Game 39 | Cavs at Blazers | Jan 10th, 2010 | 9:00pm EST

[Rise Against]

Way to defend in the 3rd quarter.. Now we are only up 4 heading into the 4th.

[slickvik]

anyone notice they made the run the moment shaq got taken out of the ball game.
why does mike brown wait so long to call a timeout, the blazers got it down to 7 before he called a timeout...
the moment the blazers started rolling and the cavs offense started to stall, mike should have called a timeout

[Rise Against]

Mo, stop taking low percentage shots..

[Niko23]

Who is Jawad Williams?? LOL

[L&H_05]

Solid win.. I just wish this team would quit messing around and put the foot on the throat.. They just begin to chill.. Even Andre Miller said it in the post game-- "they just stopped playing aggressive, which allowed us to get back into it"... And that's a player on the court..

2 things about the Blazers:

I'm convinced LaMarcus Aldridge could not guard a traffic cone ! Seriously, he makes Gooden look All NBA 1st team out there..

Also, Brandon Roy sounds like a female when he screams for fouls at the rim... Great player though...

[DaVoiceMaster]

Good game guys. Y'all came out firing from the get go and didn't let up with the exception of the 3rd quarter. Tough game for the Blazers. I expected Shaq to just kill the Blazers inside.

Say, who's this James character? He's pretty good!

[TheOUTLAW]

Looking at the score this doesn't look like a close game, but it's about time that the Cavs have actually had a game where they needed to produce at the end. Funny that we can't win anything by 3 or less, but we can turn a close game into a 12 pt win pretty quickly

[JonFromVA]

Looking at the score this doesn't look like a close game, but it's about time that the Cavs have actually had a game where they needed to produce at the end. Funny that we can't win anything by 3 or less, but we can turn a close game into a 12 pt win pretty quickly

Pretty typical. When our defense is clicking as it should, we usually do create a nice lead, but anything less than that and the opponent can stay in the game.

Even in the playoff game .vs. the Pistons when LeBron went crazy and provided 99.9% of our offense at the end of the game - he had to - because the Pistons were matching us on the other side of the floor.

-----

Funny to read some of the comments regarding Roy on the Portland board as they mirror many of the comments regarding LeISO on Cavs boards (when we lose), even down to the complaints that the other Portland players don't move or make cuts when he has the ball.

Interesting game plan by McMillan, mixing a number of traditional strategies: covering LeBron 1v1 early in the game, double teaming to make him give up the ball and going to a zone in the 2nd half, etc. Of course what makes LeBron, LeBron is his ability to adapt to however the defense decides to play him.

[TheOUTLAW]

The problem generally in that type of situation is not LeBron. It's the need for the rest of the team to adapt to the change in defense and to react accordingly. that's why I really like Varejao, whatever you might think of him, he will find openings and have good hands to catch the leBron passes.

I truly am not sure why the Cavs missed so many easy layups yesterday.

[gflem]

anyone notice they made the run the moment shaq got taken out of the ball game.
why does mike brown wait so long to call a timeout, the blazers got it down to 7 before he called a timeout...
the moment the blazers started rolling and the cavs offense started to stall, mike should have called a timeout

His ability to call timeouts is underrated (see other thread). Seriously, he has no feel for when the other team has momentum. Some will say he is letting his veteran team work through the rough spots, or that he is showing confidence in his team by not micro managing, but in reality he almost always lets the other teams back into games by ignoring the importance of using his TO's to help stop opponents runs.
I have seen coaches like Riley use 2 or 3 in a row to get his team back into focus. And when I have seen that he would actually get mad at his team, or the refs, whatever it took to get his teams attention. Brown on the other hand? He sits mouth agape when his team loses focus, or the refs miss obvious calls. Now calling a TO isnt a guarantee, but why just sit there and do nothing when the wheels are coming off?