Cavs Need to Finish Tonight

 

It’s funny how one play changes your perception.  If not for Eric Snow and Larry Hughes knocking the ball away from Vince Carter in the closing seconds of Monday night’s game four at New Jersey, LeBron James is taking heat.  The King would be cited for missing free throws and taking bad shots in the fourth quarter.  He could have made two from the charity stripe to put the wine and gold up three with 10 seconds left, but missing one, allowing the Nets to tie with a two pointer.  But, Snow and Hughes did make the play and the Cavs have a commanding 3-1 lead heading into tonight’s Game 5.

 

Cleveland needs to put it away tonight.

 

First, it’s a home game and you don’t want to go back to New Jersey for a Game 6, and have the Nets win at home and force a winner take all Game 7.  Anything can happen in a one game scenario.  Another reason to get this series over is what is happening in the Detroit-Chicago series, where the Bulls have forced a sixth game.  While no one expects Chicago to come back and win the series, if the Cavs win tonight they will enter the Conference finals with more rest than the winner of that series.  Off time becomes more precious as the playoffs go on.

 

Mike Brown’s defensive scheme has done a great job limiting the effectiveness of the Nets three pronged attack of Jason Kidd, Vince Carter, and Richard Jefferson.  At least one of the three has had a poor game in each game of this series.  Carter, who hasn’t been an elite player for years despite the hype, hasn’t played well at all.  He isn’t making outside shots and on the rare occasions he has gone to the rim, he hasn’t been converting.  Jefferson probably has played the best of the troika throughout the series.

 

The coach’s insistance on stopping this three headed monster has allowed Mikki Moore to be a factor in the series.  This is simply a coach picking his poison.  All of the people saying the Cavs have to stop Moore have to realize he is getting these looks by design.  Brown doesn’t want to live with being beat by Kidd, Carter, or Jefferson, and if Moore has to be the Nets best player to win this series, he’ll live with it.  That’s basic defensive basketball. 

 

Even though the Nets need to win three in a row to advance, this is a big game for the Cavaliers.  They need to finish and finish now.  LeBron hasn’t had that great shooting game in this series.  Tonight would be a good night to have one.

 

JK