Sasha will get his chance. I believe Mike Brown will continue to shuffle Luke Jackson and Sasha Pavlovic in the next few weeks. He's smart, unlike Silas, who would shuffle players in games. He lets them play the full game as if they were the primary backup at that position. Then a couple games later, switch off the reigns to the other guy. Much better plan, IMO.
What impressed me tonight:
1. Damon Jones. He must have gotten railed by Mike Brown on how he lacks the ability to set up offense and only jack up shots. Kudos
2. LeBron James: Not settling for off balance 3's and jumpers. I saw a couple bad shots, but all in all, it didn't hurt the team that much.
3. Return of Donyell Marshall: He is our most important bench player. Endless hustle, great rebounding skill, example on defense, and trey after trey with no fear. 2/6 doesn't bother me as long as 6 are good shots. They'll sink.
4. 1/8 from three. Yeap, that's right. No ownage by Jalen "Cav Killer" Rose and Morris Peterson. Too bad we didn't bury their record. Our perimeter defense really stepped up tonight.
What I didn't like:
1. Eric Snow. Although he played alright D (I saw him get burned a couple times), his offense is horrendous. We need to get him the message: WE DON'T NEED YOU TO SCORE. WE DON'T NEED YOU TO HIT CRAZY SHOTS. All we want is a midrange jumper. A trey once in a while. Not an off-balance crazy shot. That's not your style. Please, get this in your head.
2. Chris Bosh explosion. 26/12 is impressive. The main culprit could be said to be Z: not stepping out to block the shot, yadda yadda yadda. But the true man at fault is Drew Gooden. He should have been the one to guard him. But it changed.
-Then again, now that I think about it, Z was even guarding Bosh, as his main assignment, and was just not up to par. Or par, for that matter. He let Bosh shoot open 18 footers, and watched him blow by for slams on other plays. Yea, yea, he has sore knees and shouldn't be expected to guard these guys. But lets face the facts, please. He was assigned to guard him, and he failed. That is the bottom line, no excuses.
3. Hughes: 5/13 from the field... so low. His jumper is just not landing. It might not have mattered today, but I want to see it start landing soon or we'll lose basketball games because of it.
All in all, good outing by the Cavs. Grabbed a good road win, I like that. But don't get too cocky. Our 2 wins came from the worst teams in the NBA. Seattle will be a good test on Wednesday.
Until then, GO CAVS!