WaitingForNextYear

The Cavaliers followed their M.O. for this season-start out well, play lackluster for the middle portion of the game, then turn it on and take over the game in the 4th quarter-to take down the Milwaukee Bucks and extend their winning streak to 5.

Milwaukee 93, Cleveland 99 [box]

Well, it’s starting to look like some trends are starting to become routine. This Cavaliers team knows hot to win, we can give them that. They know how to beat the the teams they should beat. The Cavaliers still don’t have a bad loss on the season, but other than their thrashing of the Mavericks in Dallas, they also don’t have any great wins. Sure, Indiana is much improved and the rally to beat the Bulls in Chicago was nice, but lets not get too excited about wins over Charlotte, Chicago twice, Indiana, and Milwaukee.

What we can get excited about, though, is that the Cavaliers are now 6-2 and they stand alone atop the Central Division. The Cavaliers already have a 5 game winning streak. Last season, their longest streak was five, and that only happened once, in the month of January. This team looks leaps and bounds ahead of last year’s team, but this year’s team also still has a lot to improve on.  

Against the Bucks tonight, the Cavaliers took care of the Bucks in fairly workmanlike fashion. The only time this game ever truly felt up for grabs was in the 3rd quarter when Luke Ridnour and Charlie Bell caught fire like you wouldn’t believe to keep the Bucks in the game and even give them a few leads. But the Cavaliers, on the backs of LeBron James and Anderson Varejao, did their thing in the 4th quarter to cruise to victory.

For the 3rd time in 4 games, LeBron scored 41 points. He had 6 assists, 5 rebounds, and 3 steals to go with the 41. Mo Williams chipped in 16 of his own (9 from the FT line) against his former team and Anderson Varejao was huge for the Cavs in the 4th quarter again as he finished with 13 points and 10 rebounds for his first double-double of the season.

The Cavaliers won the game, and in the NBA it’s important to take care of business at home and beat the teams you should beat, but this game showed some igly flaws that keep popping up. First of all, the rebounding was atrocious again. The Cavs did outrebound the Bucks in the first half, but by the end of the game, the Cavaliers were outrebounded for the 3rd consecutive game, this time by a tally of 45-36. The Bucks managed 17 offensive rebounds. This is just not acceptable for the Cavaliers. It’s fine against the teams you can beat on sheer talent alone, but giving up 17 offensive rebounds to teams like Boston or Detroit is asking for disaster. On the defensive end, the Cavaliers rebounding percentage was just 62.22%. That is simplying giving your opponent too many opportunities for 2ns chance points. In this game, the Bucks had 17 second chance points to just 12 for the Cavaliers. Ilgauskas was much better on the boards, grabbing 10 rebounds in 24 minutes. Ben Wallace started out pretty well, but he faded as the game wore on and only ended up with just 4 rebounds.

Thankfully the Cavaliers took care of the basketball and limited turnovers. Their only 2nd half turnover was at the end of the game on the Cavs last possession when LeBron just held the ball and took an intentional shot clock violation. The Cavaliers scored 19 points off Milwaukee turnovers and scored 36 points in the paint to take control of this game. The Bucks could only manage 11 points off Cavalier turnovers, and that’s why the Cavs won this game.

Another area of concern for the Cavaliers is the shooting woes of Daniel Gibson and Mo Williams. Especially in Gibson’s case, this has gone on long enough. Gibson was 0-8 in this game, 0-6 from three, for 0 points in 23 minutes. I understand that shooters need to shoot themselves out of slumps, but at some point Mike Brown is going to have to question giving Gibson so many minutes if he is going to continue to be such a nonfactor. In fact, in this game the Cavaliers went for extended time in the 2nd quarter with a lineup of Mo Williams (who was 3-11 from the field in this game, 1-5 from three), Gibson, Pavlovic, Hickson, and Varejao. This curious lineup scored 8 points in nearly 6 minutes of game time and allowed the Bucks to get the game tied up at 31 each. Granted, this lineup will not be used against elite opponents, but it was still tough to watch such an offensively challenged lineup play extended minutes.

On one hand, it was unfortunate to see the Cavaliers guards struggle with their shot (with the exception of Delonte West who once again played a great game and shot the ball well) and rebound so poorly and give up so many second chance points, but on the other hand, the Cavs defense was solid, holding the Bucks to just 38% shooting from the field, the turnovers were greatly reduced and thus limiting the Bucks points off turnovers, and LeBron was once again sensational. All in all, it was a good win, but the real test comes on Thursday when the Denver Nuggets come into town. If the Cavaliers don’t stop giving up 15+ offensive rebounds every game, they could be in for a rude awakening Thursday evening.