Beauty is in the eye of the winner: Cleveland Cavaliers dismiss Philadelphia, 108-101, with tough road stretch upcoming
By Brian Windhorst
December 16, 2009, 10:45PM
PHILADELPHIA -- The Cavaliers are dwelling in some gray matter right now. Just how well they are playing depends greatly on perspective.
On one hand, they racked up their fourth consecutive victory Wednesday night, beating the struggling Philadelphia 76ers, 108-101, at the Wachovia Center.
They did it by using their semi-standard formula of good second-half defense and clutch play from LeBron James and Mo Williams. Any road win, after all, is a good win with bonus points for doing it on a back-to-back against a more rested team. Overall, the Cavs are sitting just fine in the standings now at 19-7 as well.
Now the long pause for the other side. They continue to play mistake-prone basketball with little improvement on some basic deficiencies and are getting by right now because they are chugging through a soft part of the schedule. Starting Sunday, they begin a stretch of five of seven games on the road to finish the calendar year and it is against the cream of the crop in the league. Perhaps their toughest two weeks of the season, in fact.
They are heading into that stretch winning but still committing unforced turnovers, often giving only partial defensive effort, and shutting down their offensive flow in the decisive minutes.
"This is the NBA, all these teams are capable," coach Mike Brown said. "You take any win you can get and there are positives to take out of it. We're winning while we're learning; that's always good."
At the center of the conundrum, as usual, is James. Simply put, he had another special night. When it was over he had 36 points, 13 in the fourth quarter as he lifted the Cavs to the win. He had six rebounds, seven assists and three steals. It seems impossible to find much fault in that.
Except in the second half he stopped the ball so many times on offense. During the fourth quarter he killed ball movement and made it easy for the Sixers (6-19) to guard him. He missed six shots and the Cavs only had three assists in the quarter because James often wouldn't allow things to move.
But then there were his two huge 3-pointers, including one off a steal that was a turning point. Plus he delivered two clutch assists on perfect pick-and-roll plays with Mo Williams that pretty much buried the Sixers. Can he be faulted for succeeding but not succeeding enough?
That's where the entire team is right now.
"That's a tough one," Brown said.
"When you win games and you have success a lot of times it can be fool's gold because the tougher teams are able to load up and play him and us a little bit better. But he's shown time and time again that he's capable and he's our guy in the fourth quarter. So as long as we're defending, I'm going to live what he brings to the table for us."
The Cavs were defending when it mattered. After giving up 55 percent shooting in the first half and playing some of the worst transition defense seen this side of the Golden State Warriors -- the Sixers had 30 fastbreak points, by far the most the Cavs have allowed this season -- they allowed just 34 percent shooting in the second half.
In the defining fourth quarter, the Cavs held Philadelphia to 6-of-19 from the floor.
"Fourth quarter is where games are won, that is lockdown time for us and that is the type of team we are," James said. "That's a good trait, it is a good thing to have."
Once again, that's a true statement and the Cavs did indeed win that fourth. After starting 0-of-6, Williams scored seven of his 12 points in the final five minutes. The Cavs' bench combined for 11 points in the fourth while both James and Williams were resting.
Shaquille O'Neal had a solid 10 points and nine rebounds, J.J. Hickson had his best game in two weeks with 10 points, Anderson Varejao had 11 points and eight rebounds.
The Cavs overcame 26 points from Andre Igoudala and 16 points and 10 rebounds from Thaddeus Young. Allen Iverson had 10 of his 16 points in the third quarter, but the Cavs shut him out in the fourth. At times the Sixers hardly looked like a team that had lost 12 of its last 13 games. But they are that team, which provides another tough evaluation point.
"Teams get up to play us and I'm sure Boston, the Lakers and Orlando feel the same way," James said. "No team is under .500 when they play us, everybody plays well against us."
