Cavs 101, Bucks 86: Complete With Hot Sauce

The Bucks scored the first 11 points in this one. If you tuned in late you might be surprised to hear that because the Cavaliers dominated the rest of the first half. Sparked by the second unit, the Cavs scored an obscene 29 straight points, and Milwaukee missed on 17 consecutive shots. It was pretty ugly.

Delonte West was your POG, finishing with 21 points, 3 helpers and some timely defense on rookie of the year Brandon Jennings. West and James got key blocks on the rookie after he started to heat up. Jennings finished the game with 24 points on 22 shots. Mo Williams wanted to shut him down. You could see it in his intensity and read it all over his face. But he couldn’t. Jennings was a little too quick for Mo on Sunday. Somewhere in the third quarter Jennings realized the only person on Milwaukee’s roster capable of scoring was going to be him and he started going at Mo. This led to a sick behind the back move into the paint to shake Mo, but LeBron was there waiting on the rookie and swatted his ball a few rows deep.

So what do we need to take away from this game? First off, Jamario Moon is hurt. if you watched the Bulls game you saw him cringing when he came out of the game. He does have a bit of a groin issue, and is listed as day-to day. That didn’t really matter in this one, but will soon as the Cavs face young athletic teams in Memphis, Portland and Oklahoma. Secondly, LeBron James scored only 14 points on 10 shots. In fact, over the last 4 games LeBron has taken 10, 15, 17 and 20 shots respectively. All games in which the Cavs won handily. The point here is that the team is relying on LeBron to be the offense, and LeBron isn’t determined to keep up his scoring average. That’s a good sign-

“That’s what it’s all about, team sports,” James explained afterward. “You want to see your teammate compete. You want to see him go out and do just as well as you can do. When you have that time of camaraderie and that type of belief that I have in my teammates. … I’ve always been that type of player, I’ve always been that type of person. I just love the success of my teammates when they’re out there doing that. We’re all about chemistry and we’re getting better every day.”

Andy Varejao played a fantastic game, not that you would really notice it in the box score. (Typical Varejao I suppose.) Shaq got into a bit of foul trouble and didn’t have a great game offensively. The Bucks decided not to double Shaq, and he wasn’t getting getting his low post shot to fall. He did have a couple of monster dunks because of cuts and excellent passes. Really though, every Shaq dunk seems like a monster dunk.

(Lebron quote courtesy of the PD. Photo credit: Gary Dineen/NBAE via Getty Images.)