Hey, everyone back in Cleveland! It's A.C. - what's happening?

Well, we're headed back out onto the road, and it was nice to get a win on Saturday before we left. A lot of fans are still a little upset about the Boston loss, but I don't read too much into it.

The way I see it is: this is not the team that's going to go into the Playoffs. As well as we've played, we still have shortcomings. It's up to the coaching staff and the players to make the proper adjustments when we head into the Playoffs.

As long as Mike Brown's been here, that's the way this team has been geared: The team that you see in January and February is not the team you see in April. They will make adjustments and do what they have to do to become Playoff-ready. The do it one game at a time - that's Playoff mentality right there.

To bounce back against Dwyane Wade - and to pretty much handle the Heat - told me a lot about this team. You could tell they were tired, but they were able to muster up enough to win the game. (The home crowd helped a lot on Saturday, too; on the road, they might have lost that game.)

Now, the game they're shooting for is the game against Boston on Easter Sunday - because that's right before the season ends. And that might be the game that gives us the Eastern Conference's top spot. I want to make sure that we're able to take advantage of that game.

 It's been a tough stretch for the Cavaliers. They played seven games in nine days, got a one-day break, and now head out to the West Coast.

I think this whole stretch is wearing on the team a little. But at the same time, that's why we added Joe Smith. So we can have that depth. The bench is going to be key over these next three games, because the starters will run their course, but they'll need the bench to either boost them up or get them back in the game. And they're going to need production from the reserves.

The bench hasn't been very productively lately. It sounds simple, but they really just need to make shots.

Basketball is a simple game. If you defend well, you have to make shots, In other words, what we can't get into during this road trip is a long spell of missing shots. That's when you get in trouble. We defend well enough to get stops, but we have to score to keep our leverage. Once you get into a scoring funk, you lose your leverage. And that's when you get in trouble.

That's why getting Joe Smith is so important, especially at this point of the season. The coaches can already see how productive Joe Smith is. They threw him right into the fire. In that Boston game, he was the only one fighting around the basket. He's going to mean a lot to us, but he's not in shape yet because he didn't play a lot of OK City. He's getting there. But you can see what he's going to mean to us once he gets totally in-tuned with what's going on.

The Cavaliers wrap up the West Coast for the regular season this week - taking on the Clippers, Suns and Kings.

The Clippers are like a Dr. Jeckyl-Mr. Hyde kind of team. So you're going to have to be good defensively against them. If you can stop them offensively, they'll lay down. They'll get an emotional lift if they get Kaman back, but Kaman's not going to be a player who'll destroy you. They're a running team that likes to get up and down the floor, so you'll have to slow them down.

Phoenix is essentially Shaq, right now. If you can keep Shaq from going off, you can beat that team. That'll be somewhat of a barometer game because of how we've been playing defensively in the paint. But Shaq's just one man; we've been getting beat up by the entire frontcourt in some of these games we've lost. So we'll find out where we stand.

I'm looking for them to win the first game on the trip and things to unfold from there. I think we can win the Phoenix game and then they should handle Sacramento. You don't want to get ahead of yourself, but if you start out well tomorrow night, you get a good jump on the trip right away.

After these three, the really tough road part of the schedule is definitely up - and I have to imagine that it'll give the team some buoyancy. Almost everything else is a one-game-and-out situation after this week, with the long road stand coming up. So if we can come off this stretch - and, say, win all three of these out West - and come though this 8-2 (or even 7-3) after one of the roughest parts of the season - we'll be rolling into the home stretch.