Photo: Jeffrey Phelps/AP

Coach Mike Brown made the decision earlier today to sit LeBron James out of tonight's contest with the Milwaukee Bucks. In doing so, he left his team without an identity that it struggled to find throughout the game. Compounded by the fact that Mo Williams had one of his worst shooting nights of the season, the inspired offensive showcases of Antawn Jamison and Delonte West were not enough as the Cavaliers got next-to-nothing from everybody else. The Bucks used their always solid defense under Scott Skiles, coupled with timely three-point shooting to beat the wine and gold, ending the Cavs' six game win streak and the Cavs six straight wins against Milwaukee.

The King sits on the throne: After LeBron tweaked his right ankle twice in last night's game against Detroit, coupled with the heavy minutes LeBron has been playing, it was too much for Mike Brown to resist. MB held LeBron out of the lineup for the first time this season, and he gave the starting nod to Jawad Williams. Brown said that he also may hold LBJ out of the team's next game Monday night versus San Antonio as well, because the Cavaliers don't play again after that until Friday, which would give LeBron a full week off. I'm okay with this decision since the Cavaliers most definitely have to think long term, but with the team already missing Shaq, Z, and Boobie, they can't be giving too many games away with the Lakers right on their heels for the best record and homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs.

Predictable start: With little preparation and even less experience playing without LeBron for an entire game, the Cavaliers were bound to struggle out of the gate. They did just that, falling behind 8-2 as the wine and gold missed their first 5 shots and were only 1-of-8 at the point where they trailed by six. The Cavalier frontcourt struggled to stay in front of the Buck bigs, and the team looked incredibly timid. It took a long while for anybody to step up and take action, because LeBron throughout all the injuries, trades, and absences has been the glue that has held this thing together. Without him, there was a significant disconnect in several ports of the Cavalier network.

Delonte's deja vu: One thing is for certain, Delonte West enjoys playing in the Bradley Center. The Cavalier reserve guard sure did his part tonight with attacking the basket and setting others up to do the same. While Delonte didn't have any single stretch quite as impressive as his 14-0 personal run on the Bucks earlier this year, he did have the first 10 points of a 15-0 Cavalier run early in the second quarter that gave the team a lead after trailing by 13. Delonte's activity jump-started the wine and gold and Antawn Jamison, who picked up the scoring and gave the Cavaliers a legitimate chance in this game.

Antawn takes over scoring burden: Newcomer Antawn Jamison answered the call for serious scoring without LBJ. While he did start slow, Jamison picked it up with West in the game, and he quickly had himself a lot of buckets, several of them in his unorthodox wrong-foot floater variety on the baseline. When the night was over, the Cavaliers had wasted Jamison's first 30 point effort with them. 'Tawn made 11-of-18 shots from the field, and he added 11 rebounds, 2 assists, and 5 steals. He did, however, continue his struggle with free throws, making half of his eight attempts. Jamison is shooting just 46% from the line as a Cavalier and 68% on the campaign, well below his career mark of 73%. If Antawn can bring that type of scoring in presence, in less volume alongside LeBron, the Cavaliers are going to be tough moving forward in the coming months.

True center bothers Cavs: This was the second real center the Cavaliers have had to mess with since Shaq went down. The first was Brook Lopez, who J.J. Hickson did a nice job on, but Lopez also missed a couple of makable shots. Tonight, Andrew Bogut proved to be more of a problem, although it was not necessarily clear in the box score. Bogut bullied his way into a slew of easy points on Hickson, also getting him in foul trouble. Then, he went to work on Vareajo, who was called for a couple of tough-luck calls, a technical, and had to battle that foul trouble throughout the second half. The Australian big went for 15 points and 9 rebounds in 36 minutes, but he created more points than that with the double team attention he drew in a couple of instances. This isn't a longterm concern with Z poised to come back in two and a half weeks and Shaq hopefully back for the playoffs, but it is something that will continue to be an issue in the short term.

The Skunk: Rookie Brandon Jennings was feeling pretty darn good about himself in this game. He took his sweet time in demolishing Mo Williams at both ends, pestering him with in-your-face D that caused Mo to lose the ball a couple of times and draining jumpers in his eye. He also picked up on the Cavaliers token celebration on three-pointers, "Goosey". Jennings used the symbol a handful of times, taunting Williams on his way back up the court and gave the Cavalier bench the shoulder shrug on at least one occasion. Look, I know the Cavaliers get a lot, A LOT, of flack for their celebrations. I also believe that they do, in fact, cross the line at times during the course of the season. What I don't think is acceptable, however, is a rookie, no matter how good, taking a team's original creation and using it as his own. If you're going to taunt, at least think up something on your own. As for Jennings, he is now on my list, and I hope he enjoys the pounding he will take when the Cavaliers aren't down their two most important players. As for "The Skunk", I am dubbing Jennings with that affectionate nickname for the time being for that butt-ugly stripe of orange hair down the middle of his tiny head. I heard some people dub him "The Rooster", but that's too glamorous for Jennings and the Bucks.

Milk carton Cavaliers: A search party should have been sent out immediately after the game to find Mo Williams, J.J. Hickson, and Anderson Varejao, because they didn't show up at the game. Sure, there were some guys who looked like them out there, going through the motions, but it couldn't have been them. Either that or LeBron is just that important to these three players' success. J.J. and Andy rely on James for their offensive openings, so I figured we might be in for a long night there. Hickson had 1 point and 5 boards in 20 minutes, while Andy scored 4 points with 6 boards in 26 minutes. Their defensive effort is what really disappointed me though. As for Williams, it was one of his most downright lousy and poorly timed performances in a Cavalier uni. He chucked up 17 shots, hitting just 3, and the Cavs were -18 with him in 34 minutes tonight. He also was torched as mentioned before by Jennings. Mo was obviously down on himself after the game when he tweeted from his account, "I apologize to all my fans and Cavs fans for a s***ty performance to say the least. I will get past this a get better, stay with me pls". I feel for Mo, because things have largely been bad for him shooting-wise since the Jamison trade and his return to the lineup. He could find himself being the fourth option on offense when the Cavs get Shaq back. Mo's a streaky player; there is no hiding that. So, part of me wants him to get this horrific streak to come out now rather than in April, May, or June. The Cavaliers are deep enough now that they can survive an off night from Mo, but that goes out the window without Shaq and LeBron.

Some different faces: With LeBron missing, both Danny Green and Darnell Jackson got a shot at some important minutes for the team. Oddly enough, Leon Powe recorded a DNP-CD as Brown chose to go with D-block, quite possibly because of his bigger frame for Bogut. Green did pretty well I thought, and the +/- numbers support that. Cleveland was +15 in the nearly 16 minutes that Green was on the floor, and Green had 3 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assists, 1 steal, and 1 block, a typical statline for the guy who is noted as being a jack of all trades. D-block played 5 minutes of mostly quiet basketball with the team going -10 with him out there.

goes to: Delonte West and Antawn Jamison. Delonte lifted his game once again in Milwaukee with a season-high 27 points on 11-of-18 shooting, also adding 4 rebounds, 6 assists, and 1 block in 32 minutes. Jamison emerged as the chief scoring threat with 30 points on 11-of-18 from the floor as well, chipping in 11 boards, 2 assists, and 5 steals. Both of these guys brought it offensively, and defense largely wasn't the issue. It was the lack of a third capable scorer that sunk the Cavs on this night.

Team Grade: D+

This is not really fair to the Cavaliers, facing the sixth best team in the East on their court on a back-to-back without their two leaders. However, this team is supposed to be the deepest team in the league and the deepest Cavs team ever. Two guys stepped up, but their All-Star Mo Williams was far from it, and other key guys like Varejao, Hickson, Jawad Williams, and Anthony Parker didn't rise to the occasion either. The Cavs held the Bucks to 41% shooting and 92 points, so their defensive effort really was not the problem. It was the 17 turnovers to just 21 assists and the 11 threes made by Milwaukee that sunk them.

The Cavaliers head back home on Monday night to take on the San Antonio Spurs. They may do so without their star once again as James would get an entire week off if he sat that contest out.

All for one. One for all.

Kirk

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