LeBron comes of age?

[Goober McTuber]

Holy shit. 48 points, 29 of his team's final 30 points. Nice game.

[RadioFan]

Wow. Missed tonight's game after last night's ass-kicking. It looked like one hell of a great game, even as Game 5 playoff games go.

War Detroit and Cleveland beating the fuck out of each other.

[King Crimson]

i burned out with ultimate finality on the NBA playoffs about 10 days ago, but i'd like to have seen that.

[indyfrisco]

I was fucking PISSED last night. I had a softball game so I TIVOed the game. I also TIVOed the 1 hour post game show in case it ran long. So I get home, shower and turn the game on. FUCK! Overtime! Had about 10 minutes left on my recording and FUCK! Double overtime!

I only got to see like 2 minutes of the 2OT. I flipped on over to ESPN and luckily, they had just started doing the game highlights so I at least got to see who won. But God damned, I put the safety hour on and still got the shaft.

[Mook]

Lebron did look tough as hell tonight. If he's hitting that long jumper he's unstoppable as he showed the last couple of games.

If he doesn't play out of his ass though, Cleveland doesn't win. This series isn't over yet, in spite of what many people are thinking.

[Dinsdale]

LeBron is getting there. But his 4th quarter FT shooting needs to improve, sooner rather than later. I think he'll come around, although it's not a for-sure, since 70% seems to be about all he can muster.

It's mental. Look at the crazy attempts he takes and makes, especially in the 4th quarter. As long as he's into the intense action, in the flow of the game, dude's pretty money. But slow things down and make him think, and he's a choker. I just think that when he's doing that "Lebron Thang," he's in the zone and is on auto-pilot, and it's not an issue.

If you didn't see the game, the overtime only happened because LBJ couldn't hit his throws in the 4th.


But I'm not trying to dis LeBron -- I mean, the team might come out of the East...despite having the worst coach, and possibly the second-worst GM in the game.

Mike Brown is horrible. Sure, he's in a tough spot -- coaching an arrogant primadonna is never easy in the NBA. But the strategic decisions this guy makes are atrocious. How many times just in these playoffs have we seen LBJ heat it up and really start taking over the game? Several. How does Brown respond? By figuring that they're getting too one-dimensional, and trying to post up Ilgaskas. If not trying to change the flow by going through a mediocre post plyer, he finds some other way to kill the rhythm that LeBron has found. I think he motivates his players extremely well, and always has them mentally prepared, and for this I give him very good grades. But when it comes to actual strategy...he's horrrrrrible. Hard to fire a guy that has his team ready to go on such a consistant basis, but damn...his in-game coaching is some of the worst I've seen in years.


Then there's Danny Ferry. W....T...F? So, you win the lottery(sidenote -- if'n I'm not mistaken, since they redid the lottery weighting and whatnot in the early/mid 90's, or whenever that was, the Cavs are the only team with the worst record to ever get the #1 pick). Not only won the lottery, but won it in a year that had "That Guy," which only happens every few years. Didn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out they had a real gem, potentially. They needed to get some key players to surround their golden boy. They went and got a promising young exec, who seemed like a mover-and-shaker. So how does Punch'em Ferry make his big splash in the managerial world?

Why, he does the same thing you and I would do -- he hitched the franchise wagon to Larry Hughes.

Larry. Freaking Hughes.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and bash Larry Hughes. Turning out to be a decent journeyman-type, and I doubt you'll find any sane person to say a bad word about his defensive abilities. And defense is certainly important.


But for some reason, I'm having a hard time believing that Hughes will be the Pippen to LeBron's Jordan. Not exactly the Worthy to LBJ's Magic. Parrish and McHale, he's not.


But did Ferry stop there? Of course not. He wasn't done putting together this monster lineup, which was now revolving around a franchise player, a midget who buzzes around the passing lanes, and a huge Euro who's currently being held together with staples and duct tape...


But there was one key position left to fill, and Ferry had just the guy, who was but a mere scribble of the pen away from delivering the Cavs to the Promised Land in the near-future.


And that missing piece now plays in Utah.


Sure, Utah blew Cleaveland's offer into the weeds in free agency. But while those numbers are almost unfathomable to people like you and I, in the big picture, it's a super-high dollar business, with fortunes to be made and lost. And when you're talking about winning championships in a town where they've forgotten what winning was, how big a deal is $4-5 mil a year? Sure, to us regular folk, it's a crazy-huge number. To an NBA franchise, it's the equivalent of digging change out of the ashtray, and winning the title generates revenue several times that of the original outlay.


Can you freaking imagine what the Cavs would be doing with Boozer right now? I think if you add up imaginary, hypothetical, impossible-to-define "skill points" in your head, as you see fit...is LeBron + Boozer equal or greater than Ginobli + Duncan? Obviously there's the "been there, done that" factor...but that's a whole buncha badass coming at you, either way.


I'm neither an employee of the Cavs' front office, nor am I even a Cavs fan, so maybe there's more to the story in terms of fit and chemistry. But to the casual onlooker, it sure seems like the Cavs just didn't want to pay market rate to keep their free agent. Maybe that's not Ferry's fault, and maybe he's working with financial restraints from a really cheap ownership. I don't know. But on the surface, it looks like there's some monumental fuckups working at some point on that corporate ladder.

When you've got one of the most promising young players the game has seen in a while, it's both strategically and financially freaking stupid to try and do it on the cheap.


Props to LeBron for getting his rag-tag outfit of misfits as far as he has. I'll give LBJ full credit, since his coach and GM sure the hell aren't doing anything to help him out.

I still have a problem with LeBron's ego growing at a rate much higher than his game and accomplishments, but props for what he has done, regardless.




Edit: While looking at game stats and clicking some links, it wasn't Ferry who let Boozer go, it was his predecessor, my man Jim Paxon. My bad. I was just remembering that funky shakeup in Cleaveland, and for some reason my brain had Ferry as the fuckup behind the loss of Boozer.

[Goober McTuber]

I get you point regarding LeBron’s inconsistency at the line. He was 0-3 in the 4th quarter, all within about the last 3 minutes. In those last 3 minutes he also hit a 3, to go along with 2 dunks in the last 30 seconds. Then he’s 5-6 from the line in the first OT.

I admit to not watching a ton of NBA anymore, but it’s the first time I’ve seem him try to take over a game single-handed and succeed. Maybe he’ll work on his free throws in the off-season.

[Dinsdale]

I'm trying to remember if it was to tie it in the first OT, or if it was the game winner in the 2nd...


But after the timeout, it was a no-brainer that LeBron would try to get something off the dribble. Either he'd get a short fadeaway look, or dish to an open shooter, in all probability. A few scenarios could have played out.

But I never thought one of those scenarios would be LBJ posterizing a bitch, and throwing it down in his fucking face for the big bucket.

That was sick.

[Goober McTuber]

If it immediately followed a timeout, I would guess you’re thinking of the game tying dunk near the end of regulation. Nothing like that scenario in the 1st OT, and the game-winner was a lay-up, not a dunk.

Play-by-play:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playbypla ... =270531008

[Dinsdale]

Just in from the Blazer camp, right after the predraft workout --

Kevin Pritchard said he would in fact be willing to make one deal for the #1 pick.

And if your name isn't Danny Ferry, don't bother calling.


God Oden just did his first workout-btw. Every scout and team official present agreed....dude is way better than they thought he was. Mark Agguire said he's easily the most talented, fluid big man he's ever seen.


All the evaluators described him as "jaw-dropping." "Never been a player that can do what he does at his size." (Although there was a dude named Wilt way back when, methinks.)

[Wolfman]

Although there was a dude named Wilt way back when, methinks.
no shit Dins---I saw Wilt in his first year in the NBA !!
also saw bruisers like Wayne Embry. I think Oden could be there soon.
BTW--
The Cavs are in the finals. Something tells me that the Spurs will not roll over for "the King and his court".