The Waiting Game

The Cavaliers – fresh off the first sweep in franchise history – are now stuck in a holding pattern.

The Bulls and Pistons will get busy on Saturday and San Antonio and Phoenix will begin on Sunday. Three series are left to be decided – Nets-Raptors, Rockets-Jazz and Warriors-Mavericks. The Nets can wrap it up at home on Friday, Utah will attempt to stave off elimination at home and Don Nelson’s “midgets” have a chance to shock the world tonight in Oakland.

The Cavaliers are watching all three series with varying degrees of interest. At this point in the season, rest is good. But how much is too much?

“I think it can go overboard as far as coming back in and being game-ready,” said Larry Hughes following Wednesday’s workout. “We’ll do everything we can to prepare ourselves and to make sure that our scouting reports and our bodies are where they need to be. But there’s nothing like playing in games.

“So I think at this point of the year, two, three, four days are OK. But if you get longer than four days, it gets kind of tough.”

LeBron James openly admitted pulling for Toronto on Friday to get the extra days’ rest. Should the Raptors hold off the veteran Nets in East Rutherford – forcing a Game 7 on Sunday afternoon in Toronto – the Wine and Gold won’t suit up until Tuesday night.

James – between last year’s Playoffs, the FIBA Championships in China and this year’s All-Star Game – doesn’t usually get a week off.

“It’s not like the National Championship Game – where you get 50 days rest,” said LeBron, making his usual reference to football.

He also doesn’t seem to be a believer in the fact that players can get soft with too much rest. “If you’re not in shape by now, there’s a problem,” quipped the young King.

The Cavaliers can speak from experience on what it’s like to come off an emotionally-draining series into a hostile environment against a well-rested club. In last year’s postseason, Cleveland won their First Round series against the Wizards on Friday night in overtime and faced the Pistons at the Palace early on Sunday afternoon.

Detroit crushed the Cavaliers – 113-86 – before Mike Brown’s men had a chance to catch their breath.

So, if they had their druthers, players will always prefer a few days between games.

“Sometimes if it’s too long you can get stagnant,” said Zydrunas Ilgauskas. “You work hard during practice, but it’s not the same as the game – intensity-wise. So you don’t want to sit too long. But by the same token you want a few days to get your legs back.”

Asked if going longer than a week off is getting dangerous, Z laughed: “I don’t know; I’ve never been in this situation before. Usually it’s the other way around.”

So for the time being, LeBron and Co. will play the waiting game.

“(We’ll) just relax, stay home, watch games,” said James. “You walk your dog, wash your car. I just have fun with my son and … do nothing.”

Before the season began, the Eastern Conference’s Central Division was thought to be the toughest in the Eastern Conference, if not the entire NBA. The Pacers underachieved and off-court problems forced a mid-season trade that didn’t work out in their favor. The Bucks were simply decimated by injuries.

But as far as the teams that did make the Playoffs, it’s hard to argue that they’re not the tops in the East – especially if you’re from the Southeast Division.

Injuries, youth, and age aside, it’s hard to argue with the results. The Central swept the Southeast in 12 games this postseason and made it look easy. Chicago wiped out the Champs, Detroit exposed Orlando’s inexperience and the Cavaliers took care of business against a short-handed Wizards team.

Like most of the NBA, Cavaliers’ players addressed the report done by a professor and grad student at Cornell University, published in the New York Times, that essentially stated that white referees call a disproportionate number of fouls on black players than white.

Larry Hughes: “That’s a tough study to do. I really don’t think it’s relevant as far as our game. We have the same discussions we have with white refs as we do with black refs. It’s no different. I definitely wouldn’t say that a white ref has it out for the black guys in the league. That’s just not possible in our game. Just the work that everybody does in the league; there’s no way that we can even justify saying something like that.”

Zyrdrunas Ilgauskas: “I’m a bad example, man. I’m the all-time leader in fouls here, so I get called by everybody. I don’t think there’s much to it, to be honest.”

And finally …

LeBron James: “It’s stupid.”