Preview: Cavs at Pacers, November 20th

Starting lineups, via Windhorst:

Mo Williams vs. TJ Ford

Anthony Parker vs. Brandon Rush

LeBron James vs. Danny Granger

JJ Hickson vs. Troy Murphy

Zydrunas Ilgauskas vs. Roy Hibbert

A few quick notes before leaving the thread open:

-The key matchup here might be Hickson vs. Murphy on both ends of the court. Murphy is another “stretch four” who will test Hickson’s ability to rotate and recover, but shouldn’t be the nightmare that Jamison was for JJ. Murphy’s a very good three-point shooter, but he needs to have his feet set and gets a lot of his threes trailing the break. If Hickson doesn’t fall asleep and runs Murphy off the line, he should be fine. On the other end, Murphy is a terrible pick-and-roll defender for a power forward, so hopefully Hickson can get back to wreaking havoc on the weak-side like he was in the three games before the Washington debacle.

Pace will be a factor-even with Hibbert and Murphy in the starting lineup, the Bucks play at the second-fastest pace in the NBA, so the Cavs will have to work on keeping the Pacers from getting out into the open court and working their game. Ford’s speed could give Mo some issues on defense, but Mo could get into a groove shooting over Ford on the other end.

Not much to say about Danny Granger-the guy’s awesome and he’ll probably get his scoring-wise. All I’ll say is that he’s on of the best three-point shootersin the NBA among high-volume scoring wings, so the Cavs have to commit to sticking to him 25 feet away.

According to Windy, Varejao should play tonight. See you tonight, guys.