Life must be easy for Lamar Odom: put on a cape in Cleveland and turn into Superman. The Lakers forward certainly looked like that for much of the game against the Cavaliers, scoring 28 points and grabbing 17 rebounds.
Odom created matchup problems that were exacerbated by the absence of Sasha Pavlovic, who left the game with a sprained ankle in the first quarter. With LeBron James on Kobe Bryant, he couldn’t switch and that left a plethora of people trying to guard Odom.
It didn’t help that others were, including Lakers center Pau Gasol, were getting easy points in the paint. Ultimately they won this one. The Cavs will have much to ponder between now and the playoffs.
At the half: Cavs 61, Lakers 51
Given the Lakers lead in almost every statistical category except one, they should be up. But the Cavs lead shot 8-of-12 from three-point territory. To give them an advantage.
Lamar Odom has 11 poitns for the Lakers at half and most of them have come on easy buckets. If they do not find a way to seal that off, and the paint in general, they could find themselves in trouble the second half.
Game: Cavaliers (39-9) vs. Los Angeles Lakers (40-9)
Broadcast: TV: WEWS (Channel 5)
WAKR (1590 AM); WTAM (1100 AM), WHBC (1480 AM)
Starters: LeBron James (F); Ben Wallace (F); Zydrunas Ilgauskas (C); Sasha Pavlovic (G); Mo Williams (G). Lakers: Luke Walton (F); LaMar Odom (F); Pau Gasol (C); Kobe Bryant (G); Derek Fisher (G).
Injured-inactives: Cavs: Eric Snow (knee); Delonte West (wrist). Lakers: Andrew Bynum (knee)
Officals:
Streaking: The Cavaliers have won four in a row and have a 23-game home winning streak on the line. The Lakers have won five in a row.
What to watch:
- Is Z the difference? The Cavaliers faced the Lakers without their big man the first time out. The Lakers were able to clog up the middle and contain the cavs offense, which often looked as if it were back in let’s-see-what-LeBron-does mode. Z’s presence presents a whole set of different problems for L.A. First they lost Andrew Bynum sending Paul Gasol back to center. But he will have to come out of the paint to actually guard Ilgauskas or the Lakers may get burned by his outside shooting. Consequently, that should free up room in the paint.
- Sasha Pavlovic will start out on Kobe Bryant, but I’d be shocked if it lasted very long. Pavlovic is one of those players who has to make up his mind whether he wants to play defense. He’s more athletic which is a reason he drew the assignment. But don’t expect him to be on Bryant all afternoon. Eventually LeBron James will be on the Lakers’ prolific scorer.
- Is it all that it’s hyped up to be? What a difference a couple of weeks makes. Yes, the first game got the game-of-the-year treatment, but given how late it is in the season, this one even feels different. Is it a statement game? It might be given what happened in the past week with Mo Williams being snubbed a second time for the All-Star Game and LeBron James having a triple-double taken away when the league disallowed a rebound.
Quotable:
From the coach’s office:
Mike Brown on Phil Jackson’s comments regarding LeBron James and the Cavs having an advantage because James gets all the calls a home:
I guess you could read Coach Jackson’s comments that say our record is what it is because of LeBron gets all that calls. I guess that’s one opinion that you can kind of take and run with and figure out why our record is what it is. Maybe others in the league think the same way too.
Phil Jackson on missing Bynum:
We played with this team to the Finals last year, so we have a lot of experience with this group of guys.
From the locker room:
From the locker room:
Kobe Bryant on playing with LeBron James at the Olympics:
For once for us to be able to get together and communicate without hoopla…It was good.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Once again, Lebron lets us down in a big game situation. Should we trade him before we lose him? I don’t know what was worse; the disinterested Lebron James, or the atrocious coaching by Mike Brown.
mike brown’s worst coaching job this year. this team needs a physical big who isn’t afraid to hammer a guy.
if kobe had the flu then lebron must have had ebola.
I still don’t think the Lakers can beat Cleveland in a seven-game series if Bynum is gone for the season.
I don’t think the Cavs have played as well as they can since before Christmas, excepting maybe the Celtics game a while back. Brown has had them playing their best ball when it counts most each year he’s been in Cleveland and I trust that will happen this year, too.
I do question putting LeBron on Kobe for any length of time, though. Let LeBron dominate some lesser guy while Kobe scores, I say.
It never ceases to amaze how Ilgauskas can have a game with a facade of a nice stat line, and still remain the team’s biggest weakness, both figuratively and literally. A giant void in the paint on both ends of the floor. Too bad they can’t make scrambled eggs with the DNA of Ilgauskas, Wallace and Varejao to create one single guy. It would solve the problem.
Hickson on Odom was unfortunately the mismatch the Lakers spotted and took advantage of. LeBron also had an off game and Mo only scored 2 points after halftime.
Credit to the Lakers going 6-0 on this road trip, with Kobe’s 61 points at Madison Square Garden, then them breaking both the Celtics and Cavs’ winning streaks.
Kobe’s effort and the Lakers wins also put him back in pole position for the MVP, ahead of LeBron for now, I believe.
Mike, you’re not allowed to watch another Cavs game again. “Once again, Lebron lets us down in a big game situation”? One of the dumbest sentences ever uttered. And are you seriously contemplating trading him? Wow. Try water polo.
The Lakers are the league’s best and most talented team. At the top you have Lebron/Kobe…slight edge goes to Lebron. After that, the Lakers have 3 players better than the next best Cav. With Mo and Delonte, the Cavs have closed the gap, but the Lakers are still more talented. As for last night, Lebron had an awful shooting performance. It happens. BTW, James is still first in the MVP race. His numbers are still better than Kobe’s and the Cavs are still gonna finish with close to, if not, 60 wins. It’s James’ award this year.
Where was Coach Brown in this game? This would have been a good game to see him worked up a bit, adding some fire to his team which they needed badly in the 3rd quarter, working the match-ups more effectively, and talking to the refs more instead of letting his team flounder. During the 3rd quarter, there were numerous chances to call a timeout and try and focus his team, but he seemed to be absent. The last minute of the game was also strange, to have the team play loose defense and then call a timeout with about 10 seconds left, and then foul with 6 seconds left?
Credit to the Lakers, but the Cavs also showed their holes in their game.
I don’t think Ferry has the guts, but if Steve Kerr would go for something like this, I’d trade the expiring contracts of Varejao and Szczerbiak, along with Hickson, for O’Neal. It would be the first time the Cavaliers have had a guy who didn’t mind playing in the paint since … jeez, I don’t even recall the last time. Daughterty played in the paint OK and was a far better rebounder than Ilgauskas is, but Daugherty was still kind of soft. Maybe Lonnie Shelton.
That would certainly be interesting, alan t. I wonder how many years O’Neal has on his contract? I’d hate to see Hickson go, though.
The hypothetical would be perfect for payroll purposes. Gilbert and Ferry will not add any semblance of real salary past 2010 in the event James books to New York. O’Neal’s contract expires in 2010. Perfect. A championship in 2009, an expiring contract bartering chip in 2010, and if James leaves for New New York, Gilbert can still make his plans to sell the franchise without getting acid-reflux or losing sleep over payroll.
My main problem with such a deal would be depending on a big man rotation that averages about 35 years old.
I agree, but let’s face it, the future is now.
ah the slew of tucker comments following a cavs’ loss, doesn’t take nostradamus to predict that. for my next trick, i’ll guess that we won’t hear much from tucker until the cavs lose again. having shaq on the team would be great, if only for the fact that it might be the first time in history that (along with Ben Wallace) we’d have two of the worst free-throw shooters in history on the same team at the same time.
Uhh … my “slew of comments after a Cavs loss?” I’m not too concerned about the loss, I wrote that myself. I expressly wrote that if Bynum is out for the season, I still think the Cavs can take the Lakers in a seven-game series, if it gets that far. But thanks for making up stuff, anyway, geddy. Or JoeHoops. Or jmoe. Or kj. Or whoever you are.
ah yes, the great alan resorting to “there is one person who posts against me”…yes i am joehoops and rick and jmoe and rick and whoever else doesn’t like you…anything to protect your fragile self-ego, you narcisstic moron. if you ever actually had the ability to read posts with some modicum of analytic ability, you might see that there are several people who find your rhetoric to be completey idiotic. i’m guessing this deficiency was in part responsible for the loss of your job, and for your future unemployment as well. speaking of “making stuff up,” could you enlighten us all some more about the neurologic tragedies of the world?
Or possibly it’s Rick, you’re right. I wasn’t thinking at the time … you both do consistently bring up your wise psychobabble lingo, as if your Psych 101 course you once took has given you some sort of Hindu cosmic enlightenment.
Can you provide more information on this for the rest of us far-away Lakers fans?