We get it. Mike Brown likes defense. He’s made the Cleveland Cavaliers a very good defensive team, and previous to his arrival they were in the league’s lower tier teams on the defensive end. Unfortunately, you also need to score points to win. Against a team as good as this year’s Boston Celtics, scoring less than 75 points a night is not going to bring home a victory. The Celtics may very well be better on defense than Brown’s bunch, which means this could be a very short series, after the wine and gold dropped game 2, 89-73 in Beantown.
LeBron James is obviously frustrated by the Boston defense, resorting to firing up three point shots in the second half. If you are having shooting woes to begin with, logic says you are not going to break out of a slump by hoisting threes. However, wherever James goes on the court, he draws Celtic defenders like moths to a flame. The Boston defense is so tight it is a wonder The King can breathe. LeBron went 6 for 24 from the floor in Game 2, and the Cavs as a team shot 2 for 13 from outside the arc. The only Cleveland player who has proven he can make a shot is Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who had a solid game with 19 points on 9 of 12 shooting.
After leading 24-17 at the end of the first quarter, Cleveland led 27-20 after an Anderson Varajao free throw with 9:58 remaining in the period. They would not score for almost five minutes on a Wally Szczerbiak three. After that basket, they didn’t score again until less than two minutes remained in the quarter. That’s three points in almost nine minutes. Grade school teams have greater production. This is where the Cavs’ lack of an offensive plan kills them. You have to have a go to play to get a bucket and at least temporarily, stop the Celtics momentum. However, they don’t have one. Brown’s plan is to get #23 the ball and create something. The Celtics are far too good of a defensive team for that plan to work.
Also, for the most part, Boston is playing a 1-2-2 match up zone. Which means the Cavs have to combat this with crisp ball movement and less dribbling. Yet, player after player tries to dribble penetrate into the teeth of the defense, which is causing the wine and gold to turn the ball over with great regularity. As much as James is swarmed, he still took almost a third of his team’s shots. The trio of James, Ilguaskas, and Szczerbiak fired up 47 of Cleveland’s 73 attempts. Delonte West and Daniel Gibson have to be more aggressive looking for shots.
The Cavs’ bench is giving them nothing as well. Gibson took just two shots. Joe Smith hit just 2 for 7 from the floor. It doesn’t help that Mike Brown keeps one of his key substitutes this season, Devin Brown, anchored to the pines for virtually the entire series.
Ben Wallace’s premature absence from the game due to dizziness put Anderson Varajao on the floor far more than normal. Varajao did corral 10 rebounds, but shot just 1 of 5 from the floor. At least Wallace has the good sense to know his limitations on offense.
Things have to change in a big way before game three. The same kind of offense game plan will backfire unless the Cavs suddenly get red hot from the floor. Once the playoffs started, that has been the story: Shoot well, and the Cavs’ win, shoot poorly and it’s a loss. That’s what happens when there is a lack of structure on offense, you are dependent on hot shooting from the outside. All Boston is doing is what San Antonio did last year in The Finals. One year later, the coaching staff still hasn’t figured out how to attack the defense.
The Cleveland Cavaliers were down 0-2 to the Pistons a year ago in the Conference Finals. Somehow, the situation seems more bleak this year.
JK
Cleveland Sports Perspective 