Well, we're back in town for another four-game homestand after winning No. 9 in New Jersey on Sunday. It's great to have the home games back-loaded into this year's schedule, because it gives the Cavs a chance to regroup. With all the road games, it's hard to regroup. Playing on our own floor gives us a chance to regroup and get mentally prepared for the war we're about to head into.
Right now, Coach Brown is starting to work on his rotations. The big question I've been asked is whether Ben returns to the starting lineup or whether Andy should stay. And I'm pretty sure it's going to go back to the way it was in the beginning - with Ben starting and Andy coming off the bench.
That makes us deeper - and in the Playoffs you need depth. So I think it'll go back to normal. I mean, we were 25-5 with Ben in the starting lineup, so why not go back to it? That just makes us a deeper team heading into the Playoffs.
How deep Mike will go into his rotation is still a question. It all depends, but as long as you're productive you're going to play. Granted, Mike Brown's going to go with a seven- or eight-man rotation and if a ninth or tenth man is playing well, they're going to get time. If you're resting guys in the Playoffs, that's a good thing - it means you're winning all those games!
Mike Brown won't let his team get complacent in these final 12 games. But really, it should be easy to stay focused now, because you actually haven't accomplished anything. You haven't done it yet.
I realize Boston and Orlando are saying that the Cavaliers have the East already wrapped up. All they're trying to do is use the psychological part of the game to see if we'll fall for it. I call it the "okie-doke." They're trying to lull us into a false confidence.
I mean, you saw what the Celtics did to us up in Boston. They played like it was Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. We went in there a little lackadaisical and not really understanding what the game meant to them - and they jumped on us. I think we have to realize that, at this point, Orlando and Boston will pull out all the stops to see if we'll stumble trying to cross the finish line.
Right now, the Cavaliers just need to take one game at a time and get ready for the Playoffs. That's all we're doing right now: trying to get better every game and fine-tuning the defense, the offense and the rotation. (Even though we really won't be able to fine-tune the rotation until the final week or two of the season, with Ben and Wally still out.) As it is, Mike Brown, I'm sure has an idea with what he's looking to do.
As it stands now, it's looking like when the postseason does roll around, it'll be the Bulls in the First Round. It'll be a good matchup.
Chicago doesn't have the interior, but they have a great perimeter game. And that's where we'd have to be careful with them. Because if we let them go crazy out there on the perimeter - we're going to have trouble. If we can cut them down from the outside, we can beat them on the inside, like we did with New Jersey. We would need to just methodically grind them up and get them out of the way.
Because we faced the Bulls so early in the season - before they made their big trade - they're a different team. But basically it's going to be the pick-and-rolls from the wings and the guards shooting three-pointers. They haven't changed that part of it. They don't dump the ball down into the post on a consistent basis; it's pick-and-roll from the sides and trying to get out on the fast break. They don't really do anything different; they just have different personnel.
The Cavaliers will have the same personnel they've already faced, and by the time we reach the postseason - against whoever we'll play - LeBron James will have won the Most Valuable Player award.
How could you say he's not MVP? All these other guys - their good games are "40, 3 and 4" or "40, 5 and 6." LeBron's games are "40, 10 and 9." To me, it's LeBron, hands down. And defensively, he's there every night. With Ben out, LeBron's been the "defensive catch-all" - he handles everything and everybody.
And when you add his defense to what he does offensively, I don't see any way LeBron James can't be the MVP.
The Cavs are coming off a great three-game run on the West Coast and topped the Knicks on Sunday night when they got home. I don't like seeing the team fall behind and have to come back like they did out West, but in April - all that matters are W's and L's.
But there has been a little bit of a problem with their interior defense. And tonight, we'll find out: have we corrected the problem?
They weren't having this problem a month ago. But since Ben went down, it's really been something they need to solve. Big Ben takes ownership of that paint and I think all the other players follow suit. We miss Ben with second chance opportunities - especially with him and Anderson on the floor together. But on defense, he does not allow open lanes to the basket; he won't allow it. And all shots are contested.
So, naturally, we miss him. But if you're going to win a Championship, you still have to get by on the short term without some of your players. And we've done that all season. And we'll get that attitude back when he's ready to play.
I'm looking forward to tonight because Orlando has almost caught Boston and they've become a threat to us. We have to play them one more time down in Orlando. So, we want to win this game tonight to even up the score and then, hopefully, go down there and beat them.
The Magic have had a lot of success against the Cavs. It's their inside play; they have a perfect balance. They have the inside game and the outside game. You can't give them both.
You have to shut down either the inside game or the outside game. And the most conventional thinking is that Dwight Howard is not going to beat you by himself - even if he gets 30 and 20. The key is you can't let him do that and the other three guys get 15 or 20. It's tough to beat them like that.
So the Cavaliers might take a page out of the Pistons' book. The Pistons don't double-team Howard unless he's in a situation where you can double-down on him quickly. They just let Rasheed deal with him and dare the other guys to beat them. And that seems to affect the Magic. When they don't hit their outside shots, they're not the same team.
Right now, Orlando's every bit the threat to us that Boston is. We have the mental capability of dealing with the Celtics, but right now, I don't know where we are with Orlando. We're not quite there yet, mentally - as far as how to stop them. We know what we have to do to stop Boston. But we haven't quite figured out Orlando yet.
Hopefully, we'll start tonight. Because now is the time to start ramping ourselves up for Playoff basketball.
You want to give yourself a chance to be able to see what works before you get into the Playoffs. You have to start setting your rotation - tweak your rotation a little bit here and there, which Mike Brown seems to be doing. You want to work on your schematic on the backside of your defense or do some things differently on your in-bounds plays. Now is the time to see how these things work so when you get into the Playoffs you understand every nuance of your team and how you want to attack an opponent.
The Cavaliers haven't been their sharpest of late - most notably on the defensive end. They really have been tired over the last few games. But the thing to remember is two years ago, we would have lost all these games. Last year we would have lost these games - because they would have found an excuse to let them lose the game.
But this Cavaliers team is a no-nonsense, no-excuses team. And they fight through adversity. That's the biggest thing I took from the West Coast trip. They have learned how to fight through adversity. And that's what winning playoff basketball will be all about.
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.
Hey, everyone back in chilly Cleveland! It's AC -what's happening?
Well, it's good to be back in C-town, and even better to be back after going 3-1 on the road.
When we first started the trip, I said 2-2 would be a good barometer of where we were at this time. And especially because the last two teams on the trip, Atlanta and Miami, were two teams that beat us on their home floor. I figured we could split the first two against Houston and San Antonio. (And really didn't think Tim Duncan would miss Friday night in San Antonio, so that was sort of a "gimme game.")
But what we did Sunday and Monday was perfect - because we beat teams that we had lost to on their floor and basically what that tells me is that we're a much better team than we were earlier in the year.
We didn't play our best game, especially against Atlanta, and we were still able to win the game. We played solid in the first half against Miami, but at the end of the third quarter and beginning of the fourth, they pretty much dominated us. But it's a team game. And that fourth quarter was exactly what "team" is all about.
The coaching staff came up with a little adjustment in that fourth quarter - with the double-team on Dwyane Wade - and that changed everything. That changed the complexion of the ballgame. The Heat were ready to win that game, because everything was going their way and Dwyane Wade was having a ball. And all of a sudden, he couldn't penetrate anymore and that changed the course of the ballgame.
This last win shows you where the Cavaliers are mentally, because they could have folded - and it would have been acceptable. They're on the road, it's a back-to-back, they got into Miami at 6:30 in the morning. But they weren't going to go for that. And to me, once they sensed they could win the game, that's when they turned it up.
Once the coaching staff made that change and they realized defensively that they had a chance, that's when everything changed. There was blood in the water and the Cavaliers were on the attack. And I can't say enough about Anderson and Z around the basket. They were superb in that fourth quarter. And then offensively, LeBron and Mo were off the charts.
Mo has been excellent on the trip and all season long. Everything that we needed in a point guard to make our team whole, Mo has been the answer. And I don't care what you say - he deserved to be a starter in the All-Star Game. And he's proving it every night.
The Cavaliers now have one thing that all good teams have, and that's the will to win. And, to me, that's how you win on the road. That's what we were like in the Miracle year and the year after. When we stepped on the court, if you let us have a chance to win in the fourth quarter, the will to win is what put us over the top. You can see it. You can feel it.
On Monday, we had the will to win. And they didn't. And a lot of it came down to the Heat are so used to having Dwyane Wade control the action at the end of the game - especially after the performance he had on Saturday night against New York - they're used to sitting back and watching him. All of sudden, our defense adjusts and he has to give the ball up. Now, he's giving it to guys who aren't used to the pressure at that time of the game. They lost their focus.
These road wins against two teams that we might face in the postseason is huge because of what we've developed at home. Every team in the league knows that when they come to Cleveland, it's going to be extremely tough to leave with a win. Now, they also know they're going to have a tough time beating us on their floor. So instead of it being a six- or seven-game series, it could be a five-game series. That's a big, big difference.
You get a sense about this team. It's the same sensation I felt during the Miracle year, I can feel it now. The team is together. Management is all focused in the same direction. They never get complacent; always trying to improve the team. You can just feel the confidence building as we move through the season.
Now, again, the rough patches are not over - we're still going to have some tough times. By the same token, we still have the mental and physical resolve to get through it, because - and people might think I'm crazy for saying this - this team is still in a developmental stage. Mike Brown's teams don't get where they want to be until the middle of April, heading into the playoffs. It's what he learned during his time in San Antonio.
He coaches them to be mentally and physically ready at that time. He wants the team to be into an upward tick - not downward or leveling off - because they still have another gear to get to. And I think the players understand that.
As good as the trip was, we have to get focused for the week ahead, including Friday's game at Boston. It's a huge game. We have a lead on Boston - now they have to climb back. Garnett might even be back for that game. But we don't want to stumble against Milwaukee. The first game back after a long road trip is always a tough one. So I want the crowd to get involved and give the team that extra push.
I'm pumped up for that game, but Coach Brown has me in that same mode of one game, one day at a time. I don't want to get ahead of myself. But I'm telling you right now - I'm going to be off the hook doing that game on Friday night in Beantown.
That was quite a weekend for the Wine and Gold. Before we get to Delonte's return and squashing the Pistons on Sunday, I have to mention that 55-point game LeBron had on Friday in Milwaukee.
I've never seen anything like that. And the thing to remember is that we needed it. He's had seven 50-point games on the road, and none of them have been blowouts. Those are always points that we've needed. That, to me, shows the brilliance of LeBron - he knows what he has to do to help his team win.
But I've never seen a three-minute stretch like that. It was unreal. And I was having so much fun on TV, I don't even know what I said! I was just talking, having a good time. LeBron just kept going back further and further. If Scott Skiles wouldn't have called timeout, LeBron would've shot one from halfcourt.
The Cavs followed up that win in Milwaukee with a really satisfying win over the Pistons on Sunday.
Delonte's return obviously made a huge difference. The biggest advantage to his return is that everyone's in their normal spots in the lineup now, and you could just see that the energy came back last night.
Defensively, everybody's back into their right frame of mind right now. It's as if the team said: "OK, we're ready to go now!" You could see everybody was up in the passing lanes, getting out on the fast break. And having that extra guy that can beat you off the dribble is so important.
Now you have Mo on one side, LeBron on the other side and both of them are capable of hitting two or three shots in a row - and that changes the complexion of a game. Now, if teams cheat towards Mo and LeBron on the same side of the floor, you have Delonte open on the other. If you have Delonte and LeBron on one side, you can swing it to Mo, who's great on the catch and dribble or can stick the jumper. It really causes a world of trouble for defenses now.
And I really didn't realize how important Mo and Delonte are as a unit. Those two guys together really complement each other.
Delonte was lights out from the floor last night, but he brings so much more than just offense and scoring. Delonte brings a toughness. He's tough - he doesn't take no mess. And that encourages the other guys to play that way. Ben is that way - he don't take any mess. So now you have two tough guys. And LeBron is very aggressive. Z is becoming more aggressive. Everybody is becoming more aggressive, and I love to see it! Because that toughness is what the Celtics have.
The Cavs will have to be tough in the next couple weeks. Because this is one of the toughest road stretches of the season.
You have two back-to-backs with a day off in the middle and all four teams are playoff teams. That's tough, but it's good that we're relatively healthy going into this stretch. It's very important to come through this 2-2, although 3-1 would be spectacular.
First of all, the Cavaliers need to take care of Memphis on Tuesday night at home. It's simple: we just have to beat them. It's a game we should win and, so far this year, we've been winning the games we should win. We've only had one slip-up - that game against the Wizards. And that's pretty consistent basketball. We have to beat the Grizzlies. Then we have to go on this road trip and have at it.
The Rockets are going to be a tough matchup down in Houston, and San Antonio is obviously tough, even without Ginobili. Houston won't have T-Mac. But, really, these teams have been playing without their key guys long enough that they've made the adjustment.
Then we get one day off and we have to tussle with Atlanta and Miami. We always have a tough time in Atlanta and Dwyane Wade always gets fired up to play LeBron. So, it won't be easy.
After that trip, the Cavs have to come right back and play the Bucks - (who I think we could match up with in the first round) - and then head right back to Boston.
It's a tough two-week stretch, and I'm glad we're relatively healthy to go through it. We'll get a good measure of where we are after the Boston game on March 6 (and the Heat at home the next night). When the smoke clears after that weekend, we'll know what kind of team we really are.
If we come out clean on the other end of that, batten down the hatches, we're headed for the Promised Land!
