Wow, LBJ with the buzzer beater 3

[Diddy1122]

The Magic need to watch how LA guards out of bounds plays at the end of games. Lewis should have been in Williams face the entire time, but he was caught watching the paint dry 4ft away from him, and it allowed a direct path for Mo to pass to LBJ in rhythm.

If Lewis was up on him, he would have been forced to throw left or right, or attempt a lob over him. Also, Pietrus never should have followed Sasha into the backcourt. What the hell would he have done back there? The Magic played that last possesion horribly other than Hedu's D on LBJ.

 

[dougthonus]

Wow, how the HELL did they just call that a flagrant 2 on Anthony Johnson?!

 

[Shakes]

They downgraded it, but I agree, hard to see how they called it in the first place. To me it looked like his elbow flew up as a result of being bumped.

 

[dougthonus]

That's not so bad then.

 

[Shakes]

I can't believe LeBron is jacking up threes (which don't even look like going in) when they had Howard in foul trouble in the first half. Hard to see Cleveland winning unless they can get him back off the floor.

 

[Shakes]

Orlando go up 2-1, the Cavs' hack-a-Howard strategy really didn't work at all. If someone not named Lebron doesn't have a good game they're going to struggle to win this back.

And that "foul" on Lebron's 3 by Howard was absolutely ridiculous. Luckily it didn't matter.

 

[Riker]

MJ never had 24 free throw attempts in the playoffs in his life.


Way to go Bronski!


Nice jumpshot you had tonight, really classy.

 

[Diddy1122]

And to think people were calling me crazy cuz I thought Orlando could win this series. Other than one bad defensive play at the end of game 2, Orlando should be on the verge of a sweep right now. And they haven't even played their best basketball.

There's a reason Cleveland is referred to as the LeBrons, they have no one else. Mo you're a nice player, but your not a second option, let's be honest here. Mo even said it best after game 2; LeBron is option A, B, C, D, E, F, & G. And until they truly get a Robin to LeBron's Batman, they will not win a thing.

 

[Shakes]

The problem isn't that Cleveland have nobody else ... take Lebron off the team and they're probably hanging out with Detroit and us at the bottom of the seedings. People who say Cleveland are a 25 win team without Lebron are deluding themselves, Lebron is good but nobody is worth 41 wins by themselves.

They have a bunch of decent players who aren't stars. The problem is they're not playing at the level they have the rest of the season & the playoffs. I mean literally everyone not named Lebron has played miles below what they did in the first two rounds.

 

[??? ??????]

Shakes wrote:

The problem isn't that Cleveland have nobody else ... take Lebron off the team and they're probably hanging out with Detroit and us at the bottom of the seedings. People who say Cleveland are a 25 win team without Lebron are deluding themselves, Lebron is good but nobody is worth 41 wins by themselves.

They have a bunch of decent players who aren't stars. The problem is they're not playing at the level they have the rest of the season & the playoffs. I mean literally everyone not named Lebron has played miles below what they did in the first two rounds.

Cavs are probably around a 30 win team, at best without Lebron. Lebron is that good. I think when San Antonio lost David Robinson for the season, would be comparable to the Cavs without Lebron (59 wins to 20 wins...granted they did tank a bit).

Cavs had the formula right, and that was that they created cap space to get Lebron his robin. Unfortunately, Ray Allen turned down the job. Cavs might have a championship by now if they had landed Allen. Instead, Larry Hughes is all they ended up with. They tried Mo Williams at the spot, and as people who watched him in Milwaukee know, he's not all that great of a player.

I think this is why you will see the Cavs come out strong for Ben Gordon this summer. He is the ideal robin to James' batman. Gordon can play off Lebron by knocking down the threes that James' creates, but Gordon can also carry the Cavs offense when Lebron is out of the game.

I think Lebron is probably good enough to carry the Cavs to one, maybe two championships by himself, but he will need serious help if he wishes to come close to matching Jordan's 6.

 

[step]

Unfortunately, Ray Allen turned down the job.

Wasn't it Michael Redd?

 

[dougthonus]

Shakes wrote:

The problem isn't that Cleveland have nobody else ... take Lebron off the team and they're probably hanging out with Detroit and us at the bottom of the seedings. People who say Cleveland are a 25 win team without Lebron are deluding themselves, Lebron is good but nobody is worth 41 wins by themselves.

Take LeBron off that team, and they are a 25-30 win team, but at the same time, they added a lot of pieces to complement LeBron, and if they didn't have LeBron they wouldn't keep the same pieces around him. However, if you had to rely on Mo Williams as your best player, with Ilgauskas as your 2nd best player, your team would be screwed.

They have a bunch of decent players who aren't stars. The problem is they're not playing at the level they have the rest of the season & the playoffs. I mean literally everyone not named Lebron has played miles below what they did in the first two rounds.

Series is still young yet. The closest a series can be after three games is 2-1. I still think Cleveland wins.

 

[dougthonus]

Shakes wrote:

And that "foul" on Lebron's 3 by Howard was absolutely ridiculous. Luckily it didn't matter.

That was ridiculous.

 

[Newskoolbulls]

dougthonus wrote:

Shakes wrote:

And that "foul" on Lebron's 3 by Howard was absolutely ridiculous. Luckily it didn't matter.

That was ridiculous.

That was all ball, Lebron didnt even try to sell it. Terrible job by the refs on that call.

 

[Riker]

Pathetic.

 

[??? ??????]

step wrote:

Unfortunately, Ray Allen turned down the job.

Wasn't it Michael Redd?

I think Redd may have turned down the job too. I know for sure that Ray Allen turned it down and re-signed with the Sonics. Larry Hughes definitely wasn't their first choice.

 

[Riker]

I wonder how does it look like in the Cavs locker room before the game, when LeCrab instructs his teammates to flop and planning on the best flop technique and strategy.

 

[Shakes]

dougthonus wrote:

Take LeBron off that team, and they are a 25-30 win team, but at the same time, they added a lot of pieces to complement LeBron, and if they didn't have LeBron they wouldn't keep the same pieces around him. However, if you had to rely on Mo Williams as your best player, with Ilgauskas as your 2nd best player, your team would be screwed.

I think without Lebron they're still a good defensive team, after all the previous two years they were 11th and 4th on defense supposedly before Lebron started caring about defense. And those teams had Larry Hughes and Drew Gooden playing significant minutes.

Obviously without Lebron they'd be a pretty crap offensive team, but if they're still around say 6th defensively (which I think is realistic) then how bad a team overall can you realistically be? Say they go from giving up 102 to 106 points/100 possessions without Lebron, that probably puts them at .500, since 106 points/100 offensively would put them at Minnesota's level. Looking at Cleveland minus Lebron, that seems reasonable to me.

Series is still young yet. The closest a series can be after three games is 2-1. I still think Cleveland wins.

Absolutely. My guestimate has Cleveland at about 70% chance to win any individual game. But that still leaves an ~20% chance of Cleveland being down 2-1 after 3.