on ESPN radio this morning come around to what I (and some others) have been saying all along.. LeBrons fortune is tied to championships, thats it. It doesn't matter one iota how close he is to Madison Avenue at the end of the day if he has no championships. NY is a big market, China is 100 times bigger and they adore champions.. go around the USA and ask who the greatest basketball player is and you will get a fairly even split between LeBron and Kobe with a few others sprinkled in.. go to China (or most places outside the US) and it's Kobe by a landslide.. because he has the hardware..

our supporting cast is not great, but we've seen lebron play like a machine in years past with guys like eric snow, sasha pavlovic, an old banged up ben wallace, larry legend hughes, damon jones, etc.. (you get the point)

and we finally surround him with guys, and he goes out and plays like crap, he turns the ball over, he's disinterested out there, and the national media starts banging on the supporting cast. they're pushing him out. they've been doing it for 7 years now.

i bet all the suits at espn were giddy last night. giddy.

So you aren't very hopeful James stays??