Cavaliers-Magic Game 4: Magic Making Cavs Disappear

Once again, Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu were nearly invisible until the endgame, the Magic repeatedly made poor decisions with the ball, they got entirely too jump-shot happy late in the fourth, their baseline rotations were spotty, and they had no answers for LeBron’s bullish drives to the hoop—and they won anyway in a thrilling 116-114 overtime affair.

The Magic are proving that they certainly are resourceful. Here are the details.

With Anderson Varejao hounding Lewis one-on-one, and doing a terrific job of showing on Turkoglu’s high screens, Orlando’s dynamic wing duo was only a sometimes threat—until the fourth quarter, where Turkoglu’s ability to read and create led to three assist passes, and Lewis contributed 10 points, including a go-ahead three with the Magic down one and four seconds remaining.

LeBron James either gave too much space to Rafer Alston or was nailed by too many of Dwight Howard’s solid screens.

As a result, Rafer had the game of his playoff career—10-17 FG, 6-12 3FG, 26 PTS. It should be noted that Alston took many too-quick shots forced multiple passes, and missed six of his final seven jumpers.

But his early shooting spree carried Orlando until Turkoglu and Lewis got untracked.

James also gave Mickael Pietrus far too much room to shoot, and was guilty of too many poor closeouts. Yet in the eyes of All-Defensive Team Voters, he’s a better defender than Shane Battier?

Dwight Howard was too passive in going after entry passes, and did most of his damage against the lead-footed Ilgauskas.

Defensively, Howard was incredibly passive, took poor defensive angles on his rotations, and played with no focus—allowing Varejao to cut to the basket in early offense unopposed, and landing needlessly on the endline after coming down with a rebound (And All-Defensive Team Voters believe this guy is a better defensive player than Shane Battier?).

Yet he took over the extra period, with a drive-right, spin back left dunk, a driving dunk after Varejao tried to steal the entry pass, a tip-in, a dunked lob, and two free throws.

Anthony Johnson and Marcin Gortat made a few defensive mistakes, but each played well offensively in their brief rotations.

Truthfully though, the Magic won because the Cavaliers supposed greatness has been nothing but a myth.

Mo Williams made awful decisions, took awful shots, and played awful defense. He’s worlds away from being a championship-caliber second banana behind LeBron.

Delonte West also fired too many blanks (0-3 3FG), but made up for it with hounding defense on the much bigger Turkoglu, a pair of clever post moves against Turkoglu, and an array of gutsy drives into the teeth of Orlando’s defense.

Because Varejao was chasing Lewis and Turkoglu on the perimeter, his rebounding was a non-factor—2 REB.

Zydrunas Ilgauskas is too slow to handle Howard one-on-one, and he’s unable to show on Orlando’s screen/roll game. Whenever Ilgauskas is in, the Magic attack his leaden legs to create open looks.

Wally Szczerbiak was useless, while Daniel Gibson’s pair of threes canceled out his porous defense.

Joe Smith played only four minutes for reasons only Mike Brown knows.

And while LeBron certainly had an exceptional game, his jumper only connected on five of his 15 attempts, and he made a slew of careless passes into walls of Orlando defenders, committing seven turnovers overall in the fourth quarter and overtime.

Those turnovers down the stretch were more costly than his playmaking was beneficial.

How can Cleveland get back into the series?

• Get more touches for Delonte West in the post or going to the basket to make Turkoglu work extra hard on defense.
• Play Joe Smith more in place of Ben Wallace, and involve him and Ilgauskas in screen/fades to take advantage of Howard’s unwillingness to show on screen/rolls.
• Keep Pavlovic and Szczerbiak on the bench and play a three-guard lineup with West at the three. He has the toughness and the smarts to handle bigger players.
• Unless Ilgauskas is on the floor, trap Turkoglu’s high screen/rolls aggressively where he might turn it over. If Ilgauskas is on the floor, have West go over the screen with Ilgauskas hanging back, inviting Turkoglu to finish with his right hand at the rim.
• Attack the paint as often as possible to frustrate Howard and get him in foul trouble.
• Most importantly, West and LeBron have to become smarter decision makers (at both ends) and must make their jump shots.

If these adjustments can’t be made, then no matter what perceived success the Cavaliers had this season, or what imaginary corner they turned, the fact will be that their team was critically flawed with Orlando exposing those flaws.

If Cleveland can’t recover, their season will be a total failure.