Cleveland Cavaliers (35-27) VS Dallas Mavericks(49-14)
Tuesday, March 14th, 2006
8.30pm ET
Radio : WTAM 1100
American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas
Head Coaches
Mike Brown / Avery Johnson
Probable Staters
Eric Snow / Jason Terry
Ronald Murray / Marquis Daniels
LeBron James / Josh Howard
Drew Gooden / Dirk Nowitzki
Zydrunas Ilgauskas / Desagana Diop
Cleveland Cavaliers Bench
Damon Jones/Sasha Pavlovic/Anderson Varejao/Donyell Marshall/Alan Henderson
Dallas Mavericks Bench
Darrell Armstrong/Jerry Stackhouse/Rawle Marshall/ Josh Powell/ Erick Dampier
Game Notes
* Denver are without Keith Van Horn and Adrian Griffin. Reserve guard, Devin Harris is also in doubt.
* Both teams are coming off losses so hunger is not an issue.
* Diop the imposter starts against the Cavaliers over the underachieving Erick Dampier.
* Dallas are locked in first place with San Antonio, whilst the Cavs are less then convincingly holding onto the 4th seed.
Karma's Keys
* Very obvious tonight. Just keep on feeding it into Ilgauskas. Diop will get a block or two, but that will be saturated by schoolings dished out by the Lithuanian. If Z doesn't get the ball inside every trip, Brown has issues.
* Dallas are thin up front with little depth after Dampier. Dirk will play big minutes so will avoid foul trouble. Some easy offense can be had on him.
* Flip Murray and Snow have struggled this past two losses. Need some consistency with the guard play to keep within 20 points of this squad.
* Bench play is key again. Dallas will be sparked by Dampier and Stackhouse, but with Harris and Van Horn out, their depth isn't as strong. Howard has just returned from injury, so Dallas are hardly at their peek.
* The Cavaliers bench had been mediocre at best of late and that will not get in done against the elite. Jones has hit one big shot which will do him this month, and Marshall is hoping still for that shot. Varejao needs to see more minutes over Marshall as this team is desperate for energy.
* Lets all hope LeBron is on song tonight to keep us in this thing. We have the biggest of advantages at center, more then anyone could believe. We need to zone in on that. Gooden on Nowitzki ***shudders***.
Dallas look too good here folks.
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