Saturday, December 02, 2006

Houston 81, Cleveland 63

63 points?!?!?!? Six. Three. 28% shooting. 65% from the line. 26% from beyond the arc.

I don't care if Larry Hughes is out. 63 points is unacceptable. What the hell is with all those jumpers? Here's the opening of the Plain Dealer's recap from the Atlanta game:

Three straight losses on the road, subpar performances against weaker opponents and Wednesday's inexcusable home loss to the New York Knicks were more than enough.

So James decided hours before Friday's tipoff that he would be in attack mode in Atlanta. The Hawks paid dearly.

"I wanted to be aggressive and I wanted them to get into the penalty as soon as possible," James said. "When I'm in attack mode, our team sort of vibes off that and that opens up our outside shots. We did a good job."

What the hell happened? The Cavs just stood around and hoisted jumpers all game long. It was unbelievably painful to watch. Did he not learn the lesson? Attacking the basket = good? Look, I know it's the Rockets and they're a little bit better defensively than the Hawks, but come on. There is no reason to shoot 23 tres.

Dear Fox Sports Ohio, Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play! Show the play!

Stop showing the crowd or the coaches while the ball is in play. For Pete's sake, we missed the opening tipoff for a shot of Daniel Gibson sitting on the bench. I hate you.

Mike Brown: Sit LeBron. It'll be alright. The Cavs are down big in the fourth quarter with 8 minutes to go. Your team is playing awful. LeBron is not playing well. It's the second night of a back to back on the road. Sit him down. I know you tried to make one last run. I know you had him on the floor with both rookies. But it was the fourth quarter and you were down 20+. Sit him.

Also, feel free to sit him when he does something you don't like. Like taking a ton of ill advised jumpshots. You're the coach. Coach him. Let him know that those kind of shots are unacceptable. Did you see the same Atlanta game I did? LBJ got 6(!) and1s. Six! When he sits
outside and hoists jumpers, nothing good happens.

More Brown. Feel free to yell at your team anytime now. I'm not sure the "quiet stare with hands in pockets" is really getting to 'em right now.

Even more Brown. What the hell do you talk about in timeouts? Do you draw up a play? I really love those plays after a dead ball where Eric Snow dribbles for 12 seconds then shoots and off balance jumper. Those are sweet.

6-23 from beyond the arc. Terrible.

And the Cavaliers game ball goes to.... Dikembe Mutumbo. He took out Tracy McGrady with a devastating elbow to the face. Just brutal. T-Mac just went down.

The NBA should burn the tape of the second quarter. And all copies. We'll all be better off. The Rockets shot 28% and the Cavaliers 29%. The Cavs were up 28-27 with 8 minutes to go in the half... The score at halftime? 43-29. They scored 10 points the entire period. I could've spent that time doing something productive... like sleeping. That was awful. Let's just forget it happened.

Can anybody on this team shoot? Hell, Eric Snow had the best night with his 3-5 shooting performance. James 7-22, Gooden 1-6, Z 4-12, Brown 0-2, Marshall 3-7, Jones 0-4, Pavlovic 0-5, Varejao 2-7, Gibson 2-7. How many total shots inside of 10 feet? 8? Maybe? (I'm too tired/lazy to look this up). Needless to say, this shot chart ain't pretty.

So thats a no. 6-23 from beyond the arc. And it was worse than that for awhile. The Cavs actually made three of their last 6 from downtown; meaning at one point they were 3-17. Delightful.

How the hell did Juwan Howard get 13 boards? Chuck Hayes had 12. The leading Cavalier? Varejao with 9. The next highest? James, Z, Brown and Marshall each finished with 5.

And the Cavs starting power forward, Drew Gooden? He finished with 2 rebounds to go with his 5 points on 1-6 shooting. Thanks for showing up Drew. They should've left him in Atlanta.

and finally...

The good news is that the Cavs are off until Wednesday. This should mean a lot of practice time consisting of shooting the ball inside of 15 feet and learning to box out old, undersized power forwards. They play the Raptors on Wednesday. Please let Larry Hughes return.

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