Cleveland Cavaliers 115, Orlando Magic 106

I know they love jacking those 3s and I know this may sound easier said than done but not sure why they always abandon the inside out play even though they’re doing well on that. They had a good chance keeping the score close and pulling out a come back last night if not for those last few silly plays that enabled the Cavs to take over again.

In the critical moments of the game, there was absolutely no ball movement what-so-ever. I also 100000000% agree that you gotta feed Dwight and start from there. Maybe they didn’t have enough juice since they’re on the tail end of a back 2 back. We did at least hang with them but those early deficits has got to stop.

I counted at least 10 times when he would drive to the hoop, dribble around, dunno what to do, and forced ridiculous passes. Even when he was wide open he would drive into the crowd or try some weak high arching cross court passes. I wonder if he didn’t get a good night sleep or something because that was some awful decision making.

And I wonder if Dwight should just stay back on pick and rolls instead of chasing the wing players around trying to cut them off. He’s the the last (only?) line of defense for the Magic and when he goes out to chase wing guys it can only lead to cheap fouls, or open path for rollers/cutters. And LeBron is too good a passer, just leave him alone, seal the paint and make him take those jumpers.

And seriously, LeBron James is too good, it’s not fair.

Let’s get this straight. In our last 14 games, we’ve lost 3 road games where we had leads in the 4th quarter against very good home teams (LA, Memphis, Cleveland) and we had one bad loss where we were up 21 but two players caught absolute fire in the second half and now we need to make a trade. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, “Get some perspective.”

I know this is going to be the “Kill Jameer Show” all weekend, but let’s look back on those past 14 games. He had a bad game against Memphis (L), Washington (L), and Indiana (W) and then he had a bad quarter against Cleveland (if anyone can have a good enough memory to look back, he was playing well before that). The other games he was solid to good. It will be repeated, there were a lot of factors that led to last night’s loss.

1.) Bad defense on Hickson and Sideshow Bob, leading to easy buckets that were inexcusable. 2.) Bad rotations on perimeter shooters allllll night. People might say “Oh it was really bad in the 4th,” and yes, it was. But it was really bad allllll night. They just made more shots in the 4th. 3.) Jameer’s decision making in the last 6 minutes. That’s been gone over ad nauseum. 4.) Lack of ball and player movement for the entire team in the last 6 minutes. Pietrus, Lewis, and Carter all share some of the blame (even the shot Pietrus made was a terrible shot). Jameer gets more of the blame for that last stretch, but hey, that’s 6 minutes out of 48. To pin the loss on him and ignore everything else that happened in the game is short-sighted. 5.) LeBron is LeBron. As stated by Ben, Pietrus had great D on him. 6.) Dwight should’ve been left in. He’s earned that trust this year by coming through in the situation where he picked up his 4th in the 3rd quarter every time but one. But Stan knows it, so it’s no sense in killing him for a decision most coaches would’ve made.

All in all, there were some rational people warning not to put too much stock in this game. We’re not going to pass Cleveland in the standings unless LeBron gets hurt. This kind of scheduling situation isn’t going to happen again this year. This game will not have much to do with anything if/when we meet in the playoffs. I guarantee those rotations will be fixed by then. I guarantee those back-picks freeing up their PF’s for easy buckets will be fixed. I guarantee Sideshow Bob will not be hitting Steve Nash-esque fade-aways. I can, however, also guarantee that LeBron will continue to have nights like that. But as we saw, even when that’s true, even when there are a lot of factors working against the team, they can still be in the position to win on the road against the Cavs. There are some Cavs fans who still do not feel comfortable about playing us in the playoffs.

I don’t have expert opinion, but I did see that during the time the magic were up 7. They got there by forcing the “lebron vs Magic” offensive plays the cavs run. They forced a shot clock violation, one or 2 bad shots. Even the ones he made, for any other player would of been a bad shot. Then Dwights bad foul happened. I think the magic can learn from this like the post says. Force Lebron to do it all. Don’t double shaq, he’s slow and as long as the refs let the big men bang Dwight can stay in the game and play. The cavs are almost unbeatable when he’s going stockton on teams. He literally makes players better because on any other team varejao would be a scrub. But lebron gets him easy buckets. I think you let lebron go for 45 stay at home on their shooters and let dwight play shaq and help out in the paint. There’s no reason anthony parker, jamario moon,gibson and sideshow bob should be beating the magic. Make lebron average 50 against us, it worked in the playoffs and it works against D wade too.
I don’t know if anyone else noticed it but it was almost embarassing to the sport at how blatantly obvious the refs were trying to keep shaq in the game. He hacked jameer and they waited to see if the shot went in, shot goes in no call and shaq doesn’t get his 5th. And when he had fifth he blatantly forced dwight out of bounds with a push and there was no call. I don’t believe in conspiracy theories but I do believe in business and the NBA has an agenda when it comes to the Cavs because of their biggest money maker.
I also really do hope the NBA imposes a flopping rule one day bc its such a cowardly move. Take a real charge like JJ reddick does. That offensive foul on dwight was nothing more than a snap of the head by varejao, if u look at the replay dwight didn’t even hit him to force his head to snap back like that. Granted dwight could of kept his elbows low to take away the opportunity of a flop.
Other than that, Cavs played well at home, they beat us last year at the Q and pulled away late too. So I’m not even worried until the playoffs. And the first game this season was more an exhibition. Next game both teams should be full strength.

…it could be worse. It’s just a regular season game and I think the Magic are still the real deal. We’ll see in the playoffs if they can put together enough consistency to beat the Cavs like I know they can.

It’s funny reading comments from Cavs’ fans. Last year, they were like, “There’s no chance they beat us in the playoffs, I don’t care what happened in the regular season”, and now they’re all, “You see these two games? This Magic team is nowhere near what they were last year, there’s no way they beat us.”

I don’t have a dog in this fight so to speak since i could care less who won, Cavs or Magic. But the problem seemed to be all mental. I’ve never really liked SVG because he doesn’t give the same type of confidence as Phil Jackson or a Popavich. He never seems to be certain of anything, and he wasn’t last night. On a straight talent perspective, i still think that the Magic have the advantage. They don’t have the same advantage as last year, because lets face it, Hedo is better than Vince. But they still do have an advantage.

1) Why do you guys continue to fall behind by 10-20 points early? This is STRICTLY a coaching issue in my opinion. SVG needs to get the Magic playing at their fullest from the get go.

2) Strategy. Again, a coaching problem. What is the strategy against the Cavs? I know what it SHOULD be, and that’s play inside out basketball. When i say that, most people think i mean Dwight, but that’s not correct. Rashard should also be posted up. In the post, Rashard is your best offensive talent. I watched him in Seattle for all those years and the guy has game. Stop shooting all these contested 3’s, and take advantage of where you are superior. In the post, the magic are superior with Dwight + Rashard. Take advantage and then shoot the 3’s when they are open because of the post game.

3) Defensive strategy. Again a coaching issue. You guys did best when you played 1 on 1 basketball, not double teaming. Allow Lebron to “get his” via jump shots. Don’t double team an old and abused Shaq in the post. If Shaq in the post or Lebron on the perimeter beat you, then live with it. But don’t let Hickson/Varjoa pick you guys apart with dunks! The defensive strategy you used was responsible for all those easy points and everyone else getting involved.

4) Refs were horrible. They give Lebron way too many calls, especially against Dwight. Someone needs to be hired to show Dwight all the “tricks” there are to Ref calls. Maybe give Chauncy Billups a 10 day coaching contract to show Dwight how to play the refs. Of course they give Lebron some calls, but there are tricks to the trade and Dwight obviously doesn’t know them. I was joking about Billups, but seriously, someone should be hired for this purpose.

All in all, i thought that the Orlando coaching was to blame. Bad strategy, bad substitution patterns, bad everything. The Magic still have the advantage against the Cavs. It is not as big as it was before, but it’s still there. SVG needs to study what mistakes he made and correct it.