Live Thread: Cavs @ Hawks (#OnTheFly)

The Cavs wing their way to Atlanta tonight on the second stop in their three game flight down the Eastern seaboard. The trip began with a bit of turbulence on Wednesday night in Boston, as the wine & gold took a close loss to the crumb-snatching Celtics, who clipped the Cavs’ conference lead down to three games. However, the outcome was mere inches away from being a very different story, as Deron Williams’ last second, wide open three attempt just missed giving Cleveland the lead and potential victory.

To be fair, Williams had played almost the entire fourth quarter (24 minutes in total) of his very first game as a Cav, despite only expecting to play 10-12 minutes off the bench. It was his first game action in almost two weeks, and only his fourth game back since being sidelined with injury as a Maverick back on January 25th. But, that’s life these days as a new Cavalier… you don’t get much of a chance to acclimate and adjust. Coach Lue just throws you into the mix to see if you can catch up on the fly…

“They really don’t practice here, and they told me that coming in.” — Deron Williams

Another relatively new addition, Kyle Korver, will receive a homecoming of sorts to his old roost, as this will be his first visit back to the team he played for the past 4.5 seasons. The Hawks reportedly have plans to honor Korver before tonight’s game. After a scorching month of February for the sharpshooter, he had some trouble getting open looks against Boston. Hopefully, La Flama Blanca can recapture some of his hot shooting touch against his former team (make sure you check out Mitch’s terrific analysis of what Kyle brings to the team if you haven’t already).

Though the Cavs completed their deal to pick up Andrew Bogut, the Aussie big man won’t be in uniform until Monday night’s game back at the Q against the Heat. The Hawks also won’t have their newest addition, Jose Calderon, available until tomorrow night, but they will have Ersan Illyasova, who has been heating up in his first few games with the Hawks since joining them at the trade deadline.

This is only the second meeting of these two teams this year, and the Cavs owe Atlanta one for handing them the first loss of the season back on Election Night, November 8th in Cleveland. The Hawks are hovering at fifth in the EC (1.5 games behind Toronto), and are at the front end of a six game homestand. I’m sure they’re hoping to avoid the 4-5 spot and a potential third sweep at the hands of the King and all his men. Speaking of LeBron, he notched his seventh triple-double of the season on Wednesday, and was named the EC Player of the Month for February yesterday (his sixth straight year of winning the award for the month of February).

Probable starters:
Cavs
F LeBron James
F Channing Frye
C Tristan Thompson
G Iman Shumpert
G Kyrie Irving

(Coach Ty Lue is sick and missed shootaround, but is reportedly going to still be on the sidelines for tonight’s game)

Hawks
F Thabo Sefolosha
F Paul Millsap
C Dwight Howard
G Kent Bazemore
G Dennis Schroder

Prediction: The Cavs ruffle some feathers and fly past the Hawks, 115-107.

Catch all the action on ESPN starting at 7pm EST… and follow along here at C:tB.