MVN - Most Valuable Network

Fool Me Twice: Cavs Go Down 0-2 to Boston

It looks like LeBron James was right. He couldn’t play any worse than he did on Tuesday night.

Going from 11.1 percent shooting to 25 percent is, technically, an improvement.

While Paul Pierce and Ray Allen got back into the swing of things for Game 2, LeBron was still, for a lack of a better term, “befuddled.” He led the Cavs with 21 points - nine more than his 12 in Game 1 - but needed 24 shots to do so. He missed 16 shots on Tuesday. Thursday saw him miss 18.

So for those of you keeping score at home, LB is now eight-for-42 from the floor in this series, a scathing 19 percent. Suffice it to say that the Cavs are going absolutely nowhere if LeBron James shoots 19 percent from the floor.

And it’s “nowhere” that they’ve gone in this series so far.

I told CelticsBlog’s Steve Weinman that the Celtics would completely shut down the Cavs if they force LeBron and the rest of the bunch to become a jump-shooting team. LeBron settled…and settled…and settled for jump shot after jump shot. It got to a point where you had to be screaming at your television set whenever LeBron looked like he was about to pull back for another jumper.

And that sick feeling in the pit of your gut as you know that LeBron is about to brick yet another jumper has become all too familiar after these first two contests in Beantown.

I would be remiss here if I didn’t take a moment to take my hat off to the Celtics defense - that D was absolutely swarming. Assistant coach Tom Thibodeau’s impact was more than underestimated on this end, and he had his D trapping just about every single Cavalier on the floor no matter which number they wore.

One thing that provoked profanity-laced tirade after profanity-laced tirade from me was watching Anderson freaking Varejao put the ball on the floor and attack the basket as if he was Kevin Garnett himself. Let’s get this much straight: Varejao has completely wore out his welcome in Cleveland after the garbage play he has put up since the trading deadline.

It was one thing to demand a six-year, $60 million deal in the offseason like a complete buffoon - it’s quite another to follow up those theatrics by playing like a piece of crap. Anderson Varejao cannot and will not be anything more than a role player. Yet, here he is, demanding superstar money and playing as if he has plays drawn up for him. With him and his agent coming up with a cute little contract that features an out after next year, Varejao has to be involved in any and all trades this summer.

Unfortunately for the Cavs, I’m sure league executives watch these games, and since Isiah Thomas is no longer employed by an NBA team, it’s highly doubtful that these General Managers haven’t caught on to this. Varejao used to be the name that Danny Ferry received the most calls for from prospective trade partners. Unless GMs around the league are blind, stubborn, or simply don’t care, it’s hard to believe that this won’t change.

And remember how it was critical for the Cavs’ perimeter shooters to make their mark and punish teams caving in on LeBron and Z? Well, how does a resounding two-for-13 from beyond the arc sound? Guys like Daniel Gibson and Wally Szczerbiak would brick wide-open 3s in the first half, including an airball from Szczerbiak. Gibson’s breakout party in the ECFs last year was one of the main reasons - outside of LB’s 48-point explosion - the Cavs were able to slay the Pistons.

They’ll need that kind of production from Boobie again, but instead, they got 0-for-2 shooting from the field, 0-for-1 from downtown, no assists, no steals, two points from the free throw line, and two fouls in 20 minutes of burn. Boobie might as well have not even suited up.

The difference on the backboards got wider in Game 2 - 45-39 in favor of the Celtics. What was once a proud rebounding team was outworked on the glass on Thursday night. We blamed errant shooting on Tuesday night. Thursday night was the fact that Boston flat-out wanted it more. Some of it probably had to do with the fact that Ben Wallace went into the locker room shortly after tip-off due to dizziness. Nobody else on Cleveland’s frontcourt could pick up the slack, as Z only pulled down five boards while Delonte West - yes, all 6′3″ of him - led all Cavs starters with seven rebounds.

So much for shutting down KG and making Paul Pierce and Ray Allen beat you. Here’s a better idea: let’s let all three of those guys beat us together! Pierce came back with 19 points after his four-point night on Tuesday while Allen came back with 16 to follow up a scoreless debacle in Game 1. Garnett had a double-double with 13 points and 12 boards on five-for-nine (55.5 percent) shooting.

But in the end, it all comes down to LeBron. He had sloppy eyesore of games in the first two contests of last year’s ECFs before picking up the slack against the Pistons once the series shifted to the Q. If the Cavs want to win this series, they will have no choice but to make this matchup a re-run of last year’s series with Detroit. Although the Celtics were an elite road team in the regular season, they still haven’t won a game away from the Garden in the postseason. Games 3 and 4 back in Cleveland are both must-wins for the Cavs.

Let’s also not forget the 2006 NBA playoffs, where the Cavs were blown out and embarrassed by 27 points at Detroit in the first game of the second round, lost a nail-biter of a Game 2, and then used the energy and unparalleled support from the great fans of Cleveland to level the series at two games apiece before stealing Game 5 in Detroit. The Cavs ended up losing the series in seven, but the moral of the story here is that the Cavs don’t go away quietly (unless, of course, you’re the San Antonio Spurs facing them in the NBA Finals).

And it isn’t too much of a stretch to say that considering how the first two games went, losing one of the next two games at home will turn the lights out on the Cavs’ season. And it will be an unceremonious exit for the defending Eastern Conference champions, whose status as such is already in jeopardy.

Game 3 is Saturday night at 8 pm Eastern on ABC.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 9:27 pm and is filed under Steve Weinman, Ray Allen, Anderson Varejao, Delonte West, Wally Szczerbiak, Paul Pierce, Ben Wallace, LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers, Kevin Garnett, Daniel Gibson, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Boston Celtics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.