Recap: Celtics 112, Cavs 95 (Or, The State of the Cavaliers is a miserable one indeed)
2011-01-25
Overview: Paul Pierce scored 17 of his 24 points in the first quarter of a 112-95 Celtics win. The Cavaliers have not won a game since the Republican Party officially became the House majority.
Well what were you honestly expecting  to happen bullets:
Well, it was a throwback ass-kicking. Perkins came back from injury and absolutely manhandled the Cavs’ undersized frontline under the basket. KG got whatever shots he wanted against Jamison while completely shutting him down on defense — again.
Paul Pierce closed out the first quarter with a vicious “screw this, we lost to the Wizards on Saturday and I do NOT feel like playing more than 24 minutes against this crappy team” scoring flurry. Ray Allen was left open coming off of curls and spotting up. The Cavalier offense basically consisted of Jamison and Eyenga firing jumpers. The Cavs were out-worked and out-executed by a team with infinitely more talent. That generally leads to a loss. A few quick individual notes:
– I have two main observations about Eyenga: His jumper is better than I expected it to be, and he settles for it more than I expected him too. I understand that he’s afraid he won’t get the ball back if he passes it to Jamison, Hickson, or Sessions, but I’d like to see him try to be a bit more efficient offensively.
– Hickson is hustling. He had a huge night on the boards again, and he was active around the rim on both offense and defense. However, he still had a few laughably, laughably, laughably horrible defensive possessions. I’m not sure if he’s hustling for numbers or just doesn’t get basketball, and I’m not sure which is worse.
– People realize that the Cavaliers lost four players this off-season, and two of them were DNPs for the Celtics tonight, right? That’s all for me tonight. Cavs host the Nuggets on Friday.
Yea, but Gasol is all-star starter great. The fact that he listed Artest on the list doesn’t make his point completely irrelevant.
Eh, Damian, I was going with you untill yu started naming off Laker players. It seems people suddenly over-value those who have won a championship as compared to those who didn’t. Ron Artest is quite bad right now and I’m not sure he’s helping that team win at all. It’d be like saying take LBJ off the Heat and oyu have Carlos Arroyo. It’s over-hyping one guys supporting cast to make it seem like LBJ had it so terrible here. Yea, Lamar and Gasol are great….but after that the next best player is an oft-injured big man and then I… Read more »
Erik that was great lmfao… Marshall WTF
With LeBron carrying crappy players its true but he signed off on every move we made didnt recruit other FAs to come to CLE so we had to settle for the best possible moves out there. Every single player the Cavs have had in the LeBron area fit great playing alongside him. of course there not gonna be that good without him when he elevated the talents of every player on the roster because he was that great. We surrounded him with shooters because LeBron could get to hoop at will and had the IQ to get the ball to… Read more »
the cavs single largest mistake was letting go of donyell marshall. it has just snowballed from there..
This team is considerably worse than last years – no question about that. How much ‘credit’ to give LeBron is a question. He’s definitely the biggest impact but combined with missing the size of Shaq & Z, Delonte, and the constant injuries – there are defintely some games the Cavs would have won (or not loss by as much) if these other guys were around. The Nets game comes to mind as a game we would have won if Shaq was on Lopez rather than Hollins. Anytime we have to start a 6’9″ center in lieu of a Shaq/Z tells… Read more »
Hey Damian, you are shouting into the wind. Everyone admitted already that it made sense for him to leave. And once again, the main problem CLE fans have is the asinine way he did it. The end.
The more i watch this season, the more I realize that the NBA DESPERATELY needs a franchise player rule. Dwight wants out? Mello wants out? They’re already talking about where Griffin will be in 2 years. It has to end.
Also w/the D-league comparison- Anyone actually remember when injuries hit hard a few years back and there was that one stretch where Lebron really had to play w/ several DL call-ups and won anyways?
Cavs were like 1-10 the last 2 seasons sans lebron. Look it up. None of this is unexpected. The problem was the insane expectations people had for the team, and all that ridiculous talk about how the best “basketball” situation for him was staying b/c the team was just loaded with talent, etc. I think that can be debunked now. Blame ownership/management for signing these crap players & expecting a title out of it. Take out kobe from LA and you got Pau, lamar, ron, artest, etc. maybe a 48-50 win team in the west on that alone. Take out… Read more »
the cavs need to rid of the huge contracts and veteran players and just start playing a lot of young guys. it probably wont make any difference record wise but what have any other veterans done to help this team anyways? its not worth having jamison or MO around anymore…i guess we’re stuck with sessions…boobie isnt playing all that great…so in essence its sort of a lose lose situation. as far as draft picks…there’s a few guys that could help. it depends if we want a big man or a guard/playmaker…depending on what will help us quicker will be our… Read more »
Trade JJ for ANYTHING and draft Sullinger!
The Celtics do not need Shaq or Delonte to win games, they are better with them – yes of course, but they don’t need them. You sit Shaq and Delonte and you still have 3-4 hall of famers/all stars on the team(KG, Allen, Pierce, Rondo). Everyone hates on Miami for building this dark empire but we all know Boston did it first… Anyways, the Cavs need to be what the championship Pistons were; a multitalented team with no real superstar. Why? Because no superstar is gonna come here if they had a say in it. They need to figure out… Read more »
The NBA is a superstar league. If you have one you’re going to be set up to be competitive on a nightly basis. The Cavs had one for seven years, and were competitive generally each and every night. As for West and Shaq being DNP’s: they are both injured of course they did not play. In fact West still had a cast on his wrist. They each missed alot of time with the Cavs last season and it didn’t really matter; the Cavs continued to win. Neither West or Shaq would have done much good this year for the Cavs.… Read more »
It seems like the only way Cavs win is if the opposing team chooses to lose…
The next possible win, IMO, is Feb 13 against the Wizards. What are the odds on that, I wonder…
Yes, they would James. Of course, take away another starter (say….Brandon Bass?) their best bench player (I dunno, Ryan Anderson right now) and one more player off the bench who gets real minutes (you pick, Arenas/Reddick) and you now have a team being led by Hedo, Richardson, and Nelson. Now, I don’t know about you guys, but that sounds a lot like Mo Williams, Anderson Varejao, and Antawn Jamison. Game would be very close.
Orlando without Dwight Howard would beat this team. I have no doubt about.
Dwyane Wade dragged Miami to, what, 45 wins last year? That team sucked. It clearly was not built around him, he had to do everything for them. The Cavs, although completely contingent upon LeBron for the lion’s share of contribution, were constructed to magnify his effects.
He dragged the 07 team to the finals. They really were not very good.
Well, it’s really trying to answer an unanswerable question or chicken and the egg kind of question (since it will be impossible to truly test either hypotheses without controlling the extraneous variables). If you think Lebron is a superhuman talent, then this is evidence that the Cavaliers sucked and he dragged a horrible team his whole career. If you think Lebron was great but not superhuman, then you point to (1) the other guys that left in the offseason and (2) that the team was built around Lebron. Of course, the answer is somewhere between the two (although exactly where… Read more »
It’s easy to look at the Cavs and just decide that Talent is linear and additive and that “losing” LeBron is evidence that 1.) He’s worth 58+ wins by himself (since the Cavs wont win again this year) and 2.) That LeBron made the right decision because the Cavaliers all suck. I would love someone to use this as an exercise in how teams are built around superstars. I imagine that if the Magic lost Dwight Howard today – they’d be as bad as the Washington Wizards if not worse. That team is built entirely around 1 guy. The 3… Read more »
I hear you. There is no denying the Cavs are historically bad. But when they were good, they won despite injuries like the Celtics are doing.
Even when Shaq and Delonte were on the Cavs, didn’t they miss a a ton of games too?
Opposite point. When the Cavs were the standard-issue worst team in basketball before Varejao and the other injuries, there was a lot of “It’s a whole new roster, Shaq, Z, and Delonte left too!” I promise I’ll go more in-depth on that at some point, but the Celtics have had Shaq miss games, Delonte miss basically the whole year, and Perkins miss every game until this one and they haven’t missed a beat. Every team loses role players in the off-season, and every team has injuries. Very few teams have EVER been this bad.
Yes, but both were injured. You make it sound like Shaq and Delonte aren’t good enough to get off the bench, when the fact is they’d both be playing significant minutes for that team if healthy.