**** what you heard, Cleveland is a great team

[GuyClinch]

This is the same stuff we heard about Atlanta. Oh Josh Smith is a great shot blocker. Now it's Wally is a good defender?! Em no.

Ray Allen is slumping - that's the deal. I saw him miss LAYUPS - he has no lift out there. He had no burst.

Pete

[threrf23]

Ray Allen is tired and Cleveland plays underrated team defense (last year too) and Lebron and others (not Wally) are underrated defenders and PP - arguably a key to our offense - is forced to exert so much energy on the defensive end versus Lebron, and others have to help. And Doc isn't making great use of our bench IMO nor has he been quick to make adjustments when called for. Its a combination of all that.

Cleveland has good enough front court D to contain KG if they really want to, and most of their offense originates from the wing positions (mostly Lebron) - the wing is our weakness defensively. Ray Allen is not a defensive liability but both observations and stats point to him being our weakest link defensively. PP has played good D this season, but I don't view him as the defender some think he is. Posey is a great player on some nights and usually always an okay player, and he is a good defender, but except on occasion he's not much better than good at best. Tony Allen is our best defender outside of KG and can match up against wings, but either he's sleeping with Doc's wife, or daughter, or son, or I am underestimating Doc and he is being set up to be a secret weapon off the bench in the finals.

[cfan79]

No doubt, Cleveland has a solid team. But they aren't great because they don't have a running mate with Lebron. Jordan had Pippen, Bird had Mchale and Parish. They will only be great when they have a consistent 2nd player.

[RoyHobbs]

Without LeBron, this is a 20-25 win team.

^ Corrected. A team led by Z, Wally, and Delonte doesn't even sniff 30 wins, even in the East.

(They went 0-7 without Lebron this year.)

[Red2]

their defense has been better than ours and their offense has as well. we're lucky to be up in the series as cleveland could easily have won 2 games in boston. having said that I still like our chances in this series because while they have the best player in the series we have the next 3 best players ( althought Ray hasn't played like it). The good news is that we do somehow manage to win this series I'm not sure we're going to see better defense from the pistons or the western conf champ. Whoever it is will play great D no doubt but I actually think we will open up offensively against those teams. Tongiht we need one or more of our bench players to step up- Powe, Baby, House or Eddie. With Booby out Doc may give sam another chance but there is always that punk Damon JOnes waiting in the wings and he won't hesitate to luanch threes