[Eastern Conf Finals] Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Detroit Pistons

Sorry, but you still overestimate the other Cavs. I'll give them credit for playing great defense and I'll give them credit for playing better against the Pistons than they did during the regular season. On the other hand, neither of our two stars stepped up their game against Utah and the role players play well below their abilities except for Battier. The playoffs are what matters and the Cavs deserve props for playing their best ball of the year when it counts.

Last night, you saw exactly how schizo Gooden and Pavlovic can be. Both of them left their brains and heart in Cleveland. Hopefully they bring them to game 6 because LeBron will struggle.

 

Yeah, LeBron was obviously fouled in that grab. no doubt. So is Rasheed at the end of 2nd OT by Varajeo.

but that's what the pistons need to do. foul Lebron and send him to the FT line. The last winning layup is ridiculous. Four pistons stood around like wooden chicken and let Lebron waltz in for a layup. I dont consider that as playoff defense.

 

Everyone's favorite sports columnist puts in his two cents...


We'll never forget LeBron's 48-Point Game

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/blog/index?name=simmons&entryDate=20070601

Around 8:15 p.m. on the West Coast, I called a buddy who works for the Celtics and left him the following message:

"It's 91-91 and heading to overtime … just wanted to say, you better hope the Cavs lose this game because there's no stopping LeBron if he pulls this off. They're gonna own the East for the next 10-12 years. We're done."

Within 35 minutes, the fork was officially shoved into the Celtics and everyone else in the East. Our worst fears had come true. LeBron decided to make LeLeap.

This wasn't just about the improbable 29-of-30 points barrage down the stretch, those two monster dunks at the end of regulation, the way he perservered despite a crummy coach and a mediocre supporting cast, how he just kept coming and coming, even how he made that game-winning layup look so damned easy. Physically, LeBron overpowered the Pistons. This was like watching a light-heavyweight battling a middleweight for eight rounds and suddenly realizing, "Wait, I have 15 pounds on this guy," then whipping the poor guy into a corner and destroying him with body punches. The enduring moment was LeBron flying down the middle for a Dr. J retro dunk and Tayshaun Prince ducking for cover like someone reacting to a fly-by from a fighter jet. The Pistons wanted no part of him. They were completely dominated. They didn't knock him down, they didn't jump in front of him for a charge … hell, they were so shell-shocked by what was happening, they didn't even realize they should be throwing two guys at him.

This differed from vintage MJ simply because Jordan was never an overpowering physical presence. At 6-foot-6 and built more like a wide receiver, when Jordan took over games the recipe centered around 20-foot jumpers, slice-and-dice drives, putbacks off rebounds, turnaround fallaways, hang-in-the-air layups to draw contact, maybe even an occasional dunk on somebody's head. He compensated for his size in three ways: by maintaining a level of intensity that overwhelmed everyone else; by working his butt off defensively to get easy baskets off turnovers; and by creating an inside/outside scoring attack that answered every possible defensive strategy. And with all that said, guess what? He was still a middleweight. Isiah's Pistons gained an edge for a couple of years by knocking Jordan down every time he attacked the rim. When Riley's Knicks took this ploy to another level, the NBA overreacted and changed its contact rules, eventually leading to the wussified sport we're watching today. (Example No. 5,767: Antonio McDyess' ejection.)

Put it this way: They won't need to change the rules to protect LeBron. If Jordan was a receiver, then LeBron is one of those scary tight ends who runs a 4.35 40, outsprints safeties and occasionally carries five tacklers into the end zone just to see if it can be done. Physically, he's the most imposing perimeter player in the history of the league. Nobody else comes close. Even last spring, when he was only 21 years old, I described a specific LeBron play in an NBA column that was unlike anything I'd ever seen (check the sidebar). For comparative purposes, the only athlete who worked was Bo Jackson. And that's been the challenge for LeBron these past 12 months -- finding his inner Bo, learning how to channel it, figuring out the right times to unleash it.

When he passed up the game-tying dunk in Game 1 for an ill-fated pass to Donyell Marshall, in retrospect that turned out to be the most important lesson of his career. He needed to take the abuse, needed to hear the questions, needed to hear everyone call him out. Both Detroit losses hardened him, leading to his transcendent Game 3 and another focused performance in Game 4. You could see him harnessing his considerable gifts. Every fledgling superduperstar needs one of these moments -- Jordan had the series-winning shot in Cleveland, Tiger had the '97 Masters, Magic had Game 6 of the 1980 Finals, Bird had the banker in Game 7 of the '81 Philly series -- when they can say to themselves, "I came through when it mattered, I can do it again." LeBron was one crowd-killing game in Detroit from pushing himself to another level, almost like someone completing a mission in "Grand Theft Auto."

Above everything else, that's why this game mattered. Down the stretch, LeBron turned into a cross between Bo and MJ -- he seized the moment, made it his own, took everyone to a higher place. As a reader named Billy Carter e-mailed me afterward, "Watching LeBron finally enabled me to understand the Pele speech that the cook gave to Louden Swain in 'Vision Quest.' When the game was over, I wanted to wrestle Chute."

Me too. Like so many other diehard fans, I watch thousands and thousands of hours of sports every year hoping something special will happen, whether it's a 60-point game in basketball, a no-hitter during a Red Sox game, a seven-run comeback in the ninth, a back-and-forth NFL game, a boxing pay-per-view or whatever else. Occasionally, it pays off. For instance, two Saturdays ago, the Pavlik-Miranda undercard of the Spinks-Taylor fight was special. Last January's Colts-Pats game was special. Every Oakland home game of the Warriors-Mavs series was special. Maybe there are degrees of the word, but still, every time we're clicking on a television or heading to a ballgame, deep down, we're hoping something special happens.

Well, Thursday night was ultra-special. Watching King James take over Game 5 and finally earn his nickname, I felt like something substantial was happening. Like my life as a basketball fan was being irrevocably altered.

Hold onto your seats, everybody … it's happening! LeBron James is making the leap!

If you care about basketball, you'll remember where you watched this game 20 years from now. If you care about basketball, it meant something when Marv Albert blessed the night by calling it "one of the greatest performances in NBA playoff history." If you care about basketball, you enjoyed TNT's postgame show, when a giddy Barkley was so hyped up that he could barely sit still in his seat. If you care about basketball, this game immediately joined the Bird-Dominique Duel, The Flu Game, MJ's Last Shot, Magic's Sky Hook, McHale's Clothesline, the Sleepy Floyd Game, MJ's 63-Point Game, the Bernard-Isiah Duel, the '87 All-Star Game, the Suns-Celts Game, Bird's Steal, Havlicek's Steal, West's Half-Court Shot, the Miller/Spike Lee Game and every other classic over the years that can be described/remembered/rehashed in three or four words. We'll call this "LeBron's 48-Point Game" someday. 'Nuff said.

After it ended, I had a reader compare it to a player catching fire in the old "NBA Jam" arcade game, when every jump shot would result in the basketball being on fire. I had a Pistons fan named Duane e-mail me, "Watching LeBron's performance in Game 5 made me feel like Ron Burgundy. LBJ pooped in my refrigerator, ate the whole wheel of cheese and I'm not even mad. That was amazing." I had a reader compare LeBron's performance to the "No F-ing Way Game" in Madden, when the computer makes the executive decision, "Look, you're not winning this game." I had a reader named Justin Jacobs e-mail me, "After LeBron single-handedly beat the Pistons tonight, I looked at my 10-year-old brother and told him, 'You just bore witness to one of the greatest performances in NBA history.' You know you're seeing a great moment in sports when you're happy that your little brother was there to see it."

I don't know where we're headed with the LeBron Era -- how high he'll go, what he has in store for us down the road, even whether Game 5 will end up being an aberration along the lines of Vince Carter's 50-point game in the Philly series six years ago. But for the first time, I feel confident that we're headed for the right place. Even if that place includes Cleveland dominating the Celtics and everyone else in the East until my kids are in junior high.

(On second thought … come on Detroit!)

 

Hilarious. Especially the Ron Burgandy part, but I'm a sucker for the video game references. This sums up my feelings (and most Cleveland fans I'm sure) about the Cavs' future, courtesy of Kid Cleveland

 

Great stuff...

I know we usually have Rox game highlites/full game avail for download after the game. Anyone know of any English cavs-pistons game 5 torrents? As stated in thread, this is one for the ages, I want to be able to to show my grandchildren!

I currently have a Chinese version, but English would be best...

-lazybum234

 

I just had an interesting idea.

Lets say if Lebron hadn't re-signed that deal last summer so this year he would become the biggest free agent in NBA history. Bigger than Shaq or anyone else. I could already see every single team in the league lining up at his door for their chance to convince him to play with them. Remember his current salary increase is only 7 million from 5 to 12. So money wouldn't really be that important to him since he has made a fortune already from endorsement deals. Now one interesting idea would be him going to Orlando and play with Dwight Howard. Imagine these two young players one is 22 and the other is 21. That would be scary to see these two alongside each other for the next decade. Playing with a dominant big man like Howard easily tops whatever he has got in Cleveland. Also consider the Cavs have long terms cap strapping deals with Hughes and Ilgauskus. So they won't be much of a factor in free agency the next 3-4 years.

Just a thought.

 

I am witness.

I want to witness Mr.James defeat the Spurs. I want to witness the start of his career to the end.


The Legend Begins.

 

Detriot is still a better team at the end of day. If the Pistons are focus tonite, they should win tonite game in double digits.
Game 7 back to the Palace.

 

I have feeling this shot clock delay is gonna result is some poor basketball from both sides in the 2nd quarter. Almost 10 minutes now for rest and Lebron just took a break and now back without wasting a sec of real game time.

 

Oh God... Please don't make this an hour delay or something.

LOL, they said it could be a possibility they would haveto go to a local college or highschool and get a shot clock.

 

This is pathetic. Way to f*ckin drop the ball, NBA.

 

I bet Stern hacked into the Arena's computers and screwed up everything so LeBron could have extra rest!

 

Crowd is completely dead now. This is why everyone should have backup high school clocks and scoreboards in their arena.

 

WTF? I wouldn't trust the annoucer being the shot-clock & annoucing the the score.

No score????? No shot-clock??????

Wow, that simply AMAZING!

 

I would hate to be playing there right now. I'd either be so nervous as to when to shoot or just count in my head 24,23,22... Etc

 

Well, so far technical malfunctions seemed to have ruined what was promising to be a pretty good game...

 

There is always a back-up referee at each game. Tonight's back-up is long time official, Sean Corbin. I'm sure he's at the scorers table right now to keep an eye on things.

 

The Cleveland fans suck complete ass for not making more noise when Detroit has the ball so they won't be able to hear the shot clock count.

 

i'm disappointed with the Cav's energy in the first half. both the crowd and players.

 

The Cavs are being ridiculous with the trap. When you see a guy putting his hands up 10 feet away and another one rushing to you, don't just stand their get up and drive down the middle and break their defense. Punish them for doubling you and get a layup or find the open teammate. Whatever you do, don't stand there waiting to be trapped.