Live Thread: Cavaliers at Spurs

The wine and gold visit San Antonio, looking to follow up on an impressive win Tuesday night in Dallas and push their record to 2-0 on their current four game road trip.

There’s never any shortage of intrigue when a LeBron James-led team faces the Spurs. Whether you’re flashing all the way back to the 2007 Finals or have more recent memories — the Ray Allen shot, the Spurs dissection of the Miami Heat in last year’s Finals, Kawhi vs LeBron — this is a match-up with some meat on its bones; one that might be a bit more than just “the next game” for the Cavs star forward. Even with James’ notoriously short memory, he only needs to look back to November 19, 2014, to when these two teams met in Cleveland, to find some extra motivation. That game ended with James dribbling the ball off his foot in the final seconds before he could even attempt a shot and the Cavs fell to the Spurs 92-90.

In that game, the Cavs were led by Anderson Varejao’s 23 points and head coach David Blatt went with an eight man rotation, that saw Dion Waiters, Tristan Thompson and Joe Harris as the team’s lone reserves (not counting the two spot minutes from Will Cherry).

The Spurs are playing like the “same old Spurs” again, but this is a very different Cavs team.

Of course, you’d expect all that to mean that Spurs coach Gregg Popovich would rest his entire starting five in tonight’s nationally televised game. Apparently not. Both Tim Duncan (hyper-extended elbow) and Manu Ginobli (illness) are expected to play for the Spurs.

Enjoy. Discuss. Go Cavs!

For some pre-game / half-time listening, check out Tom’s segment this afternoon on Dayton Sports Scene:

https://soundcloud.com/dayton-radio/tom-pestak-3-12-15