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Photo: John Kuntz/The Plain Dealer
I'm not going to go on for pages and pages about how terrible the Cavaliers played tonight (although believe me, I could). Instead, I think it's necessary to call out the weaknesses in this team right now and possible solutions to what ails the team at this time. When a team relies too much on homecourt advantage, star power, and late effort to carry them through a playoff series, it is a recipe for disaster against a tested, proven veteran team like the Boston Celtics. As a result, the Cavaliers have a lot to think about over the next three days before heading to Boston for Game 3 on Friday, a crossroads in their season.
As questionable as the team's offensive execution was, it was the Cavaliers' defensive effort that truly has me scratching my head. To allow the Boston Celtics to score 104 points and shoot 51% on your home floor is startling and unacceptable in a playoff series. Rajon Rondo dominated once again, but he did so in more of a distributing role than a scoring one. The Celtics' point set a franchise record with 19 assists to go with his 13 points. Boston's big three was felt in this one unlike in Game 1. Ray Allen found himself free on several curling jumpers and connected on 8-of-15 for his 22 points, and Anthony Parker helped the cause by playing downright uninspired, lazy, old legged defense. Parker has struggled all season long on Allen, so I feel it might be time to look into giving some more of Parker's minutes to Jamario Moon and/or Jawad Williams. At least their athleticism and quickness will not be questioned as AP's is right now in my eyes.
The real surprise for the Celtics, though, was the sudden rebirth of Rasheed Wallace, who was a non-factor in Game 1 as well as a good portion of the season. To his credit, 'Sheed is not afraid to take shots and tonight that worked for Boston with his 7-for-8 performance and 17 points off the bench. To give a window into how off the Cavs' defense was, you need to look no further than Wallace's multiple open looks on the three point arc with everyone collapsing on Rondo and being late to rotate. I'll be surprised if Rasheed puts up another game like this one, but he does have the ability to hit big shots for this team, and he will continue to get his minutes as the Celtics look for that bench spark nightly.
Offensively, it was a quite, timid night for LeBron James. I get the feeling, as I'm sure everyone does, that his elbow is much worse than he is letting on. He is trying to get through the first three quarters of the games while taking as few shots as possible and from close range, saving all his effort for the fourth quarter. The problem is that the rest of the team is following his lead, and the team has had to come from behind the first two games of this series. Saturday, they did it with a lift from Mo Williams and were able to get over the top. Tonight, it wasn't until a 15-0 run gave them a prayer, cutting it to ten with a few minutes to go. That ace in the hole we've had for the last seven years, the ability to have LeBron go into takeover mode in the stretch run, is on shaky ground right now. I hope the explanation is just one off night where nothing went right, but I have the feeling this isn't the last time in this series where we'll see LeBron clearly struggle with the elbow.
The real no-show tonight was Mo Williams. Already doing nothing on one end of the floor, Mo turned in a 1-for-9 shooting performance with just 4 points to go with 7 assists. That cannot happen, especially on a night where the Celtics were firing on all their offensive cylinders. Antawn Jamison gave a decent offensive showing with 16 points on 6-of-11 shooting, but other than Hickson's bench effort of 13 points in 19 minutes, everyone else was in single digits. Delonte West has not been himself much of the playoffs, Anthony Parker did nothing after hitting two early threes, Shaquille O'Neal continues to miss two foot bunnies and unnecessarily slow the team down, and Anderson Varejao left tonight's game with back spasms after getting called for a flagrant one and technical foul.
So, where do the Cavaliers go from here? Well, the effort will have to be ratcheted up for Game 3 in the hostile environment of the TD Banknorth Garden. The Cavaliers will have even less of a margin of error in Boston, and their defense will have to be light years better than it was tonight. Rondo is going to continue to exploit the Cavaliers simply because nobody can really guard him effectively. But, the Cavaliers can survive that if they limit the bench production from Boston and limit Boston's three point makes from Ray Allen and Paul Pierce. As for Kevin Garnett, I have no problem with him scoring 18 points if it takes him 21 shots to do it (like tonight). It was just a buildup of all things going wrong for the Cavs defensively as six Celtics reached double figures. On offense, they need to stop giving Shaq so many shots when he is going to miss more than half of his attempts. They would also benefit from reviving their three point stroke, which has been dormant for a couple of games now.
This team is too deep and too talented to except some of these subpar performances. J.J. Hickson has 24 points in the first two games with limited duty, and he needs to be on the floor more since the Celtic bigs seem unable to deal with his raw athleticism. I think Jawad Williams and Jamario Moon need to both be ready to take on heavy minutes if Anthony Parker continues to crap out on both Rondo and Ray Allen.
Finally, Cavalier fans have to a little bit of praying. Pray that LeBron's elbow won't be the deciding factor in this series, pray that the Cavaliers find the will to turn back into the team that won 61 games and was the best in basketball, and pray that this God-forsaken curse quits raining down on us.
 goes to: J.J. Hickson. Hickson was the only one who consistently attacked the basket, which is an odd thing to say. He scored 13 points in just 19 minutes on 4-of-6 shooting. He will be key as the series heads to Boston as he is playing like the best big on the team right now.
Team Grade: F
Pick your stat: they will all make you vomit. The wine and gold were out-rebounded 43-32, shot 26-of-38 (68%) from the foul line, made just 4-of-21 (19%) from three point range, shot 40% as a team, allowed Boston to shoot 51%, committed 15 turnovers, and were outscored 31-12 in the deciding third quarter. All that adds up to one of the most disheartening losses in recent memory.
Game 3 is Friday night in Boston after three days off. In those three days, the team has to get a chip on their shoulder and realize that the Celtics are not going away. If they want to get to the top prize, they are going to have to go through these trying times, trusting in their depth, their talent, and their will to win.
All for one. One for all. 11 to go.
Kirk
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