April 2010
28 posts
3 tags
Cavs / Celtics Preview
Cleveland Cavaliers (1) v. Boston Celtics (4)
Pace: 91.4 (25) | 91.6 (22) Offensive Rating: 111.2 (6) | 107.7 (15) Defensive Rating: 104.1 (7) | 103.8 (5) Point Differential: +6.52 (2) | +3.65 (9) Defensive Rebounding Rate: 77.22 (2) | 73.83 (13) Offensive Rebounding Rate: 25.06 (21) | 22.85 (28) Turnover Rate: 13.40 (16) | 14.46 (27) Assist Percentage: 59.17 (5) | 63.51 (2) Field Goal%:...
1 tag
This Game Is a Movie
It dawned on me today how fitting the Cavs’ playoff bracket really is. Sure, LeBron declared after the game 5 victory that he was glad the Bulls made the playoffs because a depleted Toronto team wouldn’t have been a challenge. Bron and the rest of the team also made it clear after their loss to the Celtics in Boston on Easter that they wanted to see them again in the playoffs....
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Cavs-Bulls Game 5 Bazooka Point
The series is over. The Cavs win in 5 games, as myself, Tim, and DAD.com predicted.
So why does Cleveland feel like the above image?
Because the game was close. Because the Cavs offense got stagnant like it did during the regular season. Because Mo Williams failed to show up again (2-13 from the field, although he was +1 for the game). Because the Cavs missed a lot of free throws (64.3%).
...
7 tags
A Tale of Two Cities
As we spend our time between Cavs games watching the rest of the playoffs (since we are certified basketball junkies), I wanted to devote a post-script to the argument about how to build a team—or more specifically, whether or not Danny Ferry screwed up in his own approach to trying to keep LeBron in Cleveland.
Right now, the Oklahoma City Thunder are knotted at 2 games apiece with the...
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Cavs-Bulls Game 4 Bazooka Point
*Photo courtesy of BJT68: A Tribute to Coldstone
Tonight, the Cavs waxed the Bulls on 53.2% shooting. Bron had a triple double. Antawn Jamison shot 56.3%, including one make from 3P. Mo Williams shot 60%, including 67% from 3P, with 4 made buckets. Overall, the team shot 48.0% from 3P.
For all intents and purposes, the series is now over. Not officially. But close.
This means that our...
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Game 3 Bazooka Point
Here’s the reality: if LeBron goes 39 / 10 / 8 on better than 50% shooting, Mo scores 21 points on 7-16 FG, and the Cavs shoot 40% 3FG as a team while winning the rebounding battle and going +6 in FTA, they should win the game.
Tonight, they didn’t.
Yes, as I predicted, the Bulls got uncharacteristically hot from the outside in game 3 and won. Here are some splits for you:
CHI...
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Logic In The NFL Draft and Sam Bradford
To give everyone a small break from our coverage of the NBA playoffs, I figured I would write about something that, I anticipate, could overwhelm Game 3 of Cavs-Bulls tonight all around the country and in Cleveland in particular: the fucking NFL Draft.
In general, I think the hype that exists over the NFL is absurd. My Twitter feed blew up on Tuesday when, of all things, the regular season...
We On Twitter
www.twitter.com/josemesaisdead
We’ll be tweeting randomly about sports and only sports. Wrote some things last night about the OKC and LA game.
Follow us if you want.
6 tags
On Joakim Noah
Obviously, Joakim Noah started a firestorm over the weekend by disparaging the city of Cleveland on a number of levels—saying that it “really sucks,” it’s “all factories,” etc. After being given many opportunities to clarify or retract those comments, Noah decided to go harder. He declared in the post-game 2 press conference something to the effect of,...
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Cavs / Bulls Game 2 Bazooka Point
This is a good example of why no one should jump to conclusions after a single game. Remember how the Cavs didn’t show any signs of rust in game one? How Shaq looked better than he’s ever looked before? Okay, maybe all of that was a little premature.
Shaq was fairly bad tonight - he only took 4 shots and had 4 turnovers - although he did make all 4 of his free throws. The defensive...
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Bulls / Cavs Game 1 Bazooka Point
Oddly, I feel like there’s not all that much to say about Saturday’s game. As a whole, the Cavs didn’t play well at all in the second half. Shaq looked great physically and seemed more nimble than ever, and spent all day abusing Noah and his old playoff foe from the “Sacramento Queens” era, Brad Miller. Anthony Parker continues to drive me to near-insanity by...
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Playoff Preview: Round 1
Welcome to the JMID NBA playoff preview, another in a long line of playoff previews you’ve probably already read, or are about to read. What better to waste your time on though? Relevant stats are listed for each team: Pace is number of possessions per game. Offensive Rating is points scored per 100 possessions. Defensive Rating is points given up per 100 possessions. Point...
Heads Up
We’ll have a NBA playoff preview column up tomorrow AM east coast time.
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Cavs-Hawks Bazooka Point
Welcome to the final Bazooka Point of the regular season. 82 games. We did it.
This is also the first Bazooka Point I actually wrote before the game was over. I’m confident writing, however, that the Hawks won.
Time will tell whether or not Mike Brown’s strategy - certainly approved by Bron et al - to essentially take the past four games off will pay off or not.
It’s a...
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LeBron & the Double Standard
Earlier this week, NBA Fanhouse’s Tim Povtak wrote an article to attack LeBron for his decision to sit out 3 consecutive games to rest for the playoffs. Among other charges, Povtak argues that Bron should split his game check from this past Sunday 20,562 ways to partially reimburse attendees who obviously didn’t get to see him on the court. Povtak even goes a step further, charging...
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Woj: John Wall to LRMR →
An inside look at Bron and Maverick Carter’s sports marketing agency, LRMR, which is about to sign John Wall (and, I believe, is the primary reason you see LeBron befriending every young player in the game).
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Good God
The above picture is of the winning dance team in the NBA.com Dance Team championship: your Charlotte Bobcats. You may remember that the Cavs’ dancers were eliminated in the first round by the Washington Wizards’ cheerleaders.
Why the hell am I writing about this?
First, I urge you to click here to assess the Bobcats’ dancers and then here to evaluate their counterparts on...
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Cavs-Magic Bazooka Point
Today, we all witnessed something special: we watched a coach other than Don Nelson actively attempt to lose a game.
After choosing to deactivate LeBron and Anthony Parker, Coldstone ended the suspense of an until-then competitive contest between the Cavs’ reserves and the Magic by holding both Mo and Jamison out for the entire fourth quarter.
To that point, both guys had been playing...
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Cavs-Pacers Bazooka Point
I’m going to write a brief post that Tim almost wrote last night, about Sebastian Telfair.
He had his second good looking game in a row for the Cavs, in a loss against the Pacers, and I can already hear people getting exciting in Cleveland, thinking The Great Danny Ferry (c) Shaq might have backed his way into another steal.
I’m rooting for Telfair, largely because I would love...
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Cavs / Bulls Bazooka Point: Fun with Scheduling
Tonight, instead of micro-analyzing this one game, I want to take a look at the ripple effect the Cavs’ scheduling over the final two weeks of the season could have on the playoff race in both conferences.
With the #1 overall seed secure as of Sunday night, Coldstone went into the final six games having decided to scale back Bron’s minutes (at Bron’s request), irrelevant of...
ABJJ = JJ?
Well, I can’t believe that I’m writing this post, but I think I’m ready to say that it’s time to end the Anybody But JJ concept — cause I think it should be - drum roll please - JJ.
I can’t believe that I’m saying this
Why you may ask - has Dad been sipping the old Checkoslovakian liquor again? Well, that’s another topic for another post but, I...
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Cavs-Raptors Bazooka Point
Ok, so I wrote an entire post about the game tonight and then Tumblr decided it was down for maintenance. The result - it deleted my post.
Here’s the gist of it.
With the game tonight, we got to see the return of the giant lineup (sort of), where LeBron plays the point. The difference was that AP played the 2 and Jawad played the 3. In the past, Jawad had played the 2 and Jamario had...
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Against Sportsmanship: The Follow-Up
As if there weren’t already enough reasons to love LeBron, here’s one more from Sunday’s post-game (obviously re: the Celtics):
“We don’t like them and they don’t like us,” James said. “This game has lost a little bit of that through the years, a little bit of talking. Teams not liking each other. That’s the same thing I figured out last year when I...
The Superstar Effect →
Let’s hope this is in play for the Cavs-Magic series…
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Cavs-Celtics Bazooka Point
I have to admit that I missed pretty much the entire first half of the game and was not as in tune with the second half as what I would have liked to have been because of the Easter Sunday festivities (or non-festivities, depending on how you want to look at it). Having said that, today’s Cavs’ loss against the Celtics gave me a very easy thing to write about…
Bron’s...
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Cavs / Hawks Bazooka Point
Tonight, a brief note about psychology.
For the tenth time in the past 11 games (including the playoffs), the Cavs beat Atlanta. For the third time this season, the Cavs beat Atlanta despite the Hawks getting a lead during the fourth quarter. For the first time this season, the Cavs beat Atlanta despite:
Not only missing both Shaq & Varejao, but also…
Still massacring Atlanta on the...
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AP vs. SP
For today’s exercise, I wanted to consider something that Brian Windhorst mentioned in his podcast on Wednesday - his belief that Coldstone’s rotation should and will shrink to 8 players in the playoffs.
Windhorst’s basic point, which I agree with, is that players are better when their minutes are consistent and prolonged. His secondary point, however, is either an oxymoron or...
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Cavs / Bucks Bazooka Point
Tonight’s home victory against the Bucks was a classic glass half-full / glass half-empty situation (c) Austin Carr.
If you want to look at it positively, you can focus on the fact that the Cavs came out on top of the team with the best record in the league since the All-Star break. They managed to do it despite missing both Shaq and Andy, both of whom were missed even more than usual...