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Boston @ Cleveland - Saturday 8:00 EST ABC

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ChicagoCavFan

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WELCOME TO CLEVELAND, OH

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For Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Semi's


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vs.
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on the path (somewhat) to claim

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RECORDS
Cavs: 0-2 (4th seed in Eastern Conference)
Celts: 2-0 (1st seed in Eastern Conference)



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8:00PM EST


INSIDE


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HEAD COACHES

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Mike Brown | Doc Rivers

POINT GUARDS


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Delonte West | Rajon Rondo

SHOOTING GUARDS

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Wally Szczerbiak | Ray Allen

SMALL FORWARDS

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LeBron James | Paul Pierce

POWER FORWARDS

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Ben Wallace | Kevin Garnett

CENTERS


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Zydrunas Ilgauskas | Kendrick Perkins

CAVALIERS ROTATION

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Boobie | Sasha | Smith | Andy

Celtics ROTATION

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Posey | Brown | Powe | Samual

GAME NOTES

· The Cavaliers are 6-3 all-time at home against Boston in the playoffs. Dating back to the 1995-96 season, Cleveland has gone 17-7 against Boston at The Q in the regular season including six straight wins in Cleveland.

· The last time the Cavaliers trailed 2-0 in a series was the 2007 Eastern Conference Finals against Detroit. Cleveland rallied with four straight wins to become the 13th team in NBA playoff history to come back and win a series after trailing 2-0.

· During the postseason, the Cavaliers have held their opponents to an average of 89.8 points per game on .423shooting. Cleveland has held its opponents to under 90 points in six of the eight games.

· In his last three games, Wally Szczerbiak has averaged 17.3 points and connected on .409 (9-22) from three-point range. He has scored at least 13 points in all three games.

· In six games against Boston this season (regular season and playoffs), Zydrunas Ilgauskas has averaged 16.2 points, 11.2 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per game. He has grabbed at least 10 rebounds in five of the six games including four doubledoubles. In Game 2 at Boston, he tallied 19 points on 9-12 shooting and five rebounds. In the two games during the series, Ilgauskas has averaged 20.5 points per game.

· In Game 2 at Boston, Anderson Varejao grabbed a playoff-season high 10 rebounds in 34 minutes. He has grabbed eight or more rebounds in four of the eight playoff games this season.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20...ffs/2008/05/08/celtics.cavs.game.2/index.html

• The difficulties of LeBron James (right) continue. He was held to 21 points on 24 shots with seven turnovers; over the two games he is 8-for-42 with an even more surprising assist-turnover totals of 15 and 17, respectively. The Cavaliers hoped that increased ball movement and a hot start by Zydrunas Ilgauskas -- he made his first five shots to open a 21-9 Cleveland lead -- would loosen the Celtics' defense. But neither trend survived the opening quarter as the Celtics continued to collapse on James's drives, bumping and roughing him up whenever possible in hope of forcing him to settle for jumpers.

The Celtics are happy to see Ilgauskas (17-of-30 overall) leading Cleveland with 20.5 points in the two games while they've limited James, who Thursday heard sporadic chants of "Overrated!" from a small portion of the fans (the rest of them too smart to risk awakening him from his slump). Boston's style is déjà vu for James, who was held down by the Spurs in their NBA Finals sweep last year.

"They have athletic bigs with KG and [Kendrick] Perkins and [Leon] Powe," said James. "They do a good job of rotating out the back side and not allowing me to crack the second line of defense. I'm able to get by the first line and then I'm meeting the second line of defense."

Nonetheless, James sounded as if he's suffering from bad luck as much as anything. "The layups I'm usually making are just jumping out of the rim, and the jumpers I usually make are not falling for me," he said. "I'm more frustrated with the turnovers I've had more than anything."

• Ray Allen had no points at halftime, extending his scorelessness in the series to an agonizing 58 minutes (0-for-7 from the field overall, 0-for-1 from the line). At last he broke out with a layup 23 seconds into the third quarter, followed by a pair of free throws earned by driving past Wally Szczerbiak. Allen produced half of Boston's points in its half-opening 12-2 run that seized a 56-38 lead, and he finished with a respectable 16 points overall. "I thought he was pressing a little bit," said Celtics coach Doc Rivers. "I told the coaches at halftime, 'We're going over and over to him, we've got to get him going.' The first shot (of the second half) he missed it, and he got the loose ball and the layup: Shooters need something to get them going, it doesn't matter what it is."

• The Celtics bench outscored the starters 20-7 in the second quarter to turn the game Boston's way. Trailing by 8 points early in the second quarter, a Boston lineup of four subs and the scoreless Allen began a 26-4 run that resulted in a 44-36 lead for the Celtics at halftime. "We started off flat," said Rivers. "The second unit saw that; they came out and did it. No adjustments -- we didn't make a defensive adjustment. They just got to places quicker and faster." Their work energized the more celebrated half of the rotation. "It was almost like every loose ball tonight, the Celtics beat us to it," said Cleveland coach Mike Brown.

• Ben Wallace played 3:40 before leaving the game while complaining of dizziness in the second quarter. He attempted to warm up for the second half but suffered the same symptoms and watched the rest of the game from the locker room. The Cavaliers were planning to evaluate his condition Friday in Cleveland. "To lose him was tough," said Brown, "but that's not why we got beat tonight."

• The Celtics (27-of-38) earned 11 more free-throw attempts than the Cavaliers. It was only the second time in nine playoff games that the Celtics have won that column, and a big plus for a team that has shot a disappointing 42.3% from the field in postseason.

ARTICLES

http://blog.cleveland.com/sports/2008/05/after_boston_misery_its_up_to.html

Terry Pluto's take:

Boston -- Mike Brown and LeBron James need to spend some time together alone today -- in the film room.

The Cavaliers coach and his star need to get away from everyone else, and watch what Boston is doing to completely frustrate and neutralize James.

In case the Cavs haven't figured it out after Thursday discouraging 89-73 loss at Boston, whatever they're currently trying ain't workin'.

None of it. Not the offense. Not the defense. Not the poise.

Certainly not James, who is 8-of-42 from the field (0-of-10 on 3-pointers) in the two losses.

The Cavs are down, 0-2, in this best-of-7 Eastern Conference semifinals. Yes, the Cavs came from this same deficit to ambush Detroit, winning four in a row to grab the 2007 Eastern finals. But the team that wins the first two games of a series has a 198-13 record.

And the Cavs have yet to break 75 points against Boston. The big picture isn't pretty as 33 percent shooting in these two games demonstrate.

Here's a snapshot.

In the middle of the first quarter, James dribbled to the baseline, about 15 feet from the basket. He was covered by Boston's Paul Pierce. He picked up the basketball, and saw a second Boston defender coming his way.

The shot clock was ticking down.

17...16...15...

James usually passes out of this trap. Or he doesn't pick up the ball in the first place -- wisely keeping his dribble alive so he would not get stuck. Rarely does he lose track of the shot clock.

But a confused James was stalled and swarmed. He pivoted to seemingly nowhere, then heaved up a 16-foot fallaway jumper from behind the backboard.

Airball.

Every star takes a couple of bad shots a night, but James had too many jumpers with about as much chance of going in as tossing a baseball into a soup can from 25 feet. There also were drives to the basket where he seemed more concerned with flopping to the floor to draw a foul than finishing tough at the rim after being bumped.

James isn't sure when to pass, when to shoot, or when his teammates will help him. Right at the end of the first half, James seemed utterly distracted, allowing a 154-year-old Sam Cassell to drive right past him for a layup.

He's in the same scoring swamp that sucked the life out of him last year in the Finals against San Antonio, when he shot only 32-of-90 (36 percent) as the Cavs were wiped out in four games. He had 23 turnovers in those four games, and was 4-of-20 (20 percent) from 3-point range. He's at 17 turnovers in two games in this series, 19 percent shooting, and struggling to find any semblance of the LeBron James who averaged 30 points and shot 48 percent in the 6-game Washington series.

Boston is using the same tactics as the Spurs, strong double teams on James as he crosses half court, and using tall people to defend him -- making it difficult to pass out of the defense, as he usually does.

The Cavs keep running the same offense with James usually being the trigger man, setting things up -- only things are about as clear as dumping a 500-piece puzzle out of box. Brown has to show James that he can't take on the entire Boston team himself. He has to pass and cut to the hoop. He has to sometimes slip down to the low post. He has to move without the ball!

The films will also show James is often a lone ranger, and that will be why he's forcing some of those awful shots.

Meanwhile, other than Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Wally Szczerbiak, no other Cavalier seems to even want to shoot the ball. Most of the team has been intimidated by their opponent's rugged, disciplined defense and the wild, screaming crowd at the Banknorth Garden.

But any hope of getting back into this series begins with James and Brown, figuring out what to do next. And they better do it quick.

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Brian Windhorst's take:

http://www.ohiomm.com/blogs/cavs/

–The Cavs now have some serious regret about Game 1, that turned out to be their chance to steal one. The Celtics blow teams out at home, they have done it all year and they will continue to do it as long as they advance in the playoffs. This game had all the markings of one of their typical blowouts. This series is far from over, but the trends obvious do not favor a drastic turnaround. However, I would advise you to limit your frustration from this game and not to rule the Cavs out yet. But they have a lot of work to do.
–The Celtics defense is excellent and very sound, they don’t make many mistakes. The reason for this is they have athletic and generally intelligent players. Even Kendrick Perkins does what he is supposed to do. They are very good when they can set up and they are good defending the pick and roll because they bring in their athletic big men to form a back line. With LeBron they are allowing him to come around the screen (as in not trapping him unless he’s way out on the perimeter) and then the big is guiding him to the baseline so he can’t turn the corner and create a scoring angle. They are also extending their arms outward instead of upward to take away passing lanes. None of this is unheard of. Again, though, I do not understand why the Cavs continue to play into this strength by running the same pick-and-rolls. I asked LeBron this after the game and he said that pick-and-rolls are 85 percent of the offense. OK, but not from the exact same spot on the floor. Anyway, adjustment time for Mike Brown. Didn’t work so well from Game 1 to Game 2.
–In the first quarter, Zydrunas Ilgauskas made five shots and four of them came off passes with assists (as opposed to straight post ups). This is a result of ball movement. Guess how many more he got in the game? One. An example, again, of the Cavs offense getting stuck in a rut. But I’m not going to rehash old discussions.
–It is still not clear what happened to Ben Wallace. He said he started having an allergy attack and then he got dizzy about three minutes into the game. He said he thought some of the smoke from the pregame fireworks contributed to it. When it got bad, he just committed a foul and walked over to the Cavs’ bench with a wild look in his eyes. Everyone on the bench got up and it was a chaotic scene for a few moments, LeBron came over while the game was going on to ask what was happening and so many players were standing up around him that the bench was pouring onto the court. First the Cavs said he had vertigo and was not coming back, then they said he was. He warmed up for the second half and didn’t seem to be unsteady on his feet but he went back to the locker room and did not play. He’s going to get some tests in the morning.

Here’s what he said: “It was like a tough headache, my head was spinning, I couldn’t really turn my head up or down…I got light headed, my head started spinning, there was smoke in the first quarter. You cant play basketball with your head spinning like that.”
–Anderson Varejao is now 8-of-32 from the field in the postseason. Last year he was a great pick and roll partner with James because he was great finishing at the rim, it was a weapon the Cavs needed. Right now he’s an offensive disaster across the board. I understand his season took a turn when he stepped on Sasha Vujicic’s ankle on that afternoon in L.A. I believe that ankle is still not right. But how do you explain his offensive breakdown. I cannot.
–Brown is going to have to make some personnel adjustments in my opinion. I believe Devin Brown needs to play, as I have written several times. Also, Daniel Gibson and Delonte West are a combined 5-of-23 and 1-of-8 on 3-pointers. If they do not get it going soon, I would consider Damon Jones. Mike has abandoned him because of defensive issue, but the Cavs offense needs 3-point shooting so badly to be successful. Though I doubt it will happen. Not that these really will turn the tide, LeBron needs to return to form for there to be any chance.



CAVALIER HOTNESS

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SCREAM TEAM LOVE

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Tomorrow night.....Everyone knows that we need to win both home games if we want to beat them.....And at least one road game.....I think that if anyone step up and LBJ finally find his game we will be able to win tomorrow....
 
Terry Pluto pretty much sums it up. Nothing about the offense is working when it comes to James. Time for a new plan of attack. He should not start with the ball on the perimeter. Why play into their hands? Post up but don't fade away.. roll off the defender and attack the rim. Get the ball around the free throw line. Cut to the basket when Z has the ball in the post. Can we get some kind of basic elementary plays run?
 
Can we rain check ?
 
"Can't f*ck with me"

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Must Win

Here's some musical inspiration...

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Place. Is. Gonna. Be. Rockin'. We're getting there at 5:30 just to get a parking spot. And as always, Go Cavs, Cleveland Rocks.
 
We need some serious Apache.

I'm scared.
 
God I hope Lebron doesn't provide anymore fuel for the haters. I swear some of the other boards that I check out are making me sick with the hate.
 
Common guys...This thread is so quite.....Lets talk about this game.....We need to win tonight or our season is down.....LBJ must finally find his game....My biggest worry is Andy vs KG....
 

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