# Cleveland at Philadelphia (4/8/05)



## remy23 (Aug 15, 2002)

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*TIME:* 4:00 pm PT, 7:00 pm ET
*TV:* *WUAB*, *NBALP*

Cleveland is trying to limp into the playoffs but even that is not guaranteed. After suffering a few blow out losses in succession, the Cavs hit the road to face the Sixers. Philly is playing much better than Cleveland is of late and being at home will be an additional advantage. Andre will bring his defense, Allen his scoring and Kyle his stroke. Cleveland needs to wake up because a culture of losing is in the air. Some players have resigned themselves to the fate of losing, thus no longer care what happens and come into games expecting to lose. 










From this point on, we’ll see just who wants it as bad as James. With the rebellion raging behind the scenes, one man must right all the wrongs with strong performances on the court.


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## Pioneer10 (Sep 30, 2004)

With the season going down the toilet, atleast all the Cavs fans can still thank Remy 23 for the previews. Great job


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## futuristxen (Jun 26, 2003)

Pioneer10 said:


> With the season going down the toilet, atleast all the Cavs fans can still thank Remy 23 for the previews. Great job


 :clap:


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## Pejavlade (Jul 10, 2004)

Big Z out at least a week.


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## Benedict_Boozer (Jul 16, 2004)

Remy has done a great job all season with the game threads, i'd like to extend my props to him as well :cheers: 

If James comes out aggressively attacking the rim and our big men can finish inside shots, we have a chance in this one. We need to avoid the 2nd qtr collapses and keep the game close, in general most close 4th quarters we have done fine.

Keep it close, avoid the 2nd quarter scoring drought, and we can win.


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## Pejavlade (Jul 10, 2004)

Lebron's frustration bad omen for Cavs fans


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## remy23 (Aug 15, 2002)

James' jumper looks terrible. Even when wide open, it's bricking real bad. But once he attacked the basket, he got rebounds, dunks and went to the foul line. Malone better tell him, "No more outside stuff, go inside."

End of 1st
Cavaliers - 22
Sixers - 27


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## Benedict_Boozer (Jul 16, 2004)

Wow Iverson leaves the game and the Cavs go on an 11-0 run.


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## Benedict_Boozer (Jul 16, 2004)

James isn't playing great but he is playing VERY hard. The whole team is right now, I like the effort.


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## Benedict_Boozer (Jul 16, 2004)

Jmac playing for himself out there


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## remy23 (Aug 15, 2002)

Despite mistakes to end the half, that is probably some of the most competitive basketball Cleveland has played in quite some time. 

Halftime
Cavaliers - 48
Sixers - 50


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## futuristxen (Jun 26, 2003)

If they can get a win after this kind of effort, then it could really save the season. But if they put out a bunch of effort and still lose...could make them take their balls and go home completely.

Lebron's taken a ton of shots. But he knows if the team doesn't make the playoffs, then people aren't going to be talking about JMac, nationally. They are going to be blaming Lebron.

That's discouraging to hear Lebron's shot still isn't going. Hopefully after this summer, he'll get his good jumper to come more consistently. Though I think a lot of times he is just settling for his J because it's easier.

But he needs to keep attacking the basket.


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## Benedict_Boozer (Jul 16, 2004)

Man the sixers milk that pick and roll to death.


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## Benedict_Boozer (Jul 16, 2004)

Diop starting the 4th???


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## futuristxen (Jun 26, 2003)

Benedict_Boozer said:


> Diop starting the 4th???


Is Malone throwing in the towel, AGAIN!?


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## Benedict_Boozer (Jul 16, 2004)

People need to start moving without the ball, the sixers are trapping James with 3 people everywhere he goes and no one is cutting. Thats at least 3 possessions this quarter where he has no outlet to move the ball out of traps.


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## Benedict_Boozer (Jul 16, 2004)

Horrible lineup.

Playing Diop was a huge mistake because the sixers aren't even guarding him and he is too scared too come to the ball. Harris has played okay but he is not moving without the ball. 

EDIT: playing Jmac when he is gunning for himself (1-11) and not playing any defense is another terrible move. 

It's a shame because they're playing hard but you have to put the right people on the floor.


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## Benedict_Boozer (Jul 16, 2004)

Now Malone throws a scrub lineup (Jmac/Harris/Newble/James/Traylor) with no center and Dalembert gets 4 straight offensive rebounds??? I'm sorry but WTF?


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## futuristxen (Jun 26, 2003)

Malone is grasping at straws.
It doesn't do much for team confidence when the coach has no real overriding vision of what should be going on. He's just randomly throwing people on the floor who have never played together all season. And when things do work, he never goes back to that lineup.

Looks like another loss.
Watching this game on Cbssportsline it looks like Lebron is the only cav who knows how to rebound.


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## Benedict_Boozer (Jul 16, 2004)

^^the rebound situation is bad, this is a preview of life without Z. His presence is big underneath, even when he isn't playing well.


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## Benedict_Boozer (Jul 16, 2004)

Wow if Jmac can get these free throws we have a chance to steal this one!!


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## Benedict_Boozer (Jul 16, 2004)

Err nevermind...Iverson going for the kill and hits over Jmac.


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## Benedict_Boozer (Jul 16, 2004)

Cavs fall to the 8th spot after this tough loss. I wasn't enamored with the lineups at all, but the Cavs came to play hard tonight. 

Bad situation because we don't have the season series over anybody, that NJ loss could have made the difference. Philly is gonna get in, it's gonna be between us and NJ at this point and we have to finish ahead of them.

Gonna be tough....


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## remy23 (Aug 15, 2002)

*Box Score: Philadelphia 103, Cleveland 98*

It will be tough. The only decent thing to take from this game is the guys still have some fight left in them. A moral victory of sorts.


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## futuristxen (Jun 26, 2003)

Looking at the schedule, if the Cavs win 2 of their 3 home games remaining and win the last game of the season against toronto...and lose the rest...so 3-4 of the last 7.

That would put them at: 41-41

New Jersey has this:
Apr 9	BOS 
Apr 13	@IND 
Apr 15	@TOR 
Apr 17	PHI 
Apr 19	WAS 
Apr 20	@BOS	

I figure they will lose to Indiana and one of the boston games.
4-2

Puts them at:41-41 and in.

Phil, has this:
[email protected] 
Apr 12	BOS 
Apr 14	MIA 
Apr 15	@IND 
Apr 17	@NJ 
Apr 18	MIL 
Apr 20	ATL 

They lose at least 4 of those games. Which gives them 3-4 of their last 7.

And their final record would be...40-42

Cavs in.

So as bad as things look. The Cavs just have to hold their home court, or only lose one and win the last game against Toronto, and they should be able to make it in. That NJ-Phi game is going to really help the Cavs.

For reference-this is the Cavs closing schedule:
Apr 9	MIL 
Apr 11	@ORL 
Apr 14	NY 
Apr 15	@WAS 
Apr 17	@DET 
Apr 19	BOS 
Apr 20	@TOR 

And I'm taking them over NY, Mil, and either Bos at home or Tor on the road. But they could give themselves a ton of breathing room if they take Mil, Orl, NY next week for a lot of momentum.

So I guess, as dire as things are, they aren't completely black yet.

Tomorrow's game is make or break though. The Cavs cannot afford to drop any games to non-playoff teams at home. Meaning the Bucks.


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## Pioneer10 (Sep 30, 2004)

I'm still predicting the Cavs to make the playoffs but Z picked absolutely the worst time to get hurt.

We would have won this game easy with Z. Anyway the lineups Malone runs out there are baffling at time and McInnis played like crap till the last minute only to watch AI blow him up as usual


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## LOYALTY (May 23, 2003)

I usually come away from a Cavaliers loss thinking that Lebron was excellent and the rest of the team sucked. I will not make that statement tonight. I saw Lebron play some stupid basketball tonight. Many will say "how can you say that? He scored 37 points and almost had a triple double!! " Well Lebron played ENTIRELY too much one on one basketball in the 2nd half of that game. It might have been one of the most UN-Lebron-like performances i've seen. Part of the blame goes to his teamates for not moving at all on offense. At times they were standing and watching Lebron so much that they might as well have bought a ticket and sat in the front row. I can understand the kid's frustration. He has to figure that if nobody else will move on offense then he has to do it all. But there were times tonight where he could have passed the ball to open teamates and he either tried to force his shot, or he threw terrible passes that got picked off at critical times.

Now, having said all of that, I still can't put the blame for this loss completely on Lebron. I see a team that cannot stop the pick and fade or the pick and roll. Maybe they need quicker defenders who know how to move their feet on BOTH sides of the court. Mark Jackson's jump shots were all wide open. And I saw none of the so-called 'Great Defense' that Ira Newble is supposed to bring. Newble was useless out there against Korver. Useless..

It's all about the new coach, the new GM, and putting the right players on this team.

I hope they make the right moves.


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## Pioneer10 (Sep 30, 2004)

Agree Loyalty that there is a lot of standing around but we have no other scorers. you need another threat to make defense to play honest and right now we don't have it. It would ideal to have another guy actually penetrate and dish but we just don't got it right now


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## Benedict_Boozer (Jul 16, 2004)

Lebron has no choice but to play 1 on 3 when Malone puts a lineup of Diop/Harris/Traylor/Jmac on the floor in crunch time. The only legit option he has to pass to right now (who even attempts to move without the ball) is Gooden and it's not a coincidence Drew is getting open looks inside and putting up numbers. Drew has 116 fg's assisted from Lebron, 9th in the entire NBA = http://www.82games.com/feeders.htm

Lebron is more of a natural passer than scorer, but you have to give him someone to pass too! There were times tonight the sixers ran a big man at him and Diop/Traylor would stand behind Gooden :krazy:


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## Pioneer10 (Sep 30, 2004)

Man Traylor is awful. I wonder if we can trade him to whereever Paul SIlas ends up. No movement, no post moves. Well he did better on D today then AV so maybe if he's limited to 10 minutes so.

I think it's obvious now that we need to resign Z: he's a key piece.


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