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Photo: Bill Kostroun/AP
The Cavaliers didn't say it, but their play demonstrated it. If they played their game, winning would not be an issue in the least bit. Doing more than enough for the victory, the Cavaliers did a pretty good job defending and created more than enough scoring and transition opportunities with several solid frontcourt performances, crushing the Nets in their last trip to the Izod Center ever. The Cavaliers played this game like they expected to win and were looking for their next challenge, extending their winning streak to five games with twenty games left to play.
No centers, one point guard: First, the Cavaliers are left without a true center in the absence of Shaquille O'Neal and Zydrunas Ilgauskas. Then, tonight, both Daniel Gibson and Delonte West were inactive for the game for personal reasons. Gibson's girlfriend, Keyshia Cole, gave birth to the couple's son, Daniel Hiram Gibson Jr., late last night, and he was with his family for tonight's game. Meanwhile, Delonte was held out for the same thing that has kept him sidelined periodically throughout the season, emotional issues. However, it appears that the Cavs hope to have him for Detroit on Friday, and they are very understanding about Delonte's path to recovery. The fact that this is the first game that Delonte has missed for this reasons in a long while is a testament to his improvement. What it did though was leave Mo Williams as the team's only real active point guard. For the Nets, they were without shooting guard Courtney Lee.
Make that no point guards: Of course, Mo Williams picked up two quick fouls in the first three minutes of the game, forcing Mike Brown to look down his bench and see no point guards. Luckily for him, LeBron James had heard that tale a time or two already this season. Brown went to Jamario Moon, and James slid over to the point, and the Cavaliers athletic lineup was off and running. Moon had two transition dunks in the blink of an eye, and the Cavaliers had built a substantial lead. With an athletic lineup of LeBron, Moon, Hickson, and Jamison, the Cavaliers can really push the ball and cause all kinds of matchup difficulties. I personally think that Moon will benefit from this quicker pace, and that Mike Brown should reward him with playing time over Jawad Williams in this setup.
Who said size matters?: With Yi Jianlian and Brook Lopez standing at 7'0" each, the Cavaliers countered with a much smaller frontcourt of Antawn Jamison and J.J. Hickson, who are each 6'9". I anticipated that this would be an incredibly difficult cover for Hickson, since Lopez had averaged 21 points per game against the Cavs with Shaq and Z. To his credit, though, J.J. made the Nets center work for every bucket. Lopez was just 3-for-12 in the first half for 9 points, and while he did finish with his average against the Cavs of 21 points and pull in 14 rebounds, he made just 7-of-18 shot attempts, and Hickson actually outplayed him with his offensive performance. J.J. had his 5th 20-point game of the season, and he made 9-of-14 from the floor for his 20 points to go with 13 rebounds in his 27 minutes. The way that Hickson grabbed his rebounds was most surprising, grabbing six on the offensive end in a very Varejao-like style. J.J. continues to finish increasingly better around the basket, and he is starting to develop some post moves and fakes that will benefit him and prevent the all-too-frequent blocks from earlier in the year. If J.J. has the ability to play guys like Lopez, he may be able to hold down the starting center spot until Shaq returns, because there are few 7-footers with better post moves than the second-year Net.
Oh yea, he can play some point: As mentioned before, LeBron played point for an extended stretch in the first half with Mo on the bench. As a result, LeBron's assists piled up once again as they did when Gibson was the only healthy point guard. The King had nine dimes in the first quarter, and he finished one short of his career high with 14. LBJ also had plenty of highlights to tease the New Jersey faithful. For instance, he had two breakaway dunks, and he was booed on both of them for his lack of creativeness. LeBron pulled a couple things out of his bag of tricks to return the favor, including a hard skip-pass to Andy for a layup, a high-arcing layup racing through the New Jersey D, and his third chasedown block of Chris Douglas-Roberts on the season. I reckon that CDR has nightmares about getting CDB'd (chasedown blocked) by LBJ, and they'll only get worse now.
Struggling to find their shot: Both Antawn Jamison and Mo Williams had a rough night shooting it for periods, and that has been a trend of late. Jamison is starting to find his way in the Cavalier offense and is far from his 0-for-12 debut, but it took him 23 shots to get his 19 points tonight. He hit just 9-of-23, but he did pull down 9 rebounds and hand out 3 assists. As for Mo, the struggles have been more prolonged. He has come alive late in two recent games to hit some clutch shots, but he has still been largely frigid. Tonight, Mo Gotti shot it at a 5-for-12 clip, but he was aided by hitting his last two shots in garbage time, as he started 2-for-7. Mo finished with 16 points and 6 assists, and that is one area where Mo's numbers have increased with his shooting downturn.
 goes to: J.J. Hickson and LeBron James. Hickson manned the center position like a pro tonight and outperformed Brook Lopez. J.J. had 20 points, 13 rebounds, and 1 block in 27 minutes. LBJ stepped into the PG position just fine once again, hitting 10-of-18 shots for 26 points, grabbing 7 boards, and dishing 14 assists. LBJ also had 3 steals.
Team Grade: A-
The wine and gold continue to easily score north of 100 points with their fastbreak style, especially against the worst team in the NBA. Cleveland shot 52%, held the Nets to 39% for field goals, assisted on 29 of 44 field goals, had 11 steals, and won the rebounding battle 46-39. The one blemish for the wine and gold was their 16 offensive rebounds given up.
The team has a day off before taking on the Detroit Pistons Friday night in the Q, when former Cavalier assistant John Kuester returns to face his former team in Cleveland. The Pistons are fresh off a 24-point beating at the hands of the New York Knicks. That's right, the same Knicks that we dismantled by 31 points.
All for one. One for all.
Kirk
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