I Hate Lincoln Park

An annoying man named Chester Bennington once said: “I tried so hard and got so far/But in the end it doesn't even matter/I had to fall to lose it all/But in the end it doesn't even matter.”  Those are the first words I thought about when the Cavs lost this game.  Let me please make it known, I hate Chester Bennington and the bank formerly known as Lincoln Park.  Thank you Cavs for ruining an otherwise beautiful day.

With 1:58 to play, I thought Boobie Gibson clinched the game.  We were up by seven.  Then the Heat got some easy points and we were up by just two.  Then Daniel Gibson airs a three ball with about a minute left, and somehow, the referees mess up the call saying we hit the rim and didn’t have a shot clock violation like was previously called.  We get the ball back for a free  possession and do nothing to score before losing the game after Ray Allen puts the Heat up by one with an open three.

We had the win.  This was like having your girlfriend talked into watching a football game, the game being turned on, the ball being kicked off, you’re sitting, then you’re flipping the channel to Bridezillas for some reason, and finally, she has hold of the remote.  It’s pathetic and has definitely never happened to me because I’m better than the Cavs.

Really though, tonight was not entirely bad. 

-The Cavs played very good defense most of the game.  I loved seeing many of the players, especially Daniel Gibson try to go over the screen on shooters like Ray Allen, even if it didn’t always work.  It showed good effort.  

  Our rotations were solid most of the game.  On the pick and rolls, our bigs were getting out and making the new man pick up his dribble.  This was really nice, but sometimes they needed to make sure they were getting back to their original man a little sooner.  There were a few plays where Jeremy Pargo just lingered on Chris Bosh after the roll rather than trusting Varejao or another man to cover Bosh until Thompson returned on him.

-The threes were raining tonight.  Imgaine how many assists Kyrie is going to get if the three ball keeps falling like it did?  We shot it 45%.  That’s beautiful.  Omri Casspi shot 4-4, which I hope he can keep up.  If he even shot 3-7 every night, that’d be just as great for the team. 

  Early on this year I said Omri Casspi, Assfingers, made me feel good about myself because of how bad he is, but even when he is playing good, he makes me feel good about having a chance in the NBA.  Casspi looks terrified when he shoots.  He shoots the ball so quickly when he gets an open three, so he can avoid being blocked.  I love it.  I also like how hard he tries on defense despite his lack of athleticism.  The man is afraid to get yanked from the floor, and it's causing him to try very hard.  I’m going to salute Byron Scott for instilling fear in our bench people. 

  CJ Miles looked good also.  He’s taking less stupid threes and has figured out if he can drive he can have more room to shoot.  He’s also playing very hard on defense due to the fear of getting splinters while sitting on the bench.

-I was wrong about the game revolving around Tyler Zeller if we were to get a win, but I was right in a general sense.  The Cavs succeeded tonight because they were able to get the Heat afraid of their range. This caused every Heat player to play a little more tight on the perimeter guys.  This pulled out their players, so we could drive the ball.  How many points did we get from guys overrunning a player that was on the wing and then just drove it in?

-Gee is becoming a very efficient player shooting over 50% tonight while doing an admirable job covering LeBron James.

-Dion Waiters is scoring where I thought he would be, but he’s taking far too many threes to score what he does.  Waiters needs to start driving to the basket more, so he can get better looks on his threes.  Defenders play him super tight, since we have no threats to drive the ball or demand attention.  I also don’t like how every shot he takes looks like a fade away; he leans back on every shot which gives him momentum away from the hoop. This takes him out of offensive rebounding position.

-Tonight, I’ll let Waiters shitty defense go because it seemed like Ray Allen had an invisibility cloak on and was also covered in pig grease.  Waiters kept losing him.  And, he was losing him by like thirty feet sometimes.  I don’t now if Waiters forgot he was covering him at times, or if he hadn’t heard about Allen’s skill with the three?  Daniel Gibson and CJ Miles had the same issue with Allen getting totally open looks when they were on him too.  Allen isn’t fast, has bad ankles, and appeared to move just as laboriously as always, so I’m going to call all the crappy defense on him pig/cloak related.

-Zeller needs to be getting more touches.  He isn’t going to get garbage buckets like Varejao and Thompson, but he can score off a hook shot.  He plays very good positional defense too.  He knows where to be when his man is moving, which covers up his lack of physical skills.  I also loved how late in first when Zeller missed a shot he recovered his own rebound and tried to go back up.  That’s great hustle and makes Varejao proud. Varejao as always had an amazing game that doesn’t need mentioned, since it’s so typical.

The winner of the Fuck Truck Driver award tonight is Tristan Thompson.  The first play of the game I knew he might win it.  Off of an offensive rebound, Big T avoided the urge to pull the ball down and instead just went up.  He went up quick.  He did that six times during the game and got himself 13 very easy points.  On defense, he avoided the urge to try and block everything.  This made his defense really bug guys because he didn’t leave his feet for every fake.  It’s hard to shoot over a 6’9” man. 

Tomorrow our bigs are going to be tested by the best two in the game right now.  I hope Varejao can command the attention of them and really aggravate Marc Gasol.  We’ll see if Thompson and Zeller can not be intimidated by Zach Randolph.  If our bigs play good, we’ll have a chance.  Alonzo Gee can lock down Rudy Gay.  This leaves a pretty nonexplosive team to battle us.