« The House/School Treadmill | Main | I'll Be Back » Wiz-Cavs Game Four27 Apr 2008 06:37 pm That LeBron James is a pretty talented player, huh? I think he's going to go places in the NBA. Beyond that, I don't really understand Eddie Jordan's notion that the Wiz should close games with Agent Zero iso plays. I think the Wizards and the Cavaliers are about equally matched teams. But the Cavs' best player is much better than our best player. Our advantage is that it's a game of five-on-five. Comments (33)
Watching that last play I thought the iso was a decent idea if it could have lead to a drive and kick out to Caron. As the play unfolded and it became clear that Gil was going to throw up the prayer I resigned myself to the Wiz loss. 
I really thought the agitate-LeBron-as-much-as-possible strategy really paid off. Smack him on the head a few more times and see how that works out for ya. Yeah, he'll chuck a few bad threes, but he'll be equally aggressive driving to the basket, it seems. If it were me, I'd try everything I could to lull him to sleep and shoot a bunch of long fade-away twos after dribbling for half an hour.
If I were the DeShawn, I'd point out right now that Jay-Z is overrated, too.
"I think the Wizards and the Cavaliers are about equally matched teams." Give me a break. How often do "equally matched" teams get their asses handed to them in the playoffs on their home floor for three consecutive years? I think a more likely scenario is that none of the three "great" Wizards are really that great at all. The Cavs have a superstar and some adequate, experienced, and mature players who w/ playoff experience who understand that defense and rebounding are the keys to getting wins in the post season. In addition, the entire Wiz franchise has been embarrassed by a no talent goon like Stevenson. Any truly great player would have never let that happen.
LBJ is the real deal. the Wiz are nothing but a pale imitation
JBJB, Lloyd Webber. Don't hate!
JBJB, Lloyd Webber. Don't hate!
"I think the Wizards and the Cavaliers are about equally matched team." First playoff series, they lost in 6. Second series (with a boatload of injuries), they lost in 4. Third series they're going to lose in 5 barring a miracle. That's the Hillary Math you got going there, Matthew.
Matt is right that they are basically evenly matched. The Wizard's showed up with two near-cripples -- their two biggest stars I might add -- and the game wasn't decided until the last shot. Cleveland is not a strong team nor did they impress; I was at the whole game in a very good seat.
"Matt is right that they are basically evenly matched." Yeah, except for the part about losing 2 games on the road and splitting at home. Better teams win in the clutch. I want what some of you Wizards' fans are drinking.
Cleveland may not have impressed today, but they won a playoff road game. That's always impressive. Cleveland has plenty of problems, but the Wizards seem to be even more inconsistent from my eyes. They don't seem to know how to take advantage of mismatches.
Its not just the iso play at the end though, Eddie Jordan seems to be forcing Gilbert into action (or, more likely, Gilbert is forcing himself in). Daniels only played 17 minutes and yet the team plays better, at least this year, when he's in the game. I understand that because of his knee its better for Gil to start but the coming off the bench idea was much sounder. Further, Caron's game has totally been out of whack since Gil came back. Its all a mess.
...and the game wasn't decided until the last shot. That's technically not wrong, but the Cavs never trailed since midway through the 2nd quarter. From that point on they more or less were in control despite some runs by the Wiz to tie it up a few times. I never really felt like Cleveland was in much trouble despite how close it ended up.
Gilbert Arenas is a perfect example of the kind of player you DON'T want as your team's best player. A fragile undersized prima donna who makes much more money than genuinely great players make is a poor centerpiece. And any team that is referred to by its own fans as "the Wiz" - that's just disgusting.
I don't know why everyone is so bummed. Did anyone seriously expect us to go on in the playoffs? We are not that good. I'd say all in all, it was a successful season. We probably could have done better if we dealt Agent Zero in a good trade. He was too much drama in the locker room. What we need to do is figure out a way to make a trade for Chris Bosh. I am sure he is tired of paying those socialist Canadian taxes by now. But really, as Vanilla Ice says, we've gotta drop the Zero.
Another exciting best-of-seven series in the NBA, huh? Was this game on basic cable or does the NBA still get any playoff coverage on broadcast?
PaleoconFred picks dandruff off of his old scalp and wonders: "Another exciting best-of-seven series in the NBA, huh? Was this game on basic cable or does the NBA still get any playoff coverage on broadcast?" What are you, 90? Who gives a fuck about "broadcast" when the networks have given up huge swaths of time? Get a cable box, geezer.
I'll stick with satellite, ML&J, but thanks. "Broadcast" though is where NBA games used to be found when most of the country gave a crap about the sport.
Fred's right. How can NBA execs show their faces in public when their playoff games are no longer broadcast on TV networks? You'll never see, say, baseball playoff series on some crappy little network like TNT or TBS. Or take Monday Night Football, for example. There's a sports phenomenon that will never go off the airwaves! APS
It's also worth noting that it was Arenas who left the red hot Delonte West wide open in the corner for the game winning 3-pointer. If you wanted to ding Jordan's coaching in the game, I'd blast him for his lack of defensive adjustments, once it was obvious West was making that shot. The Wizards didn't adjust their defense in the slightest, and gave up one wide open 3-pointer from the corner after another in the 3rd and 4th quarters, up to and including the game winner. I'd think maybe you'd want to switch it up a little on D when you keep getting torched by the exact same play.
Tyler Congratulations for being at the game, although I'm not sure how that is relevant to the topic at hand. I've watched just about every Cavs/Wiz game for the past 5-6 years. I can tell you that flat out that these teams are not "evenly matched". The Wiz have not progressed as a team in the past three years, in fact, that have likely gotten worse. This is crystal clear when you watch them in the playoffs. There is no harmony, cohesiveness, or team play ongoing whatsoever. They have not learned a single thing from their previous playoff defeats, they keep making the same dumb mistakes. This is the hallmark of a bad team. The team has very poor on the court leadership, which is which why a disaster like Stevenson has manifested itself. Sure, you have a few decent offensive players in Arenas and Jamison, and one truly good all around player in Butler, but these guys for whatever reason have not been able to gel and create an efficient team game. The NBA is packed full of above average offensive players and bad teams, great individual offensive play usually does not work in the the post season over a long series, just ask the Suns. On top of it, you have the Wiz running around before the series trash talking like they had already accomplished something. I mean, get real, don't you have to at least win a series before you get all smug and cocky? This is another hallmark of a bad team, lacking both good coaching and player leadership. The Cavs on the other hand have gotten better in each of the past 3 years in post season play, especially defensively. I'm not arguing that they are a great team (far from it), but they are a whole lot better than the Wiz. They run 4 very adequate bigs at you (Z, Wallace, Varajao, Joe Smith)- all who are above average defenders and good rebounders. Add LJ to these bigs and you have a formidable front line. The Cavs are weak at guard, especially in perimeter defense, but the Wiz really have no one to exploit this weakness. In fact, Wally Z and D. Brown have done an adequate job of keeping Butler in check and D. West is easily able to keep in front of a hobbled Arenas. The best match up the Wiz have is Jamison against one of the Cav bigs, but Jamison doesn't seem to have ability to exploit the match up late in games (or a team and coach who even recognize the advantage). At the end of games, the Cavs know exactly where to put the ball, and the Wizards know where they are going to put it, yet they still can't stop it. I wont even go into the match up problem that Lebron creates for the Wiz (or any team), but this alone is not the reason the Cavs have steadily progressed the past couple of seasons in the post season, it's the team defense and rebounding. This is how they wore the Pistons down last year, and they will have to be even better to advance past the Celtics this year. But they are hands down far better than anything the Wiz have put together, which is why the Cavs are again one game from bouncing them out the playoffs. The Cavs have a simple strategy that they play to every night - play good defense and rebound, keeps games close until late in the fourth and then give the ball to the best all around player in the world (my opinion) and take your chances. So Tyler, I don't doubt that if the Cavs and Wiz played another 1000 games, the Wiz would manage to stay close in some and even win a few, but they would lose most, because they are simply not as good. There are not as deep, or as defensively sound, and they have nothing even close to what the Cavs have in LJ. As a Cavs fan I truly feel your pain, I have seen this scenario from both sides. We were on the bad end during the making of the Bulls championship franchise and to some extent the Pistons. Obviously the Cav's aren't there yet, but of these two teams (Cavs/Wiz), there is one building around a proven championship philosophy (defense, rebounding, super stardom), and one in disarray which has on-the-fly adopted empty trash talk and flagrant fouls as a playoff philosophy. No, I wouldn't call that "evenly matched".
"As a Cavs fan I truly feel your pain, I have seen this scenario from both sides. We were on the bad end during the making of the Bulls championship franchise" DeShawn Stevenson = Craig Ehlo.
Uh Fred, there were two games on ABC. And every Finals game is on ABC. The NBA doesn't have the luxury of only having games on one day a week. Hell, even MNF is on basic cable and football is the most popular sport in the country.
Petey Word. At least Ehlo kept his mouth shut.
"Hell, even MNF is on basic cable and football is the most popular sport in the country." There's just been a switching of MNF and SNF: now the bigger game is the Sunday one on broadcast, and the other game is on Monday on ESPN. Glad to hear that the NBA still gets a couple of games on broadcast.
There's just been a switching of MNF and SNF: now the bigger game is the Sunday one on broadcast, and the other game is on Monday on ESPN. Glad to hear that the NBA still gets a couple of games on broadcast. Actually, you're wrong. MNF is still the marquee game. The reason why NBC wanted SNF instead of MNF is because Sunday has worse ratings than Monday. They'd rather bump their Sunday night show, Monk, over their Monday one, Deal or no Deal. The NFL gets the broadcast stations because its playoff games are all on weekends. If it went to a 7 day a week schedule, like baseball and basketball, it'd be relegated to basic cable as well.
As a Cavs fan I truly feel your pain, I have seen this scenario from both sides. We were on the bad end during the making of the Bulls championship franchise Yeah, I noticed this analogy as well. I remember being extremely bitter about Jordan and the Bulls all those years, especially when it seemed like the Cavs had better all-around teams once or twice. I also remember deluding myself into believing Jordan was overrated. Heh. Yet, I doubt the Bulls look back on that as any kind of rivalry since they never lost a series.
Actually, you're wrong. MNF is still the marquee game. What? When MNF and SNF flipped, so did the importance and talent level of the games. I remember Kornheiser, on his radio show before the season, whining about all the travel involved while reading off the MNF schedule. What was immediately noticeable was how little any of the games mattered, i.e. no big rivalry matchups, powerhouse teams matched up against also-rans, interdivisional snorefests, etc. The only memorable MNF game of last year was NE-Baltimore, while the rest of the games had ESPN jumping through hoops to trick viewers into caring about a Denver-Tennessee sport-bortion (asportion?).
Look at this years' schedule, based on rivalries, playoff teams and marquee players they're about equal. Sure, MNF has the SF vs. AZ barn-burner, but SNF has Sea vs. SF, which is just as bad. Some of it was luck. I doubt the schedule makers expected the Was-Min game to have the playoff implications it did. Those teams had 11 wins total in 2006. Denver and Tennessee were up and comers in August of 2007. They had barely missed the playoffs the year before with their young, top 10 pick QBs. Cutler and Young were the draw for that game.
@Mo: The '08 schedule looks a bit less lopsided than the previous season - SNF has a bit of an edge when it comes to rivalries and top-tier teams; divisional-wise its a wash between the nights. At least Seattle won their division last year, so saying that Sea/SF was 'just as bad' as AZ/SF is a bit of a stretch.
Some of it was luck. I doubt the schedule makers expected the Was-Min game to have the playoff implications it did. Erm, you do know that the last 3-4 weeks of the season NBC gets to pick which game it shows? Obviously the league didn't know which Week 16 game would amount to a "play-in", but when the time came NBC sure did.
America awaits the game 5 post...I know I enjoyed it, I want this thing to go 7, and Stevenson to kick LeBron in the knee before the Celts series. Can't wait til MY returns from an elite bar in DC.
Comments closed May 11, 2008. |
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Heads in the Sand
Don't begrudge Eddie Jordan that much. He has really done wonders with the hapless Wizards. We were fighting for a playoff spot with Michael Jordan. And before that we were a decades upon decades long disaster.
Posted by Bubba | April 27, 2008 7:03 PM