After all the good vibrations coming off Wednesday’s win against the Nets, Friday night’s game against the Bulls turned out to be uglier than Joakim Noah as the Bulls beat the Cavs 100-93 at the United Center.
The Cavs would have been better off playing at American Airlines Arena in the hopes that, like everything else with American Airlines these days, the game would be cancelled.
No such luck.
The Cavs actually got off to a pretty good start against Chicago. Hard not to when LeBron James goes 10/10 from the floor and scores 24 points in the opening quarter. But even while watching that surrealistic effort from LBJ there was cause for concern in that Chicago scored 25 points in the first quarter to stay within striking distance. And it was somewhat unlikely that LBJ would go 40/40 with 100 or so points on the night.
A recurring theme with the Cavs is the inability to shut down quicker, athletic guards. Ben Gordon is one of those and he kept the Bulls close in that 1st quarter and pretty much got what looks he wanted.
Gordon scored 16 points as the first man off the Bulls bench and he nicely supported Luol Deng and a very active Tyrus Thomas. Deng put up 21 points and Thomas scored 20 to go with 14 rebounds.
James could have napped for the final three quarters and still led the Cavs with his 1st quarter point total. He didn’t nap but he took more time off in the 2nd half than we’re accustomed to seeing, finishing with 34 points and 6 rebounds. Joe Smith chipped in 20 points off the bench. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Smith scored all but two of the Cavs bench points. Wally Szczerbiak took five shots to score the other two points.
Aces
- Every night LBJ is on the court you’re just liable to see something other-worldly. The 1st quarter perfection and 24 points qualifies. Baseline drives capped off by crushing dunks, driving lay-ups while taking hits, long three-pointers, and it was all working in the first 12 minutes.
- That’s the Joe Smith the Cavs are going to need in another 10 days when the playoffs start. In 25 minutes Smith was 9/16 from the field and consistently worked himself into positions to knock down shots. He was active around the basket as well, including a pretty emphatic throw-down dunk that we haven’t seen from Smith thus far in his tenure with the Cavs.
- The good news is there are only three of these Jekyll & Hyde regular season games left to endure. A lot of people are convinced this team will turn it up a notch and LeBron will lift his game and take over a series. We’re about to find out.
7-2 Offsuit
- Let’s start with the really abominable and work our way toward just crap. In 49 minutes of play Anderson Varejao and Daniel Gibson were a combined 0-8 from the floor and with nary a free throw attempt between them. There’s really not a great deal more to say about the ‘production’ the Cavs got from those two.
- Maybe the playoffs are the answer for this club. In the playoffs, if you can win the first one, you can advance forever if you just play well every other game. For as much as it was hoped or thought that the game against the Nets could be a watershed game for the newly put together Cavs they just can’t or won’t put a couple of those efforts back to back. There was no defensive help against the Bulls and there was less perimeter defense. Probably going to need at least some semblance of both at various points during the postseason.
- Not to mention what a lack of effort like Friday night does to team confidence and morale. Ideally you’d like a team to be hitting on 6 of 8 cylinders in a rotation as they enter the playoffs. Hell, this team isn’t even sure which 8 cylinders are going to be out there on a nightly basis.
- It bears mentioning that the Cavs have yet to clinch that elusive 4th seed in the Eastern Conference. They have a lay-up against Miami and then finish at Philadelphia and at home against Detroit. Two playoff teams and a road game. That doesn’t instill in too many people a great deal of confidence at this moment and the Cavs need to start a playoff series at home to win one based on their rotten regular season road record. Time for the Wine & Gold to rise up.
Finally
The game against Miami is set for Sunday evening at 6pm. That one’s at ‘The Q’ against a Miami squad playing out the string. Of course, the Bulls were playing out the string Friday night too.