Dancin…Dancin…DANCIN! Cleveland State is Headed to the NCAA Tournament
March 11, 2009NFL Free Agency: Leigh Bodden Signs With Pats
March 11, 2009
Cavaliers 87, Clippers 83 (Box)
File this one under N, for ‘never should have won’. The Cavs played listless, lifeless basketball in the first half and found themselves down by double digits by the second quarter. The Clippers pulled a New England Patriots, not telling anyone that their whole team would finally be available for the first time all season. Baron Davis, Eric Gordon, Marcus Camby, Chris Kaman and Zach Randolph all played at least 25 minutes in this one, and certainly looked like a much better team than their 15-49 record would indicate.
Even when the Cavs dialed up the defensive intensity, they couldn’t get any offense. The Cavs came out determined in the third quarter, and even had a team meeting right there on the floor before the half began, with LeBron James doing all the talking. But all the talk seemed to be for naught as the Clippers extended the lead going into the fourth.
How was it that the Cavs weren’t scoring you ask? Well, how about 39% for starters? There was an absolute lid on the basket. The best three point shooting team in the NBA missed on their first 17 three point attempts. Yes, SEVENTEEN. Mo finally connected with 5:01 to go in the game, which seemed to loosen the team up a bit. It wasn’t just Mo however. LeBron missed 6, Delonte missed a pair, Wally missed and Zydrunas missed one as well. (Speaking of that, being forced to watch the L.A. feed of the game I couldn’t believe how uninformed their announcers were. They were beside themselves that Z takes so many outside shots. Hello?)
The Cavs found themselves down 19 points in the fourth quarter. With 11 minutes to go no less. That is when LeBron took over. But there was something different about this one. LeBron realized he wasn’t hitting his jumper. He began to drive to the basket. Every possession. They were powerless to stop him. Not Camby. Not Kaman. (Ok, Kaman got one good block on LeBron.) Time and time again he drove the lane and either put it in or got the foul. But even still, he continued to pass to open men when the double or triple team came his way. The result was his 22nd career triple double. 32 points, 13 rebounds and 11 assists. That is an Oscar Robinson type triple double.
As good as LeBron was, the Cavs still wouldn’t have won the game had it not been for Mo and Daniel Gibson finally finding the bottom of the net from deep. Mo hit that first one with 5 minutes to go. Daniel hit a huge one to tie the game at 80. Mo gave the Cavs the lead for good with a triple answering the Al Thornton one. When the dust settled the Cavs were 3-20 from three point land. Just enough to win.
(Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)
11 Comments
I’d love to get a copy of that LA feed from the link yesterday — those announcers got awfully somber awfully fast. They went from “I’m having fun!” and “I wonder what even LeBron can do, down fifteen” and “Cuttino Mobley, we need Kool Cats sweaters and hats” and full-on filler-anecdote-time to “Uh oh…” in pretty much the blink of an eye. Schadenfreude at its sweetest.
Are the Cleveland games typically available in, uh, that fashion? I’ve been able to catch more games than normal this year, since the Cavs are the hot ticket; but I had resigned myself to “watching” the Yahoo! GameChannel until that link popped up in my RSS reader. Thanks for posting it!
@Tapin- That was the first time I’ve ever been to that site. It took me a quarter to find the feed anywhere. I think they had 3 games available on that site. One was the Knicks, and I think the other was the Jazz.
Being in LA the last year and half or so, those announcers were one of the many reasons the Lakers have way more fans out here than the Clippers. Though, it was funny to hear them mock their coach in the post game review.
If they would’ve lost that, I’d had a lot of people saying stuff to me about it today. Thanks goodness the Cavs pulled it out (and I don’t ever watch the Clippers).
Living in LA, I watched it on an actual TV. The play-by-play guy spent 10 minutes pitching the LeBron James Life Story pilot to ABC when he was interrupted by the color guy saying “Uh oh” when the lead was trimmed to single digits. Priceless.
I have a love-hate relationship with that kind of win. By no means do I want the Cavs to think they can coast for 3 quarters and then turn it on for the last 10 minutes. On the other hand, that was beautiful to watch. The Clippers offense never knew what hit ’em and that Zach Randolph three attempt was from so far out that it should’ve counted for four points. (Had he not missed by 2 feet.)
You can find most of the games on atdhe.net – sometimes it’s a little flakey, but just keep checking back and they usually update the link with something that works. I’ve watched 80% of the Cavs games there this year (including the game last night).
The other site I check it myp2p.eu, but most of their links require SopCast, TVAnts, etc.
I ponied up the $50 for the second half of the NBA All Access Broadband. I pipe that into my PS3 on my big screen. Last night the feed was from LA, and their play-by-play guys weren’t too bad. It was fun to watch their mood swing. Last week I had to listen to Miami’s announcers drone on about Wade deserving the MVP. Ironically their justification was exactly what got LeBron a 4th place finish last year. Morons.
If standings stay until playoffs. Detroit would play Orlando, who they swept this season. That’d be awesome.
Cavs win!
I was at the game and that 4th quarter was insane. The Clips were actually playing some pretty good defense, but we were turning the ball over so much and I wasn’t thrilled with a lot of those calls in the first half. Could anyone tell me if that travel they called on Andy was actually a travel? I was sitting right next to the Cavs tunnel so that was right in front of me. It looked like your textbook “trying to draw the foul on the shot” play. I agree we had no business winning that game, but that’s what great teams do. Everyone looked so dejected going into the locker room after the half. Our D in the 4th was Tenacious and the Clippers were finally not hitting shots. We definitely need to step it up for the Suns game if we’re even thinking about going undefeated on this road trip. I’ll be there too, so hopefully I’ll bring the good karma from the Clips game to Phoenix.
-You can watch a lot of the games at channelsurfing.net
-I will also be posting highlights from FSNOhio (replayed game at noon today) at TheAustinCarr.com
-Given that it was AC’s B-day last night, you could really hear his frustration in the 3rd and then total excitement when we came back to win. Should make for some great highlights.
I know some were talking about what Simmons’ reaction to this crazy win would be. Turns out he got off his ass and wrote a whole column about it:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/090311&sportCat=nba