Rebounding is more fun than Jazzercise
Posted March 17th, 2007 by Brian Windhorst
The Cavs’ offensive hot streak came to an end tonight, but their win streak didn’t. Yet again (I keep finding reasons to write this) the team continues to show maturity in grinding out an 82-73 win over the Utah Jazz.
Here we go:
–The Jazz were playing their fourth road game in five nights, they lost all four. They didn’t even get to Cleveland today until 10:30 a.m. because of weather in Philadelphia. Plus they were playing without two regulars, Matt Harpring, who had been playing great, and Gordon Giricek. By the way, Giricek’s nickname is Gira. Shouldn’t it either be Gorda or Giri? More on him in a second. Anyway, the Jazz were behind the 8-ball.
–The Cavs took note of this and really turned up the defensive energy in the second half. This was the difference in the game. The Cavs were a step quicker and could jump higher in the stretch run. They got most of the loose balls — and in a game where neither team shot better than 38 percent, there are a lot of loose balls — and turned them into transition points.
–This was led, in my opinion, by LeBron James. The Cavs played great defense all night, their rotations were so crisp. Time after time Carlos Boozer or Mehmet Okur, er, Memo, ran pick and rolls with Deron Williams and they were stymied by a show and a rotating third defender. However, it was LeBron that got very aggressive at the end of the third quarter, getting his hands on balls and really attacking the glass. He had 15 defensive rebounds, that’s a great effort with Boozer in there. Donyell Marshall also played great defense in that stretch. To see LeBron get after it at the defensive end shows growth on his part. He knew this was a game to be won with defense and he won it that way.
–The Cavs had 61 rebounds to the Jazz’s 41. The Jazz are eighth in the league in rebounding and they have Boozer. The Cavs out-rebounded them by 19 in the second half and 12 in the fourth quarter. Just pointing this out.
–LeBron’s alley-opp dunk of Larry Hughes’ lob in the third quarter is in his top five this year, I believe.
–The Jazz missed 16 straight shots in the first half. I think Larry Hughes was trying to one-up them.
–OK, OK, so Hughes was 2-of-17 shooting, had three travels, a carry and a double dribble. Yikes, bad stuff on offense. That 3-on-1 break where he kept it and got swatted by Andrei Kirilenko (hey, remember when that guy could play?)…not the best decision ever. However, he did a great job on Williams. He kept him in front of him, which really limited his effectiveness. This guy beat the Cavs by himself the last time out. Plus, he got a steal when defending a 3-on-1 break, that was impressive. Also, in something that was very interesting for me to learn, Larry his calling his own plays now.
–You know I was going to bring this up. In the first half, the Cavs had 32 points and 14 points in the paint. In the second half they had 50 points and 34 points in the paint. Also, Zydrunas Ilgauskas had three big baskets when the Cavs ran plays for him late. This is smart basketball, people. This is the basketball the Cavs didn’t play for half a season.
–Regardless of what happens in the playoffs, this season has identified Sasha Pavlovic and Daniel Gibson has long-term players of the future. The Cavs’ core used to look old (with Donyell, Eric Snow and Damon Jones as central cogs). Now, with Anderson Varejao, James and Drew Gooden, it looks really young.
–I hate sounding this optimistic, I am a card-carrying realist. But what am I supposed to write in an eight-game win streak when the Cavs are doing the things I cracked them for not doing for three months?
–OK, so here’s my story with Gira. A year ago this week after Slobodan Milosevic died, I went up and asked Sasha about it. Being from Serbia (well, now Montenegro, although he’s announced as being from Serbia & Montenegro, which doesn’t exist anymore) I thought Sasha’s perspective would be interesting for a note. I am not going to put words in Sasha’s mouth — or get involved in something I don’t understand — but after a brief conversation I gleaned that neither Sasha nor his father thought old Slobo was such a bad guy. In fact, Sasha complained that he couldn’t get proper medical care at the end. OK, that was a can of worms I didn’t want to open. So, Phil Miller of the Salt Lake Tribune reads my little note and decides to ask the Jazz’s resident native of the Balkans…Giricek. Well Gira, who is Croatian, where Milosevic sort of laid waste, ripped the man up and down. So, I guess what I’m saying here is I’ll bet Sasha and Gira didn’t get along too well when both were with the Jazz a few years ago. All teams at every level have deep background stuff that affects them, but what I am saying is with the international players there is often stuff going on that we don’t fully understand.
–So I’m done and I didn’t write about Boozer? That’s correct, I’m done with that stuff and have been for awhile now. Most interesting thing I saw all night — other than the drunk guy who was directing traffic in the middle of Huron at 5 p.m. wearing a green hat and a pair of exposed fake women’s breasts — was a kid wearing an old No. 1 Boozer jersey. Except he put a piece of tape over the "zer" and replaced it with "bie" so it spelled Boobie. As in Daniel "Boobie" Gibson, who wears No. 1, in case you weren’t following. Now that’s creative, young man.
March 17th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
I remember wondering about that too. I’m a huge Sasha fan but I’m descendant from Croatians I guess. The Catholic Croats and the Protestant Serbs still hate each other over there ( I think) but I love SASHA anyway!
LeBron is often credited with “getting his” within the flow of the game. A pass first guy who never forces anything. If that is true, then Hughes is the anti-Bron.
Also I have a question about Hughes. Is he just old now or does he have leg injuries. This guy was in a DUNK contest early in his career. Now, he plays below the rim.
March 17th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Tom, you read the man. Larry Hughes, Ferry’s five-year, zillion-dollar prize, had a “double triple.” I thought you could only get those at Wendy’s.
March 18th, 2007 at 5:23 am
Brian: I heard you on 1100 am radio yesterday…great interview. I even heard you talking about the blog and was hoping you would say something like “I wish that Alan Tucker would please go away” LOL!
Anyways, keep up the great work. And Alan, please shut the hell up.
March 18th, 2007 at 8:49 am
Serbs aren’t protestant, we’re Orthodox.
Don’t be bringing up Milosevic to Serbs or Croats or any former Yugoslavs. He is a hot topic. As far as a Serb point of view : We are mad that we didn’t get to try him ourselves. He destroyed serbia first and foremost and drove us back 100 years. We want to try him and kill him, Croats and Bosnians are hpapy he died. That’s the easy explanation.
Anyway I’m sure you won’t go up to Dirk next time and ask him how he feels about Hitler, maybe ask Bargniani how he feels about Mussolini. Leave dictators out of the ears of ballers. Talk sports. peace
Chuck, Toronto
March 18th, 2007 at 9:39 am
Yes, Chuck, but had Hitler or Mussolini died during the season it might’ve made for an interesting note. Although, how would American players feel about being asked about Bush (just kidding).
I agree politics and sports should be separate.
March 18th, 2007 at 10:49 am
“…the Jazz’s resident Baltic native…Giricek.”
Brian,
Baltic is northern part of Europe. Croatia and Serbia are in the south-east part, known as Balkans.
March 18th, 2007 at 11:28 am
There you go again, JoeHoops. I already advised you in a previous post that no matter how deep your crush on me, I cannot reciprocate your love. Either find somebody else during your spring break, or find some professional help before you begin roaming the streets at night and hurting someone.
Speaking of professional help, Windhorst blogging fans should check this out. Tell me this pasty white dork shouldn’t receive professional flopping training from the Cavaliers’ own pansy flopper:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqPBJ_6y_5A&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fthebiglead%2Ecom%2F%3Fp%3D1954
March 18th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the description of the drunk guy “wearing a green hat and an exposed pair of fake women’s breasts”…well, isn’t that redundant? Obviously they were an exposed pair of fake women’s breasts. If they were an exposed pair of real women’s breasts, he’d either have been an actual woman or a bosom buddy of Hannibal Lecter.
March 18th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Love the observation, Alan. (Really!)
March 19th, 2007 at 5:50 am
Anyone else find it odd that the Cavs were the #1 story in Cleveland when they were struggling, and now that they’ve won 8 in a row, they’ve moved behind the NFL Draft? Only in this town.
And where’d all you LeBron bashers go?
Go Cavs.
March 19th, 2007 at 8:18 am
That’s too bad the Cavs fined Pollard. I was looking forward to him looking into the camera next time and saying, “Kids, go have sex.”
March 19th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Why bother? Wise kids already know that Pollard’s peers are masters at it. I reckon there’s six naked sluts, two donkeys, one palomino horse, and a custom Nike vibrating Dustbuster in LeBron’s hotel room as we speak.
Pollard’s fine makes for PR, but it’s also BS.
March 19th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
When I read a rumor/theory/guess/exaggeration/story about LeBron I wonder what evidence anyone has to prove any of this. Is he really such a bad guy? Is he really just waiting to BOLT once his contract ends? Is he really a guy concerned with his own image only? I don’t think so. I can tell you two qualities LeBron has that I certainly don’t have.
1.) If I was LeBron James - I would absolutely try to control the team. I would more or less punch Larry Hughes in the face every time he tried to put up a 1-3 layup with me streaking on the wing for a tomahawk jam. Every time David Wesley clanked a layup off the backboard - I would demand that Mike Brown sit his ass for the rest of the season. When I miss two free throws at the end of the game and we lose - I’m not taking the blame for the game. I’m going to point out that Eric Snow sucks ass at FTs and that I’m the reason we’re even CLOSE in this game. My attitude towards my teammates in pick up games is 10000000x worse than LeBron’s is towards the rest of the Cavs. He encourages them both on the court, from the bench, and whenever they interview him after the games. And if you don’t believe it’s genuine? He ALWAYS and I repeat ALWAYS makes the right pass to the open defender even when his teammates are struggling. He always give them the chance to make plays.
2.) LeBron keeps his cool better than any player under his amount of pressure. He gets fouled harder than anyone not named shaq and he rarely gets the calls guys like Wade/Arenas/Billups get. He gets played more physical than ANY wing player in the league. For all the talk about the league trying to “make him” the next jordan or whatever - it’s BS. This guy takes punishment night in and night out and the Refs don’t reward him for going to the hoop strong. I almost never see him flop and only after ridiculous amounts of contact does he complain to the refs. How often does he get T’d up? Rarely. He’s a professional and a guy that doesn’t let his emotions get the better of his game. I’m older than LeBron and I play lots of basketball and I couldn’t display the composure he has to save my life.
LeBron is the best thing to happen to Cleveland Sports since Jim Brown.
March 19th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
edit: open defender = open teammate
March 19th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
I think Larry needs to learn to pass a
lot more when he is cold. It was good
to see Gooden crashing the boards. It
was also good to see Detroit lose. Rasheed
looks washed up. If you can bottle up
Hamilton and Billups they can be beat.
Maybe Chickenhawk wants to have sex with
the bionic green titted woman himself.
Forget telling the kids to do it.
March 19th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Not living in Cleveland (Chicago) and not seeing the game because of holiday festivities, I’d like to hear your opinions on the fans at the game and their actions towards Boozer. Any anecdotes you can bring to life?
March 19th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
jmoe, a shooter/scorer will never pass the ball more when he’s cold. Hughes doesn’t have the instincts. Ain’t gonna happen. That’s like a Rottweiler with a toothache passing the neighbor’s dog his rawhide toy. Not in this lifetime.
March 20th, 2007 at 6:14 am
I was glad to see the Pistons lose as well, but I’m certainly not going to call anyone on that team washed up. They just went West and won 5 games in 8 days. They’re playing very good basketball, and if the Cavs hadn’t gone on this great run over the last three weeks they’d be 5 games back right now. The Pistons aren’t a historic team, but they are quite good. They’re just like the Spurs, and it will take a lot of skill and luck to knock them off in the playoffs.
Hughes gets himself into situations where he feels like he has to make shots to justify his place on the team, and that’s when he has his bad games. The shots that get him into trouble are the ones he takes when he’s trying to get his 1-5 to a 5-10. The problem isn’t that he should pass *more*, it’s that he needs to shoot bad shots *less*. The two are related, but they’re not the same. If your offensive weapons aren’t taking the shots that they should make, the offense breaks down.
March 20th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Did anyone notice Damonas cute golf shirt
he wore Saturday night. Looked like he
just got back from pimpin in the Maibach.
But seriously is he going to play or is he
in the dawghouse? If so trade his ass and
create some cap space before Tucker and Joe
Hoops get too attached to him and his pink
fedora.
March 20th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Shut up Alan.
March 20th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
come on LBJ you got to learn to take the ball to the hole for the last shot of the game, all u needed was one point, what a way to end a winning streak against a team without there best player okefor, well we could start another streak wed. against the mavs, this lost sucks, but hey u cannot win them all, go head ALAN, make there day post something antagonistic.