Antawn Jamison shows up to play, but so does Orlando
by Jeff at the BBC on Feb 21, 2010 3:07 PM CST
in 2009 Post Game Recap
22 comments
We got to see what Antawn Jamison will bring to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Unfortunately, the Orlando Magic reverted to the form we got so used to in the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals as the Cavaliers lost their third straight game, 101-95.
Jamison had 19 points and 8 rebounds, and sparked a second-half surge by putting the first 8 points of the second half through the rim. However, frequent foul trouble plagued the newcomer, as he fouled out in 31 minutes of action. Jamison and Shaquille O'Neal were frequent victims of the whistle as they struggled to defend against Magic center Dwight Howard.
Howard finished the game with 22 points and 16 rebounds. O'Neal had 20 points on 9-of-10 shooting.
LeBron James, despite having a stellar game of 33 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists, failed to deliver down the stretch. He scored only one point in the fourth quarter until he secured a meaningless layup with 12 seconds left.
The final 6 minutes of the game was a nightmare, with nearly everything being thrown at us went in favor of Orlando. During that span, the Magic shot 6-for-6 from the field and 4-for-6 on free throws, turning an 85-80 Cavalier lead into the final score of 101-95. The 21-10 run was an eerie reminder of what ousted the Cavaliers prematurely last year.
But for everything that Orlando did well down the stretch, none of it would have mattered if the Cavaliers could have seen halfway decent play from the guards. Mo Williams, Anthony Parker, Daniel Gibson and Delonte West went a combined 4-for-23 from the field (17 percent) and ended up teaming up for only 15 points in 95 minutes of action.
Orlando started strong and burst out to a quick 7 point lead at the end of the first quarter. The "who is Superman" sidestory began taking shape early with Shaq and Howard battling each other in the paint. Shaq won the battle far more often, but Howard ended up dominating Anderson Varejao when Shaq took his rest periods. The trade for Jamison certainly helped with his production, but the lack of Z as a backup loomed large.
The second stanza was a back-and-forth game which saw the lead grow and shrink from between 3 and 11 points, but it ended the half with Orlando up 6, thanks to an outstanding and-one from LeBron.
Then came Jamison's heroics, with which he easily silenced his critics of Thursday night, followed by the Magic uprising to finish off the day.
Still, the Cavaliers have now seen the first 3-game losing streak of the season, and their first since December of 2007 when they lost 6 straight.
Cleveland returns home Tuesday night to face the New Orleans Hornets at 7pm, and all indications are that Leon Powe will be activated for the game. The Cavs were holding Powe out for one more practice, which will take place tomorrow.
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this reminds me of last year in the playoffs
the cavs need to step up and play with heat and intelligence. LeBron has not been helping the cause with his stupid horrendous three’s. Stick with what you do best Lebron, get to the hole. Now that things couldnt get any worst, the Lakers are tied for the best record in the league, We’ve dropped 3 games straight..
My man Lebron needs to play like the MVP he is. It’s not all on him, but its up to him to make us win
I KNOW
I’ll get pounded for this, but I’m first and foremost a CAVS fan…I like individual players but they are NOT the whole team…
It is time for Mike Brown to sit LeBron down, look him straight in the eye, and tell him to start playing better team ball…WHAT?? blasphemy, you say?…NINE rebounds and SIX assists…that’s not team ball?…NO it’s not….Not when you’re 1-6 from three in this game and 3-21 over the last three games His shooting percentage is dropping every game. some of those missed threes COULD be assists….some could be drives…some are necessary because of the clock…Yes, he’s averaging 10 APG over the last three games, but twelve or more would have given the TEAM two more wins
IT gets better…
Mo is back to being a chucker …(1-9/0-4/3 Ast today)Remember last year when you would hear AC say “Mo with the Mo-flo” about four times a game?…How many times have you heard that this year? Mo is NOT breaking guys down off the dribble…(interesting that his only basket today came on the possession following his only attempt at dribble penetration) he’s pulling up and chucking…great when they drop but go back through the box scores from this year and look at the games the Cavs have lost…
AND there is so much more….
But I’ll leave it at this…Who had the hot hand in the second half?…Are these guys so selfish that they won’t go to the hot player until the bad guys stop him?….Jamison could have had 30 today if they would have kept feeding him (also Shaq 9-10 20/5/1..imagine if he had 15 touches today) and he was doing it the right way…INSIDE-out…and drawing a couple of fouls in the process…we’ve seen this with JJ numerous times this year..Great first half then never see the ball again
To a man, this team claims to be “all about the wins”…Time to put the money where your mouth is guys….because it’s beginning to look like it’s all about the touches you get individually
13-15 from Shaq and even 22-24 from Jamison would have been a win..too bad the guys on the floor can’t see that
Pretty much the main reason they stopped going to AJ is he was on the bench shortly after hitting his hot streak with his 4th foul. Mike Brown really needs to get his team in check for the last 5 minutes of a close game. All offensive sets go out the window. And the d looks really lost. If I saw that Shaq, AJ, and LeBron all had 20+, I would’ve guessed they won by at least 10.
is it just me?
Look, normally I dont get on the refs because over the course of the game every good and bad call tends to balance out. This afternoon however I felt like the refs basically handed Orlando this game. Is it just me or did anyone else have a similar observation? Off the top of my head I can think of a few instances. The charge against Jamison obviously. Two of the calls against Shaq were straight up some of the softest calls ive seen in awhile, granted he got away with one too. Dwight Howard got away with alot more than he usually does, he shouldve had 5 midway through the fourth. I know Andy has flopped in the past but he barely does it at all anymore and people need to start to realize this. Lebron as usual took shot after shot. And dont even get me started on the bullshit with the shot clock when Lebron had the catch and shoot off the in bounds.
It just didnt seem consistent at all this afternoon. Granted, we were COMPLETELY outplayed in the last 3 mins independent of the refereeing but with Shaq and Jamo in foul trouble any momentum we had in the beginning of the fourth was shot and I really think that played a difference down the stretch. Shaq and Jamo were are two strongest players most of the game and they were forced to sit when it mattered.
I would counter with… Where were Moon and Darnell to spell them and keep those two out of foul trouble?…It was a little uneven but it didn’t cost the Cavs the game…It may have pushed them over the hump, but they lost it by themselves…no help needed
by cavslandrocks on Feb 21, 2010 4:32 PM CST up reply actions
You have to expect some home court cooking from the refs. The shot clock one and AJ’s charge were annoying, the rest of them were just typical home team stuff.
this is why i can never be as big a fan of basketball as i am of football and baseball. “typical home team stuff” shouldn’t exist, but it does. officials shouldn’t call a different game based on who’s the home team or a players reputation. I also refuse to believe Tim Donaghy was acting alone.
I don’t know that officials cost the cavs this game, but they certainly altered it, along with almost every nba game played this season, and that bothers me.
I hate the steelers the way a mother loves a child.
by notthatnoise on Feb 21, 2010 5:43 PM CST up reply actions
Please stop saying Andy doesn't flop
Last time the Magic and Cavs played he tried to take a flop on Redick on a pick and roll at the three point line. He is a flopper, and even when he doesn’t he sells it like he is. I mean, on the flop with Redick, he flew 4 feet from that little guy coming around a screen away from the basket (i.e. not driving, just going around a screen). I like Andy’s defense and hustle, but that guy needs to stay on his feet and not be a bi***.
Shaq vs Howard is EPIC
I don’t care who you cheer for…
"Regular season domination means a lot, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's guaranteed to continue in April, May or June."
Shaq was awesome, so was Jamison. Nice to see him fit in after just his 2nd game. Other than shooting too many 3’s Lebron was good too. Dwight did his damage when Shaq was resting, when Z comes back that will help, and in the playoffs Shaq will probably play more like 35 minutes so nothing i saw today worries me for when it counts
Before today we were 4-0 against the lakers and magic and everyone said dont get overconfident, its only the regular season. Well now that we’re 4-1 against the best two teams i’m not going to get overworried.
Big Picture....
I think we need to keep the big picture in mind. The most important stat to take out of this game is Antawn Jamison’s 21 pt. (9-14 fg), 8 rb. performance in 31 minutes. These are impressive numbers for Jamison, considering he just had an awful 2 pt. (0-12 fg) performance against the Bobcats. We have had a tough three game stretch since the All-Star Break, with the Nuggets and Magic surging, while the Bobcats presented a plethora of matchup issues for us. Even with the loss to the Magic, we’re still 5 games ahead in the top seed of the East and a half game ahead of the Lakers (though we own the tiebreak). So, all things considered, there is no need to panic as of yet.
It does stink that we have lost three straight games. However, once Jamison gains more awareness of where he needs to be on the court and establishes a comfort zone for playing the style of basketball Mike Brown likes to play, combined with improved guard play from the likes of Williams (who has struggled of late), West, Parker and Gibson, we’ll be just fine. On paper, we are good enough to beat any team in the league with the recent trade for Jamison. Without him, I think it would be tough to say that. But in just his second game, we got a glimpse of how strong our team is capable of being if he puts up consistently strong numbers moving forward. The big picture points to a strong overall performance for the regular season, and we should be a force in the playoffs.
I can’t believe anyone is “OK” with any player going 3-21(.143) from 3 pt land over 3 games when that player is capable of putting up 10-15 assists a game…Assists = points-two or three…missed threes = a potential SIX point swing in the score..4 more assists from LeBron (he had 25 attempts, would “only” 21 have hurt the team?) today would have been a win…5 more touches by Shaq (he shot NINETY percent) today would have been a win…
by cavslandrocks on Feb 21, 2010 6:20 PM CST up reply actions
Think of the three-pointer as a coin flip.
Well, not exactly a coin flip. Not even Steve Kerr shot 50% from beyond the arc.
But statistics show that the success or failure of one basketball shot has no bearing on the outcome of the next shot. If LeBron James is a 35% three-point shooter, he needs to treat the three-pointer as a 35% shot. (This is not a great percentage, especially given the efficiency of James inside the arc. But given that it’s worth three points, it’s still worth doing on occasion.) And if you keep taking 35% shots, you’re going to go through an occasional stretch where you go 3-21. Just like you’re going to go through an occasional stretch where you go 12-21. But it’s a fallacy to suggest that, because James’ shooting ended up being 3-21, he should’ve somehow known in advance that it was going to be 3-21.
It's a good thing Larry Bird's initials weren't MJ. '80s basketball was confusing enough -- Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Marles Jarkley, Mominique Jilkins... Makeem Jolajuwon...
you are right
about the premonition part…and I do understand that he has to “forget” the last miss…my problem is with him doing it early in the shot clock in close games and after 4-5 misses in a close game…there comes a point where EVERY player has to realize that on any given night “That shot isn’t working for me…what else do I have?”
by cavslandrocks on Feb 22, 2010 8:27 PM CST up reply actions
It was great to see jamison have such a good game, especially when he single-handedly put the cavs back in it with that one man 8-0 run in the third quarter.
You can see the cavs just miss Z’s minutes, when shaq got in foul trouble we had no answer for Howard, varejao just isn’t a 5 on defense, especially when matched up against Dwight. Disturbingly enough even though shaq had a pretty good night offensively, i think he needs more touches early to try and get howard in foul trouble. Our best shot against the magic is to try and get him on the bench and have shaq matched up with gortat. When Gortat was on the floor Shaq totally abused him in the post.
"My signature is only one line. You're welcome."
What about
Anderson Varejao’s minutes? When Jamison fouled out I was thinking Varejao would come back in but Jawad Williams went in… I thought Andy would have really helped being put back in the 4, because he CANNOT be the backup 5! And Mike Brown REALLY needed to call a timeout a LOT earlier than he did, my god I was yelling at the TV…
The refs also hurt us. But even with that, this game was within reach.
And btw- where’s THIS lineup?
Mo or Delonte, Lebron, AJ, Andy AND Shaq? I would love to see that at one point…
by CameronGreen11 on Feb 21, 2010 10:41 PM CST reply actions
I think they went to that lineup...
in the 2nd Q. They had LeBron at the 2, and AJ at the 3. I’ll have to go back but I remember commenting on it..
FTS
SBNation's Cleveland Cavaliers Blogger
by John Bena (aka CavsBlogger) on Feb 22, 2010 9:17 AM CST up reply actions
16 of 25 free throws. This is the difference between winning and losing
With all the other issues of re-working the line-up this is the killer stat. The last three games have been lost at the line. Yes, Mo could hit more jump shots. Yes, Lebron could hit more jump shots. Yes, defense could be stronger. Yes, play selection can improve. But as bad as they have played all three games could have been won at the line. And I’m not even counting Shaq’s misses because I know that will never change.
C’mon Guys. They call it the Charity Stripe. Hit your free throws.
Winning is not everything but it sure feels like it sometimes
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