Win One For The Thumb? Ring For The King? Cavs Road Ahead Without Shaq

There was quite the concern over how the Cleveland Cavaliers would handle the lose of Shaquille O'Neal to an injury that looks like it will keep him out for the rest of the regular season. O'Neal had a severely sprained thumb after Glen Davis of the Boston Celtics swiped at the ball during the first half of the game between the Cavaliers and Celtics on Feb. 25th. O'Neal had surgery on March 1st to fix the torn ligament in his thumb and the recovery time from this surgery will be six-eight weeks. The timetable for his return will most likely be the first round of the playoffs.

The Cavaliers have gone onto win their past three games by an average of 21 points. They have been forced to play with much smaller lineups while O'Neal has been out with this injury and Zydrunas Ilgauskas being traded for Antwan Jamison. These lineup has players playing center that range in height from 6-8 to 6-11. So this presents the problem of guarding larger post players but it allows the small guys to run all over the floor.

The main reason that the Cavaliers acquired O'Neal over this past summer was to play tough defense against Dwight Howard and the Los Angeles Lakers and this has proven to be a great pickup for those exact reasons as the Cavaliers are 4-1 against these two top tier teams. 

Now that O'Neal and Big Z are out for awhile it allows the Cavaliers to run out a lineup that Bill Simmons described at one time "Poop-in-your-pants scary". With Jamison at the 3 or 4 and LeBron at one or the other and J.J. Hickson and Anderson Varejao at the 5 and the regular back court group of Mo Williams, Anthony Parker, Delonte West, Daniel Gibson and Jamario Moon the offense will be quick and aggressive!

The only problem that arises during all this is that it will seem like the Cavaliers will be in consistent transition with players coming and going in the lineup. This could affect the chemistry of the team come playoff time. After going through the transition of getting Antwan Jamison and Leon Powe coming back from injury, at the end of this month they will hopefully be transitioning Big Z back into the lineup. Then O'Neal will be getting back from his current injury in six to eight weeks. This could be troublesome for the Cavaliers as they will be starting to get into the meat of the playoffs during all of this. Also, during the playoffs, coaches like to get into seven to eight man rotation which could cause another problem in trying to get O'Neal back into the lineup and also change up the chemistry of the players.

It is too important though to have O'Neal in the playoff games against the Orlando Magic and the Los Angeles Lakers to allow any of this to effect getting O'Neal into game shape. The Cavaliers have to have O'Neal down the stretch to bother Dwight Howard and the Lakers front court. Coach Brown has to find a way to make all of this work and still have the Cavaliers ready to go against the Magic and the Lakers.