For the second straight night the Cavaliers use a dominant 4th quarter performance to overcome early sluggish and unengaged performance.
Cleveland 106, Chicago 97 [box]
It certainly wasn’t pretty, but the Cavaliers will take it gladly. Coming off a lackluster effort for 3 quarters Friday night, the Cavaliers looked doomed to fall victim to the dreaded road finale of back to back games, but instead LeBron James took over the game again and the Cavaliers used a 32-20 4th quarter domination to beat the short-handed Chicago Bulls 106-97.
The Cavaliers are certainly becoming habitual and predictable, but in a good way. Once again the Cavaliers offense was clicking to start the game as they jumped out to a 32-28 first quarter advantage. And once again they played poorly in the 2nd and 4rd quarters, before turning it on in the final quarter to put away the pesky Bulls. The Cavaliers are showing a certain swagger and determination to finish games that was too often lacking last season. It’s a promising sign as the Cavaliers move to 5-2 on the young season and they moved into a virtual tie with the idle Pistons for 1st place in the Central Division, trailing by one in the loss column.
LeBron James was nothing short of sensational once again, scoring exactly 41 points against the Bulls for the second time in three games. He added 13 rebounds and 4 assists, and more importantly, continued his excellent free throw shooting, going 11 of 13 from the line. Zydrunas Ilgauskas was big for the offense when the team was struggling in the middle quarters, and he finished with 16 points. Andy Varejao contributed 13 points off the bench, Mo Williams pitched in 11 points, and Ben Wallace had a surprising 7 points against his former team.
It’s hard to be critical of a road game the night after playing a tough, emotional game and coming out with a win, but once again the Cavaliers showed too little energy and hustle playing against a team who was missing two of their key players in Drew Gooden and Kirk Hinrich. The Cavaliers were outrebounded for the second night in a row, 38 to 36, and they allowed the Bulls to grab a disheartening 17 offensive rebounds, leading to 25 second chance points for the Bulls. The Cavaliers big men are just not getting the job done right now. Ilgauskas only had 6 rebounds in 22 minutes, and Ben Wallace was even worse, grabbing only 4 rebounds in 25 minutes. Even Varejao, normally good for huge rebounds off the bench, was only able to get 4 rebounds in 29 minutes. Had the Cavaliers been able to box some guys out and get some more rebounds, this game wouldn’t have been as difficult as it was. Mike Brown’s displeasure with the team’s rebounding efforts was evident early as he went to rookie JJ Hickson in the first half, and he was able to get a pair of offensive rebounds in 5 minutes of playing time, but it was all about the message being sent to the team.
The key to this win for the Cavaliers was their 2nd half defense and ability to create turnovers. Down the stretch the Cavaliers played suffocating and incredibly active defense. For the game, they would create 14 turnovers leading to 26 points off of them. With 7 minutes left in the third quarter, Derrick Rose hit a layup to put the Bulls up 70-60 and the game looked like it was slipping away. The Bulls were on pace to score 116 points and the Cavaliers defense looked disinterested. In past years, this team would have given up, and that would have been it. But this year’s team continues to raise eyebrows with their ability to rise up and mount comebacks when least expected.
After the Rose layup, LeBron came down and hit a 19 foot jumper, and that sparked the comeback, as those were the first 2 points of a massive 29-7 run that saw the Cavaliers take a lead they would never relinquish. But it would be close. After a Mo Williams shot put the Cavaliers up 94-81 with 6 minutes left, it looked like the Cavaliers would cruise to an easy win. But the Bulls charged back with one last attempt to take back the game. A pair of Ben Gordon free throws narrowed the Cavaliers lead to just three at 99-96 with 1:42 remaining, but LeBron came down and answered with a 3-pointer and from there the Cavaliers just hung on for dear life to get the tough road win.
It would have been foolish to expect an easy win in this one for the Cavaliers, and in our preview we pointed out that this would be a tough, hard-fought road battle, and that’s exactly what it turned out to be. This Cavaliers team barely resembles the team we watched last year. This year’s team is showing an ability to score even when LeBron is on the bench, Mike Brown is actually outcoaching his opponents by finding the right lineups to exploit the other teams to manufacture big runs for the Cavs, and the team is showing a mental toughness in games when in years past they would give in to inferior opponents when they gave the Cavs a challenge. The Cavaliers have now crossed the 100-point mark in all 4 of their games on this 4 game winning streak. Mo Williams is proving himself to be exactly what the Cavaliers needed…a playmaker who knows when to set up the offense and when to try to get his own shots. The scary thing is, Mo and Daniel Gibson haven’t even started hitting their shots on a consistent level yet. The season is still very, very early, but the results so far have been incredibly promising.
Author: AndrewSchnitkey
Andrew Schnitkey is a founding editor of WaitingForNextYear. Though he has written about every Cleveland franchise over the years, his primary focus is the Cavaliers and NBA basketball in general.Andrew Schnitkey has written 448 articles for Waiting for Next Year.
Nice. 5-2. Shocked me!!!!!
I like well played games, but in the end I like wins, especially on the road. I remember not too long ago road wins were a luxury. Now it seems the Cavs eat them for breakfast. Great job!
Derrick rose is freakin phenomenol. I don’t care how we win cuz these games we lost last year. Time to start playing hickson more if ben can’t rebound
A couple things…
First, last year’s Cavs team was the best 4th quarter team in the NBA during the regular season. I agree with your point that so far this year, we haven’t let inferior teams dictate wins and losses, but last year we basically went into every 4th quarter DOWN, and won literally half of our games with 4th quarter comebacks – some against some good teams…those road games at portland and LA come to mind.
It seems that so far, the Cavs have played with little urgency. They have had some very bad stretches, and I was very displeased with the effort against Boston. HOWEVER – clearly the talent is there this year. The shortcomings have been energy, chemistry, decision making, and untimely turnovers. They have won these games with superior talent, and a guy named LeBron James.
We SHOULD be 7-0, but since I feel most of our bad stretches have not been personnel issues, I am very excited for the rest of the season. As you pointed out, Boobie and Mo have been very inconsistant so far, and I don’t expect that to continue. We all know LeBron can get hot from outside, and tonight was the first night he did that.
If there are two areas that concern me it is our defense against quick point guards esp Rondo, and our depth at center. I would really really really like the Cavs to nab McDyess with their midlevel – would be the best use of it I can think of.
And why am I seeing that breakaway dunk on all the highlight reels instead of that SICK ankle-breaking, backboard-shaking dunk the L-train had against DENG?
We should not be 7-0, we lost to two top tier teams on the road. Those are not should have won situations. The cavs are finally beating the teams that they should beat and have made marked improvements (free throws and Andy come to mind). The cavs look like they are in good shape.
We should not be 7-0, we lost to two top tier teams on the road. Those are not should have won situations. The cavs are finally beating the teams that they should beat and have made marked improvements (free throws and Andy come to mind). The cavs look like they are in good shape.
Win convincingly at home and just win however you can on the road.
I agree with Whipjacka… you can’t say that losing to NO and Bos on the road should have been wins. The Cavs were in those games and possibly could have won them, but let’s be honest.
Also, in a blink of an eye, LeBron is currently the new scoring leader. I point it out not because I am surprised, but because I want to remind myself not to take him for granted. Sometimes you watch a game and don’t realize his quiet dominance as he puts up huge quarter after huge quarter. In his last four games LeBron has scored 27, 41, 29, 41. That is quite a four game span.
One final note… the LeBron dribbling out the clock thing has made its return, but it is a bit different this year. Now it appears that he and Mo Williams are going to play two-man games at the top of the key and LeBron either uses the pick to drive, or he draws a double team and gives the ball back to Mo for a big shot. This is a huge improvement over the standard LeBron ISO play that infuriated so many of us over the last few years.
Scoring leader despite playing a career low 36 minutes per game…
Granted, two 40-point games will do that for you.
Something to look at are the screens that the team is running. While I still think they’re using Andy a bit to much at the top of the key, the end of the game saw Mike Brown using Mo Williams. Back in the day, teams could double LeBron off of this, as our point guards usually weren’t about to drain 18-footers with consistency. Now, Mo forces teams to stick with him, allowing James to have single defenders at his disposal.
Oh, and I’d be remiss if I failed to mention how huge last nights win was if only for it being a road game that is the second of back-to-back contests. Last year, this was a big drag on our record. If we can win half of these types of games, we’re in great shape.
I agree re: the HUGE dunk at the end of the second quarter. Not only did he just DESTROY Deng going to the hoop, but I honestly thought the basket support might go down, mid-90’s-Shaq-style.
Yea that dunk had me say whoa! The fast break dunk just had me say yay two points lol. Thats bspn for you tho
I think that this past two games have shown something about the Cavs that we have maybe never seen before in the history of the franchise. The ability to win when they are not playing very well.
It is about attitude, an attitude of cool confidence that says “alright, we’ve played three quarters of sub-par basketball, but we are a better team and we will win this game”
Last year we would have lost these games for sure.
I’m surprised ESPN didn’t lead it with something: “LeBron serving up notice to Deng that, in two years, he’ll be dunking on him in a Pistons uni! Woahh!”
Sorry, but I just couldn’t help it.
Here’s a link to the NBA.com highlights of the game– it’s got the clip of Bron giving “the refugee” a facial:
http://www.nba.com/video/games/bulls/2008/11/08/nba_cle_chi_0020800082_recap.nba/
I only said we “should have won” those games because we had leads after half-time and the Hornets were severley short-handed.
I thought the backboard was coming down too. It was shaking like crazy
Yea but leads at halftime aren’t a lock for wins. The hornets probably woulda lost but it was they home opener so i had a feeling we would lose. Lebron’s not going to detroit tho he’s going to new york duh
If the Cavs have as a shot to go to the finals every year, Lebron is not going to take a $35 million dollar pay cut to play somewhere else.
Heck…leads in the fourth quarter aren’t locks for wins….
/romeo
FYI- Thank you Detroit for losing. Cavs are #1 in the division.
LeBron is not going anywhere. Go Cavs up to and after 2010!
What if another team offers LeBron part ownership? I don’t see the Cavs doing that, and that was the reason Jordan signed with the Wizards for the last few years of his career. I’d say if someone else offers him part ownership of the team (which someone probably will), then that’s where LeBron will go…
My thoughts exactly on Mo…I was a little concerned he would go out there and try to “get his” on the offensive end and jack up early shot clock jumpers ala Hughes. I like how he’s controlling the offense…one small example from a game last last week…Mo’s bringing the ball up court and LeBron moves up to set a pick or maybe call for the ball…Mo waves him off, so LeBron posts up his guy, gets the entry pass from Mo, and hits a short jumper. A small example of Mo’s PG leadership, yes, but reflective on how this team is different from last year.
It would be nice to go a week w/o reading a story about LeBron going here or there. All the speculation in the world means nothing…so maybe some of you posters should chill out on the topic yourself. Let’s just enjoy what could be a very fun hoops season in C-town.
@ Jeff – you cannot play and own part of an NBA team. It’s against league by-laws.