Lakers @ Cavaliers

[ChicagoCavFan]

Game 51

Cleveland Cavaliers [29-21] VS. Los Angeles Lakers [30-21]

Sunday, February 11th , 2007
3:30 PM ET
Radio = WTAM 1100
Television = ABC
Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland, Ohio


Head Coaches

Mike Brown | Phil Jackson​

Point Guards​

Daniel Gibson | Smush Parker

Shooting Guards

Larry Hughes | Kobe Bryant

Small Forwards

LeBron James | Vladimir Radmanovic

Power Forwards

Drew Gooden | Lamar Odom​

Centers​

Zydrunas Ilgauskas | Andrew Bynum ​

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Benches

Key Cavalier Bench Players

Eric Snow| Damon Jones | Sasha Pavlovic |Andy Varejao|Donyell Marshall


Key Los Angeles Bench Players

Maurice (I may be the next to come out) Evans | Ronny Turiaf | Brian Cook | Jordan Farmar | Sasha (don't call me Pavlovic) Vujacic​

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Game Preview​

Trouble Cooking on LaLa Land

With the game slipping quickly out of the Lakers' reach, Cook and Coach Phil Jackson argued after Cook dropped his warmups in Jackson's lap upon being inserted into the game during a Detroit free throw with 1:25 left in the third quarter.

Cook went to the bench, his jaw clenched, and yelled at Jackson between the third and fourth quarters. Then he got into a heated conversation with assistant coach Brian Shaw, who had gone to the end of the bench to calm him down. While talking to Shaw, Cook took off his warmup top and threw it to the ground, apparently demonstrating what he had done when he entered the game.

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Andrew Bynum (or is that Tracey Morgan???) getting tips on how a bald head impresses the ladies in the front row at the Staples Center:

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Well that, and play video games. It seems that Phil Jackson has chosen to delay his annual tradition of passing out reading material to his players for the long December road trip. The reasons for the delay were partly personal, and partly due to the way he views his players. Phil said he would give the books out during a four game roadie next month, and here was his reasoning:

"I had all the books in a bag, a Barnes and Noble bag, but I decided I didn't want to bring them. I have like five books in there that I feel OK about them, but ... there's a book that I was looking for that wasn't available."

All right, fair enough. Phil wasn't that pleased with his selections, and when he went to the book store they didn't have what he was looking for. But in a heated speech to his team after their recent loss to Indiana, Phil shared some more of his thoughts on why he's potsponed the book club for now:

"I told them, 'You guys wouldn't read the ... things anyway,' when I went off on a little outburst on them the other day. 'All you guys can do is play video games and watch porn movies."

Finally, it seems that Phil can relate to his players.

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The Lakers strategy against the Cavs in Cleveland:

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The Cavs plan to play a game of "Do What I Do"

They did it to Wade Friday night:

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Quick Facts

· The Cavaliers have won two straight and three of the last four games against the Lakers at Quicken Loans Arena.
· Over his last four games against the Lakers, Zydrunas Ilgauskas has averaged 24.3 points on .649 shooting and 9.5 rebounds per game. He has posted at least 25 points
in three of the four games.
· Since February 2, the Cavaliers have allowed the fewest points per game in the NBA (81.8 per game) while allowing opponents to shoot just .415 from the field – good
for third best in the league during that stretch.
· Over his last six games, Sasha Pavlovic has averaged 14.0 points on .491 shooting, 2.8 rebounds and 3.0 assists in 25.5 minutes per game. He has scored in double
figures in five of the six games. He ranks tied for ninth in the NBA in bench scoring since January 30.
· LeBron James posted 29 points, seven rebounds and six assists against the Heat on Friday night. He is the only player in the NBA currently averaging at least 26.0
points, 6.0 rebounds and 6.0 assists per game.
· The Cavaliers are 11-7 (.611) this season against Western Conference teams – the highest winning percentage of any Eastern team against the West.

​

 

[PIP]

Great preview, Chicavs...

Coach's man boobs really compliments LBJ's granite chest..

 

[Krolik1157]

Krolik's Keys to the Game:
Big Game for Larry/Pavs, because one of them gets Kobe. Kobe is playing out of his mind this year-it's really pick your poison with him. He's one of the most effective superstars from outside, with a nice eFG% of .477 on jumpers, and we all know how good he is inside-he shoots at a .619 clip. He also draws fouls at the impressive rate of 14.6%, which is especially good considering 75% of his shots are jumpers.

We all know that Kobe is fast, agile, and strong, but what really makes him great is how well he understands what he's doing, and how smart he is with all his movements with the ball-he's the Steve Nash of 1-on-1 play, if that makes any sense. He's as fluid of a player as they come, and has an incredible ability to know when a defender is off-balance and make him bite with a jab step/pump fake and then have his way with him. The main thing for Larry/Pavs/LBJ during crunch time is DON'T GAMBLE. KOBE IS SMARTER THAN YOU ARE. Stay on your feet, watch his waist, and give him his jumper-he's going to get it off anyways, and you'd much rather have him shooting a semi-open 20-footer than the two free throws he nails if you bite on his evil, evil pump fake. Of course, as I mentioned, he's a good shooter, and if he gets hot, he'll destroy you. Hopefully being at home will help us here-he can't get the crowd behind him and go for the jugular after he hits two fadeaway 3s in a row. But he can quiet our crowd. Quickly. Remember, he feels neither joy nor fear. He was created as the perfect basketball machine. He is the Mamba.

More good news-If we double-trap Kobe on pick/rolls, Vujacic, Smush, Farmar, and Brian Cook are all lights-out shooters, with eFG% of over .500 on jumpers, and Radman, Odom, and Luke can all hit open 3s. My advice-give Kobe his shots, and pray he gets less than 30 or shoots under 45%.

Odom is very effective from inside, and barely average from outside. Keep him outside.

Bynum isn't consistent-you can't really double down on him, because of the Mamba and the shooters, so pray he has an off game.

If Ronny Turiaf and Andy end up fighting for a rebound/loose ball, someone might get killed.

I know it's still early to say this, but I kind of wish we'd taken Jordan Farmar instead of Shannon.

If Radman is guarding LeBron, LeBron needs to destroy him. He MUST get 30-40, at least. No "team player" crap tonight. You're playing a hot team and have a lumbering Serb on you. Take over. If they switch Kobe on you, all the better-wear his ass out.

Their backcourt defense: Kobe/Smush. They're very good. Their frontcourt defense: Odom/Radman/Bynum. They're not. More shots for LBJ, Drew, and Z. Boobie couldn't be more passive on offense than he is right now, so he'll be fine. Larry, if you fire 15 off-the-bounce 20 footers with Kobe in your face tomorrow, I will burn an efigy.

Despite their reputation for running slow, half-court triangle sets, the Lakers actually play at a pretty fast pace-7th fastest in the league. Let's use this to our advantage and push the ball like we've been doing.

The Lakers are the 7th-best offensive team in the league, and the 21st-ranked defensive team. We're the 20th-ranked offensive team, and the 4th-ranked defensive team. WE NEED TO ATTACK THIS DEFENSE. Especially LeBron vs. Radman-we can't let up and shoot jumpers like we tend to do against crappy defensive teams. If Bynum's in there, go ahead and feed Drew and Z, and go to the hole. Defensively, we just need to prevent Kobe from taking over (unfortunately, with the way he can make any shot, that's kind of his choice, but let's hold him to under 10 FTs), and keep Odom on the perimeter. Also, we need to contest their shooters on kick-outs. Hey, we're a good defensive team. We can do this. Great win last night-let's keep it going on national television.

 

[natedagg]

I get home from the gym during the week at around 6:30, and the cavs are rarely on anyways, so I have had the pleasure of seeing mucho laker games. They play as a TEAM, and Kobe is the best player in the NBA this year. He must have got jealous of LBJ's well rounded game because he definitely is distributing the ball very well this year. This is a different Kobe, and he "picks" his spots so much better, which is bad news. The rest of the team isn't uber-talented, but they have this way of playing as a team and it is great to watch. That being said, I think they play much better at home, and matchup-wise, we can take them. Vlad-Rad on LeJesus? A rook guarding Z? The only thing that worries me is the coaching. Phil's adjustments make Mike Brown look like an assistant coach. Oh wait, he is. But anyway... As long as LBJ takes it to the hole and distributes the ball, we should win. He just cannot be baited into a shootout with Kobe.
Prediction: We take this. There is some sort of correlation between effort on defense and coach letting us run occasionally. As long as the players are happy and going after it like a pack of wolves, we should take them. This will be a great game and Bron will flirt with the triple double and Boobie will surprise the national media, whose Cliff Notes say that he is a rookie who went to texas.

 

[cavincali]

go cavs

 

[blackmagicGTI]

Hoping for a good effort from the Cavs. If we could put together some quality wins before the break that would be clutch especially with Washington and Chicago struggling as of late so that we can at least stay close to Detroit.

 

[Karma]

Basically we should be turning the Q back into a fortress as it was late last season and well into this one. We have had our "slipups" at home for the season, and it will be tough to head to LA Thursday if we had been humiliated at home a few days earlier.

 

[Maximus]

That floating camera is not good to watch with a hangover.

 

[Nicky]

GAWD, let's hope TUNA doesn't think he's HOT-ish for making that one 3 pointer. I have no problem if he keeps it up, but 9-10, he won't.

 

[Nicky]

Sasha!! Damn that.. He shoulda shot that. Thanx for the turnover Sasha!

 

[Nicky]

As I said before... TUNA sucks.. He had like 10seconds to take that shot... Get him outta here!

 

[ChicagoCavFan]

That floating camera is not good to watch with a hangover.

Yea, that thing does suck. I was hoping they would change cameras - but they kept it for what seemed like forever.

 

[Nicky]

I hate Eric Snow!

 

[Maximus]

Sasha should have gotten more minutes.

 

[Dungong]

Snow getting some extended minutes on this one because hes done a good job on Kobe. Vlad Rad has been tearing us up though, don't know why he only played 14 minutes but hey thats fine with me. Sasha, Snow, and Marshall are making some good contributions off the bench.