Written by Demetri Inembolidis

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In what will be remembered as the “Luke Harangody Game,” the undermanned Cavs went into Washington and beat the Wizards by a score of 98-89.  The Cavs were missing Kyrie Irving, Anderson Varejao, Daniel Gibson  and Semih Erden to injury and Byron Scott chose to rest Antawn Jamison because the team was in the middle of three games in three nights.  The lack of available players did not matter and the Canton Charge Cleveland Cavaliers finished the night with a road win.

The Wizards had more points in the paint (42) than the Cavs (30).  They had more second chance points (19) than Cleveland (4).  The Wizards had 21 more possessions than the Cavs and they made 4 more field goals.  So how did Cleveland win the game?  Cleveland managed to get to the line 33 times compared to Washington’s 12 free throw attempts.  Anthony Parker has been to the line 50 times in this current season and 8 of those attempts came against the Wizards on Saturday night.  You would have to go back to January 14, 2010 to find the last game that Anthony Parker took that many free throws.  To put it into perspective, that is the game that the Cavs lost on a Sundiata Gaines buzzer beater in Utah.  Additionally, the Cavs made 81.8% of their free throws, which is an improvement from the 71.7% that they are making on the year. 

Tristan Thompson had a strong game on the offensive end of the court, but he continues to get his shot blocked at an alarming rate.  The Wizards managed to send back 4 of his shots.  Thompson took 11 shots and made 5 of them.  That means that of the shots that he didn’t make, only 2 were not blocked. 

With this win, Cleveland now has more wins than they did in all of last year.  This season has not always been pretty.  There have been a lot of injuries and losses, but the Cavs did improve upon their situation from last year.  Progress is key and although it isn’t always obvious, it is being made. 

As has been a common theme in game recaps this year, it is amazing how many guys will produce if given a chance.  Luke Harangody is not a player that you want playing big minutes in a playoff game, but he got his first career start and finished the game with a 16 point and 10 rebound double-double.  He was efficient and made good decisions throughout the entire game. 

John Wall was killing the Cavs with midrange baskets, but it was ultimately not enough for the Wizards to win the game.  He finished with a game-high 19 points and 9 assists.  During the post-game call-in show on WKNR, Michael Reghi was going off on a tangent about how the Wizards lack a winning atmosphere and that they are terrible because they have too many knuckleheads on the roster.  Reghi was excited about the win because he believes that finishing out the year strong is the best way to start off next season on a positive note.  Clearly, the Wizards do not have a winning atmosphere, but the only way to change that is to replace guys like Andray Blatche and all of their guards who do nothing but shoot with better players via the draft.  After the draft in late June, the Wizards are either going to have Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Bradley Beal or Thomas Robinson.  Bringing in any one of those guys is going to do wonders for their atmosphere and get John Wall at least one teammate that is worthy of his talents. 

The Good: The Cavs were able to get a road win despite being severely undermanned. 

The Bad: The Toronto Raptors are tied with the Cavs in the lottery seedings.  This blogger will be very angry if they win a tie-breaker and get a much better player in the draft than the Cavs did after the curious decision by Chris Grant to leave Jonas Valanciunas on the draft board last year. 

 

The Ugly: Samardo Samuels had one of his patented disappearing acts.  In 8 minutes, he had his shot blocked, was called for 2 fouls and pulled down 2 rebounds.