The good news is the Cleveland Cavaliers did a better defensive job against the Spurs’ big three of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili, holding them to just 34 points. Unfortunately, the wine and gold picked a horrible time to go ice cold from the three point line, hitting just 3 of 19 from behind the arc, and two of those were in the last three minutes of the game. The end result was a 75-72 loss, leaving the Cavs one game away from elimination.
Counting on the three is a dangerous offensive strategy, but many of these looks were wide open ones. Even Daniel Gibson, the unsung hero of the playoffs, couldn’t hit his open shots from three point range. The story of the game was San Antonio hit 10 3’s to the Cavs 3. End of story, and likely the end of the series will come Thursday night.
Defensively, Mike Brown devised a scheme to cut down on Parker’s penetration and it worked for the most part. The Spurs’ point guard put up more outside shots than in the first two games, and was held to just 17 points. In order to stop Parker from getting into the lane, Brown gave up defending some of the Spurs’ role players on the perimeter, and they answered the call. Bruce Bowen hit four of five from behind the line, and Brent Barry (a good shooter) and Michael Finley chipped in with some big shots as well. San Antonio hit over 50% of their three point attempts, a tremendous percentage.
Offensively, once again the Cavs’ lack of structure cost them down the stretch. They had open threes, but after hitting just 1 of their first 15, they probably should have taken the ball to the hoop more often. The biggest gaffe was Anderson Varajao’s ill advised attempt with 14 seconds remaining. Varajao got the ball because LeBron James had no where else to go, and LBJ wanted it right back. Instead, the Brazilian forced up a ridiculous attempt with the game in the balance. The lack of an offense allows the players to do the thinking, and in this case, it was the wrong thought. I doubt Francisco Elson would have taken a similar shot in the same situation for San Antonio. He would have known to get it back to Parker.
LeBron wound up with 25 points, 8 rebounds, and 7 assists, and likely would have had more had his teammates hit some of those open threes. James tried to will the Cavs to victory by driving to the basket repeatedly in the closing minutes, but he hasn’t found the range on his mid range jumper, missing all of them last night. Zydrunas Ilgauskas grabbed 18 rebounds, 10 on the offensive end, and played good defense on Duncan. However, Drew Gooden committed two dumb fouls down the stretch leading to Varajao being in the game at the end. The bench didn’t contribute much, except for Eric Snow’s defense on Parker.
It is very likely the series will win Thursday night with a Spurs’ sweep, and I don’t want a celebration for winning the conference championship. However, no one thought the Cavs would get this far this year, so in fact, the wine and gold overachieved this season. So I don’t want to hear how Mike Brown is an idiot, or how LeBron isn’t Michael Jordan. Instead, let’s concentrate on how the Cavaliers can get back to The Finals next year. The experience gained in this series will be a huge benefit if they can get back in 2007-08.
JK
Cleveland Sports Perspective 