Written by Rich Swerbinsky

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Swerb looks back at game two, and looks ahead to game three this evening. His take? The Cavs have a chance to effectively end the Wizards season tonight, but not without help from Larry, Z, and Flip. Tonight, 7 PM.  The Cavs have a chance to effectively end this series.  And I hope they play that way.

The Cavs were bailed out in game three by a superhuman performance from LeBron James.  Scoring eight of the teams last ten points, and 14 of his 41 in the fourth quarter, King James hit the game winner with 5.7 seconds left in a game the Cavaliers trailed throughout.

You’d be hard pressed to name anyone on the Cavs that played well besides James.  Larry Hughes played well defensively again (four steals), but he once again struggled offensively, making just 6 of his 15 field goal attempts, and bricking several of those misses.  Hughes is just 12-40 from the floor in the series.  Zydrunas Ilgauskas struggled again as well, despite the fact the Cavs tried desperately to get him involved early.  Z was just 4-12 in game three, and is averaging just 11 points per game in the series.  Besides James, the rest of the team was 19-57 from the floor in game two.

Defensively, the Cavs were a different team in game two after the half, and Mike Brown deserves the credit for adjusting at the half.  The Cavs forced turnovers, held the Wizards to 4-12 shooting in the final nine minutes, and shut down Antawn Jamison … who hurt them badly in the second half of game two and the first half of game three.

But there’s no way the Cavs get out of D.C. with two wins with no offensive production from anyone besides James.  Just as they did in game two, I expect a crisp, inspired, and desperate performance from the Wizards tonight, who know a loss this evening pretty much ends their season.

The Wizards feel they were robbed in game one. Eddie Jordan and Gilbert Arenas have been crying about what they felt was a travel on LeBron’s game winner for the last two days.  That move hasn’t been called a travel in twenty years in the NBA, and LeBron was also mugged on the play … but that’s not going to stop Jordan and Arenas from using that as additional motivation for game four.

The Cavs aren’t going to get 41 from LeBron tonight.  And the Wizards aren’t going to have ten second half turnovers.  They’re going to need some help from Larry, Z, and the bench offensively if they want to slit the Wizards throats tonight.