The Cleveland Cavaliers have been riding high as of late.
A once seemingly insurmountable deficit to be considered one of the top teams in the East, has been chipped away at a slow and steady pace. Now, the Cavs have been finding ways to win, sneaking their way up to the fourth seed in the eastern conference.
LeBron James has been instrumental, cancel that, LeBron James with the exception of a bucket here and there from a teammate, has BEEN the fourth quarter for the Cavaliers.
The "killer instinct" that was last year's popular knock on LeBron has developed in front of our very eyes, and it's scary.
With his speed and size, he is forcing his way to the basket and he's next to impossible to stop with momentum in the lane. Late in games, the mid-range jump shots and even contested 3s manage to find their way down, when it seems as if he gets in his 'late game zone'.
LeBron undoubtedly finds ways to make the guys around him better when he's on the court as well. But, the negative effect it seems to have when he's out of the line-up is starting to be blatantly obvious.
The Cavaliers are 0-6 without LeBron's presence on the court and their lack of a second leader on the court is glaringly apparent. While on the positive side they feed off his play and ability to find them buckets off his own double and triple teams, they are also so spoiled by his presence that when he isn't in the game, each individual is challenged to a higher degree individually, as their defenders are not watching LeBron out of the corner of their eye and can man up without anyone commanding secondary help to contain.
In last night's game against the Supersonics the Cavaliers looked lackadaisical and slow to the ball the entire first half and defensively it looked like a pick-up game at the YMCA. Uncontested shots and defensive miscues under the bucket led to a 40-point first quarter for Seattle.
To coach Mike Brown's credit, he had just about every different Cavalier on the floor, but nobody was stepping up and defensively were uninspired and out-hustled.
Eric Snow even made an apperance, dusting himself off to try and provide a spark defensively with his strength being disciplined veteran defense, but to no avail.
Shannon Brown finally peeled off the warm-ups as well as Donyell Marshall who was coming back for the first time in two months since suffering a wrist injury. Snow, Marshall and Brown combined for five points, two rebounds, and no assists.
The bench who, with LeBron playing a spark as of late, simply jumped into the game to take their turn playing un-enthused and painfully hesitant, waiting for the next guy to take control of the game, just like LeBron does when he is in the game.
Larry Hughes finally stepped up and finished the game with 28 points. But without LeBron in the line-up they came up a few buckets short of a fourth quarter comeback which they lead the NBA in doing.
5 comments Last one added about 1 year ago — Leave a Comment
Drew Barton about 1 year ago
With LeBron, Cavaliers are a dangerous playoff team since one player can carry a team a long way. Without him they get a lot of ping-pong balls.
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Sean Stancill about 1 year ago
You can also make a case for Yao Ming, Kobe Bryant, or Kevin Garnett.
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Jeffrey Santon about 1 year ago
Ming no,Kobe yes,Garnett kind of. Ming might not even be the best player on his own team. Kobe is Kobe,he is in the conversation. Garnett has a pretty mean combo with him,but you could make a case for em.
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moira gannon about 1 year ago
Lebron is awesome
and I love the Cavs!
good article.
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Anonymous about 1 year ago
contrary to popular belief and what the mass media portrays it to be, the cavs have won a lot of games because of the crucial contributions from lebron's team mates. his team mates are not as bad as these people claim them to be, so stop being stupid and believing their propoganda.
The Cavs have had one of the best front courts in the league for the last few years. Ilgauskas was an allstar before Lebron arrived. Drew Gooden was a top 4 pick in 2002, and has been a solid contributor for years as a starter. Varegao is one of the best 6th men in the league. Daniel Gibson is one of the best shooters in the league. Larry Hughes may not be worth his max contract, but to say that he is not talented is ridiculous. For instance in his last eight games, Hughes is averaging 20.5 points, 5.0 rebounds and 2.6 assists. and being 0-6 in lebron's absence doesn't mean a thing: it just means lebron is the mvp of his team, not of the nba. you can't use that argument when not many mvp caliber players have had the "opportunity" to get injured and miss games (you think if nash wasn't playing that the suns would win most of their games?). plus, when lebron was out, the cavs were struggling without key players when andy was holding out and hughes was also injured; you can't isolate facts and choose to frame them without mentioning the proper context. quit depicting lebron as some savior when he's nothing more than an over-sized baby coddled by the nba.
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