L Cleveland 76 San Antonio 102

[LyXo]

Preview by BEN, the Jolly Green Giant

Cleveland Cavaliers @ San Antonio Spurs
Regular Season : Game #2
Friday, November 4th, 2005
8:00pm ET
TV: FSN OHIO, ESPN
Radio : WTAM 1100

Head Coaches

Greg Popovich / Mike Brown

Probable Starters

Tony Parker / Eric Snow

Manu Ginobili / Larry Hughes

Bruce Bowen / LeBron James

Tim Duncan / Drew Gooden

Rasho Nesterovic / Zydrunas Ilgauskas

Cleveland Cavaliers Bench

Damon Jones/Donyell Marshall/Luke Jackson/Sasha Palovic/Alan Henderson/Mike Wilks/Zendon Hamilton

San Antonio Spurs Bench

Micheal Finley/Robert Horry/Brent Barry/Nick Van Exel/Fabricio Oberto/Nazr Mohammed/Beno Udrih​

Cavalier's Notes

The Spurs have dominated the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Alamo City, as the Silver and Black has won 15 straight regular season home games against the Cavs...the Cavaliers have not defeated the Spurs in San Antonio during the regular season since a 104-95 victory on 12/8/88, the season before David Robinson joined the Spurs as a rookie...Johnny Dawkins led the
Spurs in scoring that night with 19 points...the Cavaliers did beat the Spurs, 104-97, in a preseason game in San Antonio on 10/13/91...the Spurs were especially effective against the Cavaliers at home last year, shooting a franchise record .839 (26-31) from the field in the first half on 12/11/04.

Spurs Notes

Double-Double the Fun
Since entering the NBA in the 1997-98 season, Tim Duncan has been a double-double machine. In 587 career games Duncan has
recorded 446 double-doubles. This means that Duncan has recorded double-doubles in 76.0% of the games he has played in
during his eight-year NBA career, the highest rate of double-double production of any player in the NBA during that time span.

 

[B Mac]

Re: Cleveland @ San Antonio

This will be a real tough game, but its definatly not unwinnable. Everyone will need to click tonight and this could be huge as far as bringing the team together early in the season. Im going to go out on a limb here and say Cavs win by 3, as Drew gets Duncan in foul trouble early and Hughes locks up Ginobli. Should be a fun one, they arent the defending champs for nothing.

 

[Jimmy]

Re: Cleveland @ San Antonio

agreed Bmac...big game even tho its early in the season, pacers and bucks have set the early benchmark with some good wins...

 

[cdt]

Re: Cleveland @ San Antonio

Everyone seems to be chucking this up as an L. I'm not ready too...We have 3 great players and a great bench. Marshall can easily match or surpass Finley's output tonight and Jones should be able to outscore Barry or Udrih or both. Fabricio Oberto isn't as good as Marshall either...not to mention Bron will be in there 42 minutes tonight unless it's a blowout and Larry will be out there a lot too. I think we can win this and I think we will 103-97 Cavaliers Win.

 

[LyXo]

Re: Cleveland @ San Antonio

It's going to be a tough fought game for at least 48 minutes. We have something to prove. The Spurs are playing at home. They don't take the regular season as serious as they should, but it is at home and they would want to show us who's the champs. I predict a very intense game.

Denver almost stole one from them at their home opener. But the absence of George Karl really was prominent: too many defensive lapses and no adjustments for them. We'll see how well Mike Brown/Hank Egan's system works against the world champs.

I will watch this game and expect nothing but a great basketball game, and I know I'll walk out with that.

But I would like to see a curve ball: Put in Marty A to mess them up! At SF! See if Bowen can handle THEM apples!!!! :heated:

Yea baby, let's go CAVS!

 

[PIP]

Re: Cleveland @ San Antonio

I am looking forward to watching 4 things..

#1 The penetration of Tony Parker on our PG'S... If they can keep up with TP, they can with anybody.

#2 If Bruce Bowen can stay with "THE KING" ? Sure he can keep up with guys like Ray-A. and RIP who try to wear him down with their constant moving without the ball.. But I would love to see "THE KING" abuse him on the block... I also want to see what kind of dirty play he is going to try..If LeBron can get off on him, there is noone that will stop him.. (Except Prince of course :chuckles: )

#3 If Larry Hughes gets more involved in the offense because of Bowen on "THE KING" ? Will he take more shots ? Also, will he be able to stop MANU'S penetration ?

#4 Maybe the most important of them all.. Can Drew Gooden stay with TD ? can he guard him at all ? If Drew can d-up TIMMMMMMMAY at all, I think we have our answer for the season about his defense.. Albeit early, this will be a huge test Drew.

 

[West Remy]

Re: Cleveland @ San Antonio

#2 If Bruce Bowen can stay with "THE KING" ? Sure he can keep up with guys like Ray-A. and RIP who try to wear him down with their constant moving without the ball.. But I would love to see "THE KING" abuse him on the block... I also want to see what kind of dirty play he is going to try..If LeBron can get off on him, there is noone that will stop him.. (Except Prince of course :chuckles: )

I don't want to curse The King (knocks on wood) but I always felt Bowen does best against shooters; guys who prefer to shoot before putting the ball on the floor (Allen, Peja, Wally). Bowen fights like the devil through screens and if you try to stop and pop, he'll be charging at you like a bull. If I were a defender, I'd just post or take Bowen off the dribble (hard because his lateral quickness is very good). But shooting jumpers against Bowen is probably the worst thing to do (allegations of him punching your stomach as he passes by from Allen and Carter saying Bowen will purposely try to slide under your feet to injure you).

#3 If Larry Hughes gets more involved in the offense because of Bowen on "THE KING" ? Will he take more shots ? Also, will he be able to stop MANU'S penetration ?

Good question. Hughes will have a task tonight in guarding Manu. But the door swings both ways. Will Manu keep Larry in front of him (then again, with the Spurs, their help defense is so good they can recover when the guy up top gets taken)?

 

[hughes1988]

Re: Cleveland @ San Antonio

tony parker looks like the killer doll chucky lol check it out.

 

[Coyote]

Re: Cleveland @ San Antonio

I just want to see them contain Duncan. Try and keep him at 20/10. If Gooden can help make that happen, kudos to him, because he's sorely mismatched against TD. Make Ginobli or Parker beat us. I think we can handle both of those guys, but I worry most about Parker against a slower Snow or, eeeek, DJones. And can we keep Bowen from spotting up for those 3's a la Marshall? We'll need a mentally tough game throughout.

Offensively I agree with a few folks around here who've said we need to go through Z. If he can get off early, Duncan can't drift out, and we'll have some better looks at the basket. And if James can keep Bowen off-balance by hitting a few 3's and taking him on the post, I think the Bron Bron will go off tonight. All that said, Boogie is the sort of sleeper key: if he can play with the same intensity he did Wed. and get a few shots to drop, we can wrestle away a tough victory.

Everyone's talking about the Spurs' motivation, but I think the Cavs want this one badly for Mike Brown's sake. Grasshopper returns.... Hopefully we'll catch the Spurs a little off guard and play hard all 48. What's nice is that I don't feel ridiculous for actually being optimistic about winning this game. The fat shadow of Shawn Kemp has finally passed....

 

[joma]

Re: Cleveland @ San Antonio

This will be huge if we win. We would get some more attention. I hope drew can at least keep duncan under control with his new found defense, lets pray he can. we should put in donyell and have have duncan chase him around the outside.

 

[WildThing]

Re: Cleveland @ San Antonio

WOOO!! It's at 8!!

Hopefully I'll be home after my date and see the 2nd half.

 

[B Mac]

Re: Cleveland @ San Antonio

Your date is ending at 8? That doesnt sound too good to me. Maybe you can convince her to "watch" the game with you?

 

[CleveRocks]

Re: Cleveland @ San Antonio

Cavs can win by playing great defense... if spurs get over 90 look out..

 

[Dungong]

Re: Cleveland @ San Antonio

One key against teams with dominant bigs like TD here is that the Cavs have to push the ball inside to Z or get some penetration with LeBron and Larry to try and draw some fouls. If we can get their bigs in foul trouble, namely TD, it should go a long way in controlling the game.

Post ups on Bowen should be interesting, but I'm not sure if that dimension is part of the offense yet.

This will be a tough one to win, but I think our starting 5's match up pretty well. Our bench is good, but nothing compared to the Spurs, I mean Finley, Van Exel, Barry, Horry and Mohammed are all solid and could start elsewhere in the league

 

[cdt]

Re: Cleveland @ San Antonio

If we keep LeBron and Larry on the floor a lot we can still combat Finley and Van Exel...We need to execute on offense no wasted plays and we need to play stingy defense and hit the freebies at the line..