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Re: Miami at Cleveland

Flagship said:
Congratulation Cavs fans
Thank you Brother-ILhan. :king:
 
Re: Miami at Cleveland

Good win for the Cavs. However, not taking anything away from the guys but I hope that our guys can go on road trips and do as well as the Heat did this last trip, 4 road games in 5 days and still got a 3-1 record to show for it.
 
Re: Miami at Cleveland

QCCav said:
Good win for the Cavs. However, not taking anything away from the guys but I hope that our guys can go on road trips and do as well as the Heat did this last trip, 4 road games in 5 days and still got a 3-1 record to show for it.
If the Lakers can go 5-1 on a recent road trip, I don't see why we can't ?...

It needs to be done... A solid road trip could set the tone for the season...Oh, and not losing to the Hawks on the home floor as well :rolleyes:
 
Cavaliers improve to 10-1 when Larry Hughes dishes out 5 or more assists.
 
Great win for the Cavaliers last night. They made it interesting, but that is the NBA. I was concerned going into the fourth quarter with the way the threes were going down. I had a feeling that we would fall in love with the three and let them back in the game, and sure enough they did. LeBron and Larry were magnificent last night, along with Marshall. I have noticed that Larry seems to get out of rhythm when somebody else starts getting hot (i.e. Donyell in the third).

The unsung hero last night was Z. While the box score doesn't look that great, he played extremely well....especially on the defensive end. I said it earlier in the day in the "Knee" thread.......we are a better team with Z and his importance will not be understood until we don't have him in there. We need to take out Utah now and get some quality road wins. I hope that this team takes a hard look at these two wins and understands what it takes to win night-in adn night-out. The defensive presence the past two games has been admirable. While they gave up a lot of points last night, defense built that big lead, along with attacking the basket early.
 
see my boy damon jones, he played good def and also shot pretty well, i still have no clue y he is not starting, and with gooden down look fro marshall to make a big splash.
 
The cavs gave up over 100 last night, but i have to give it to their defense. Specifically, i noticed LeBron on help defense cutoff Wade from what would have been a free layup. The defenders were more physical in general than i have seen them for most of the season. They aren't there yet, but I see progress. LeBron isn't as clueless on the defensive end as some here claim. It is the weakest part of his game, and with his physical tools, he has the chance to someday dominate it. That being said, his D is still not bad.

I noticed last night, LeBron is not the key to this team winning. He brings his stats nightly on a consistant basis. The key to the effectiveness of this team is Hughes or another player stepping up to be a side kick to LBJ. In the first half where Hughes and LeBron were both on, they started to pull out a lead. In the third when Marshall stepped up, they continued the lead. It was in the 4th where noone else stepped up to play, that LeBron was required to carry the team, which let Miami back in the game. He's good, but he can't carry the team by himself. When he gets consistant help from at least 1 other player, their offense will be terrific. I now have confidence that the D will improve, as it seems to be slowly improving from game to game.
 
Awesome game! Flawless thru 3 quarters. I think they let up in the 4th and got too comfortable with the lead. James saved our asses. If he wasnt on we would have lost. We need effort for 48 minutes regardless of the lead!!!!!!!!

DYell Marshall is awesome. Larry was awesome in the first half. Many great highlights. I will keep this game tape!
 
Oh, and thanks, Karma, for posting this, I completely forgot to because I was waiting on the result of the Miami game.


Great game, awesome that we completely shut Shaq down. Z's worth is at the all-time high in these situations. Just seeing his streak of hitting those 18 footers made me smile, because that's exactly what we needed to do.

And those 29 dimes. That's what I like to see.

We definitely lived by our trey shooting last night, luckily. But I am mad that we let that 20 point lead slip up, allowing 34 points in that quarter. It should have been put away...

Is it because LeBron takes control? Does he make bad decisions with the ball? Something to think about...
 
Cavaliers 115, Heat 107
Game Quotes: Cavaliers vs. Miami Heat - December 17, 2005

COACH MIKE BROWN
(On the game tonight)
“That is a very good basketball team, obviously well coached. A lot of all-stars and big time players on the team. It was good to get a win against a very good basketball team. I have to start off by talking about LeBron James. I do not talk about him much. Towards the end of the ball game, and for the whole game he was terrific. Towards the end of the ballgame he put us on his back like he has many times before and carried us. He carried me to. I would call a play and he would figure it out and get it done for us. He did a heck of a job, not only that, he had 10 assists. I do not know how you score 41 points on 12 of 19 shooting and get 10 assists. His rebound total was not high, but he was a man when he got that last one. That was a big rebound for us between two big bodies.”

(On the play of his players tonight)
“I take my hat off to Donyell Marshall. Yes, he hit his 3’s tonight. That is what he does. He had 13 rebounds and led us on the boards. I can go down the line and talk about Larry Hughes and what he did on Dwyane Wade. He played great basketball on him. He played solid basketball, he shared the ball, he got us driving the basketball to start the game, and he started the tempo and the flow of the game with his aggressiveness getting to the rim and finishing. Eric (Snow) was terrific. Z (Zydrunas Ilgauskas) was terrific. We had 29 assists on 40 shots. That is a good thing to have.”

(Question about the condition of Zydrunas Ilgauskas)
“Z early on got hit in the same knee. He irritated it a little bit. He came back and got it checked out by our doctors. He did some stretching and stuff in the back and felt like he could go. He came back out and stayed in the game. Z actually got elbowed in the head. He had a couple pretty big knots on his head. I went over to him and knew something was wrong because I called his name and he did not respond. I went and tapped his head and felt like it was hammered to the ground. So he was out there for a while. He will be reevaluated tomorrow.”

(Condition of Drew Gooden)
“Drew tweaked the same ankle that he hurt, I think, against Minnesota. He tried to warm-up, he tried to go out there and play, but it was just to painful.”

(Question about withstanding the 4th quarter run by the Miami Heat tonight)
“It was huge. That is a good team and I knew they were going to go on a run at some point in time. All NBA teams do, especially when you are up big. Again, our guys, like you said, withstood the run. It was great for us to do because we needed to get a quality win, especially being up big and figuring out how to try and hold on to the lead. I am excited as heck for all the guys in that locker room they did a heck of a job tonight.”

(Question about being a good step for maturity for this team)
Yes it is. Again I think our progress has been pretty good the last 4 to 5 ballgames. We got to keep it up. We are nowhere near being there yet, it is going to be a slow process. We are going to take a few steps forward and we might get knocked down again. But to me it is how we respond after we get knocked down. After the 3 losses, or 2 in 7 wins, these guys have done a heck of a job in responding to what we had going on about a week ago.”

LEBRON JAMES
(On the Heat making a run in the fourth quarter)
“Every team is going to go on a run. They are a great team. They can put the ball in the hole at any point during the game. We knew that they were going to make a run. It was about time for me to wake up, and that is what I did.”

(On the quick start by Larry Hughes)
“His aggressiveness was big tonight. Even thought he was playing with an injured Achilles, he was still attacking. He showed what he is capable of doing every night and that is why we got him.”

(On the strong performance by Donyell Marshall)
“Everyone contributed tonight. Donyell had a great shooting performance tonight. He played hard. He got rebounds, he shot threes, he was able to do everything and more tonight.”

(On LeBron’s teammates giving him “the look”)
“They started looking at me like, “okay, when are you going to start shooting the ball or start attacking and trying to make some plays?” I saw them [Miami] trying to make a run and it was time for me to wake up.”

(On the health of Z and Gooden)
“He should be fine. I just looked at him and he’s got a nice egg, lump, on his head. Other then that he is fine. The day off tomorrow should help him and Drew Gooden recover.”

(On getting a big win over a quality opponent)
“It’s very big any time we get a win like that against an Eastern Conference powerhouse. We are trying to get up in the rankings as well. We caught them on the end of a back-to-back, but still this was a big win. We came with the intensity to get a win and we pulled it out.”

DONYELL MARSHALL
(On containing Shaq)
“We did a collective effort on Shaq. We were helping Z out, and that’s what we have to do. There are going to be times where there are going to be mismatches, and as a team we need to help each other. Tonight was one of those nights where we were able to help him [Z].”

(On getting back to the way he played before he started shooting threes)
“The players and coach talked to me about getting back to the way that I played before I started shooting the three. I still want to be able to do that, but I have to make it a complete game to make the defenders think more. When I stand out by the three point line guys just sat on me and when I did get the shoots they were contested shoots. Now, guys don’t know what to do. It helps open up the floor for Z and LeBron as well.”

HEAD COACH PAT RILEY
(On the game)
“Obviously, we didn’t play the game with a lot of focused energy in the first half. I thought we were a little slow, we looked tired and they (Cavaliers) looked sharp and they were good. And, they were playing the game the way they wanted to play it. LeBron (James) was making all the plays that he had to make. We made a run at them, we had an opportunity, but we were one or two possessions away from…we had to get that thing tied or two or three (points) away within a possession. We could never get there.”

(On possible Heat fatigue)
“Four (games) in five (nights) for any team is going to be hard. This was a big game for them and they had a great crowd and they had a day to prepare for us. Mike (Brown) has done a great job with their sets and they're a hard team to prepare for if you don’t have anything but a nice ballrooom to walk through. No velvet trimmings and all that stuff (laughing). Curtains don’t get it done when you’re out here. But, they’re (Cavs) good.”

(On Cavaliers three-point shooting)
“First of all, they had a run of threes that hurt us. They missed a lot of them and I don’t’ think you can over-react. I mean, if LeBron is going to get to the rim and dunk, or if he is going to be making passes to Ilgauskas for layups, and we really shrunk the court as much as we could. We made him make plays, we got him off the ball, and he still scored a lot of points. They’re really good at what they did. You talk about picking your poison, they were making threes when they opened up the game. I think we were late (on the threes). We were late on getting over a little bit and we were just late with our defense.”

(On LeBron James in the 4th quarter and how Miami could have stopped him)
“No, what are you going to do? I’ve seen too many players like him, I see it in Dwyane (Wade), I’ve seen it in Magic (Johnson) and James Worthy. At times, you’re helpless. When he’s raising on you and freezing you with the dribble, and making four or five in a row, it’s sort of a helpless feeling. This is really the first time I’ve coached against him, the first time we’ve coached against Cleveland this year, and I’m sire the next time, we’ll be a lot more prepared.”

SHAQUILLE O’NEAL
(On the Heat following behind in the first half)
“We got into a hole. They (Cavaliers) really shot the ball well, but we fought our way back, but we just ran out of time. It was a pretty good game, they just had a little more energy than we did in the first half, but we fought our way back.”

(On playing back-to-back games and 4 games in 5 nights)
“No, we really don’t make excuses, they just came out and shot the ball very well. They hit a lot of threes from their one, two and three positions, but we fought our way back and we had a chance to win. A play here, a shot there, we could have possibly won the game.”

(On assessing the Heat road trip, 3-1 with 4 games in 5 nights)
“It was pretty good. We would have liked to come away 4-0, but they had more energy than we did and they hit a lot shots. But, we had a lot of fight in us, and if we could just keep it going and develop some type of consistency, we’re going to be fine.”

(On LeBron James in the 4th quarter)
“He hit a lot of tough shots. He’s a great player and all great players do that.”
 
I spent the evening downtown with the wife so I didn't get a chance to see any basketball. This is a great win for Cleveland and a nice reality check for the cruising Miami Heat. Congrats!
 

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