More Cavs-Tel Aviv

Windhorst seemed a lot more excited for this win than I did, check this headline out: Cavs defend honor of U.S. You know, that's the first thing I thought when the game was over, "Phew, thank God the Cavs defended the honor of the U.S."

He does make a good point that other teams have been having trouble with the European teams (the Clippers had a pretty bad loss to the Moscow team a few weeks ago):

Three NBA squads have been beaten in preseason games by European powers in the last two years, including the Philadelphia 76ers and Los Angeles Clippers this month. Tuesday night's guest was Maccabi Tel Aviv, which sucker-punched the Toronto Raptors last October in Canada.

No, the games don't mean anything, but with Team USA consistently bringing back bronze medals these days, the line has to be drawn somewhere.

So the Cavs showed extra fire just to make sure the game was quickly forgotten, not remembered as further evidence of America's regression. The result was a 93-67 dispatching of Maccabi as head coach Mike Brown let his front line play three quarters, just to be sure.

It was a good game for the first quarter or so. Tel Aviv played close, but the Cavs just finished them off in the second and third quarters.

However, at one time in the third the Cavs had six straight possession that ended with a turnover. That was awesome to watch. From the article:

The sore spot offensively has been the turnovers. The Cavs gave the ball away 19 times against Maccabi and are averaging 21 per game in the preseason. Part of it is general sloppiness, but some of it can be attributed to learning new sets in the offense and making more high-risk passes into the interior.

I think he misses the biggest reason for the TOs: the New Ball! I mean, that thing had to be slippery out there, they had been playing awhile. I mean, one could attribute it to getting a big lead, losing that edge and making sloppy passes, but I for one am going to blame all the Cavs early mistakes on the new ball. Bad passes/ New ball. Missed free throws? New ball. Lack of touches for Z? New ball. Ira Newble going 50 games without hitting a jumper? New ball. Anderson Varejao accidently breaking a guys face? New ball. It works for everything.