The Day After

To quote Quentin Tarantino's “Kill Bill”: You didn’t think it was going to be that easy, did you?

The Washington Wizards turned the tables in a big way on Thursday night at the Verizon Center, and the Cavaliers club that looked like a well-oiled machine on Monday in Cleveland, looked as muddled as a soup sandwich three days later in D.C. The series may still be tilting the Wine and Gold’s way, but the Wizards definitely served notice in Game 3.

Both clubs practiced on Friday at the Wizards’ gym, with a few hugs and handshakes exchanged when they passed in the halls – primarily with Gilbert Arenas. (Arenas’ dad was down there as well, playfully chiding the Cavaliers as they came through.)

That’s about the only smiles we’ll see for the rest of the series. After the Wizards thumped the Cavaliers by 36 on Thursday night, the two clubs – who really don’t like each other to begin with – know that it’ll be a dogfight to get into the Second Round.

Before the Cavaliers rolled in, Arenas said that the Game 3 crowd was the loudest he’s ever heard at the Verizon Center. The District faithful was definitely smelling blood and gave it to LeBron every time he touched the ball. He is definitely Public Enemy No. 1 – and it’s a role that doesn’t phase the Chosen One whatsoever.

“I think all the fans know how I approach the game every night and how I play the game,” deadpanned James. “Any time you get in a hostile environment, you want to perform well and help your team win. But at the same time, you have to maintain focus, and I’ve always been able to do that.

“The fans are the reason why we have big games,” added LeBron. “Without the fans, there is no NBA, no stars, no superstars. So, I respect their fans.”

LeBron was the only bright spot for Cleveland on Thursday, but even he didn’t have his normal game. LeBron finished with 22 points, but didn’t get an assist until midway through the third quarter and only made four trips to the line. He knows that the Cavaliers feed off his energy and knows they’ll have to be the aggressors in Game 4.

“It’s a big game for them, but it’s a big game for us, too,” said James. “Just to see how we react to getting blown out (Thursday) night. They reacted really well to getting blown out, so we have to react with a sense of urgency too.”

The Wizards closed off LeBron’s passing and driving lanes and, without his teammates sinking shots on the backside, put their captain in a precarious spot. Cavaliers who had been successful in the first two games – notably Delonte West and Zydrunas Ilgauskas – struggled in Game 3.

According to Ilgauskas, Washington’s team defense “wasn’t much different than what they tried to do the first two games, they were just successful (on Thursday).”

Big Z added: “They still double-teamed LeBron, still tried to take us out of our sets. They were just the aggressors. We turned the ball over, had some lazy passes. And that just created dunks on the other end and it got their crowd going. We know how it feels on the other side because in Game 2, everything went our way.”

The Cavaliers will try to get the Large Lithuanian more early touches on Sunday afternoon. But more than any particular strategy, they know it’s important to come out of the gate with much more intensity before the white-out blankets them the way it did in Game 3.

“At the end of the day, it’s one loss,” said LeBron. “But we know we can’t play that way on the road and try to win a game.”

Home Protection

It took 23 minutes and 58.7 seconds to define the series as it now stands at 2-0.

That’s when Brendan Haywood committed his first offense against LeBron James. That’s when the Cavaliers – and the Wizards – officially knew that the bad blood wasn’t just talk.

“Trash talking started three years ago, it just didn’t start this series,” quipped the otherwise-likeable Gilbert Arenas after Saturday’s loss. “That’s what players do – you have teams that don’t like each other on the court, but love each other off the court. Damon Jones and I are best friends, but I talked trash to him before we arrived and throughout the game. That’s what basketball is about.”

Haywood – who was a Cavalier for around 20 minutes on Draft night in 2001 – committed his second offense on Monday night when he knocked LeBron out of the air on a put-back attempt in the third. Haywood got hit with a Flagrant-2, but won’t receive a suspension. James’ teammates talked about the physicality of the series and that particular shot on Tuesday at Cleveland Clinic Courts.

“It was hard foul, but in this series, you have to be prepared for anything,” said Daniel Gibson. “It’s really intense and guys are really getting after it, so you just have to be prepared for those kinds of situations when you take the ball to the basket.”

LeBron’s been fouled harder than the shove Haywood gave him, but it was the precarious mid-air position that made it a dangerous play. The Cavaliers went on a 15-6 run after his ejection, putting the game on ice for the night.

“When somebody’s in the air like that – I don’t know if you’re trying to hurt somebody or it’s just a hard foul,” said Zydrunas Ilgauskas. “But the problem is when you’re in the air that high, you land funny and (could) break a hand or do something to your knee.”

“I don’t think anybody’s out to hurt anyone," added Boobie. “But in a series like this, sometimes play gets out of hand. But I don’t think (Haywood) intentionally wanted to hurt him.”

Obscured among the rough play has been the Cavaliers’ excellent play – especially on the defensive end. The Wizards are shooting just under 39 percent in the first two games. Washington’s “Big Three” were a combined 10-for-36 on Monday.

Wally Szczerbiak found his shooting touch in Game 2, and has frustrated Caron Butler defensively in both contests. “Tough Juice” has gone 9-for-23 over the past two, while Szczerbiak was 6-for-9 for 15 points on Monday.

“We’re not going to relax as a team,” said Szczerbiak. “We did a good job of protecting homecourt. We definitely feel good about how we’ve played in the first two games and now we just have to carry it over to Washington.”

Wally has responded well to the starting assignment, and for the first time since the Cavaliers made the 11-player deal on Feb. 22, the chemistry seems to be coming together. Ben Wallace has been tough in the post and showed some early offense on Monday. Delonte West has been strong in the final three weeks of the season, and has carried that into the first two games.

And Joe Smith has been Joe Smith – rock-solid on both ends of the floor, and a nice complement/alternative to Anderson Varejao. Smith is the perfect blend of toughness and technique and has been a strong, veteran presence.

“They made a statement in Game 1, giving LeBron a couple of hard fouls,” said the 12-year veteran. “We obviously don’t want to hurt anybody out there but we don’t want to give up anything easy. We kind of answered back a little bit with a little bit of aggressiveness (Monday).”

Nothing the referees can do will reverse the tone of the series. No player wants to get thrown out, but it’s the Playoffs and there won’t be any more easy dunks. That part of the season ended last Wednesday.

As the old George Karl saying goes, a series doesn’t start until the home team loses a game. The Cavaliers will be looking for the unofficial beginning on Thursday night in D.C.

Let the Games Begin

“I was built for this.”

That was LeBron James’ response when asked, after Saturday’s riveting Game 1, if he was tired of getting banged around. From the opening tip, that was obviously Washington’s plan – and it probably will be for the remainder of what promises to be a bare-knuckled Round One matchup.

“I’m not built 6-9, 260 to shoot jumpers all night,” James continued. “I go to the hole and I create contact. And don’t ever think that I’m the only one feeling that contact.”

After weeks of fighting the series in the press, the time for talk was over, and the two clubs had to fight it out between the lines. And as the Cavaliers had done six times before, they handed the Wizards another playoff loss. Cleveland held the Wizards to one bucket – a meaningless layup by Caron Butler at the buzzer – in the final 4:38, taking home the 93-86 win that was much closer than the final score would indicate.

One thing was affirmed on Saturday, however: On the court, these are two teams that definitely do not like each other.

It took less than one half of basketball for that to materialize, as tempers boiled over late in the first half, when Brendan Haywood – after fouling LeBron at center court – stood above him “in a very disrespectful manner.” Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Ben Wallace were the first into the fray before officials broke it up.

It won’t be the last time these two teams tangle.

Aside from James’ heroic 32-point effort, it was Ilgauskas who found seams in the Wizards’ defense – canning open jumpers and doing the dirty work in the post. Big Z finished with 22 points and 11 boards, going 8-for-8 from the free throw line.

“Every game we play against these guys, it’s a tough, emotional game,” said the Large Lithuanian. “We expect this to be a tough series, and it will be.”

Ilgauskas was one of three Cavaliers to make eight or more trips to the line. And the Cavaliers made 20 more trips to the stripe than Washington (37-17) – something Coach Brown had underscored to his team coming into the series.

“One thing we stressed is that during the year, we shot a lot of threes against this team and we didn’t shoot enough free throws,” said Brown. “We shot, maybe around 24 threes per game on average, and about 17,18 free throws. And we stressed to our guys that we have to attack. And our guys did a nice job attacking the rim.”

That philosophy led to Cleveland being very aggressive around the rim. And when the Cavaliers – namely LeBron and Z – are going to the hole, they’re awfully difficult to defend. Of course, it’s going to get pretty rough around the hole now that the Second Season has begun.

“It’s the playoffs, so a lot of calls go unnoticed,” said Ilgauskas. “They let you push more, which is good – that’s the way it should be. They let the players decide the game. Both teams have a lot of big guys, so there’s a lot of screens being set and a lot of elbows flying around.

“That’s playoff basketball.”

DeShawn Stevenson – for all his bluster – had yet another terrible game for the Wizards. On Saturday, the man who called LeBron James “overrated” came up 1-for-9 from the floor. Over the past two years, Washington’s thickly-bearded guard has gone 10-for-55 (18 percent) from the field.

Gilbert Arenas was the other Wizard who added some vitriol to the series with his advanced trash talk. But unlike Stevenson, everyone knows Agent Zero can back it up on the hardwood. Arenas canned his first four three-pointers – and fans were having flashbacks to the 2006 Playoffs where he averaged 36 ppg in six contests against Cleveland.

But Delonte West did an excellent job against Arenas in the second half, holding the sharp-shooting star to 2-for-6 from the field in the fourth quarter.

“Delonte’s a fighter,” praised Mike Brown. “He’s not going to back down from anybody. He’s longer than what you think, he’s quicker than what you think and he’s definitely more athletic than what you think. When you take all those things and combine them with toughness, you have a chance to have a pretty good defender.

“Delonte’s not going to stop Gilbert – nobody’s going to stop Gilbert Arenas. But the one thing you just hope is that he make Gilbert work for his shots.”

Delonte didn’t shoot the ball particularly well, but he did can four straight free throws in the final 15 seconds – finishing with 16 points, five boards, five dimes, two steals and a pair of blocked shots.

When all the smoke clears, when all the talk has been talked and the pushing and shoving are done, the series will eventually boil down to which team can clamp down on the other, defensively. Yesterday, the Cavaliers’ D down the stretch was better than the Wizards’. And they came away with the win.

Now they need to carry that over into Monday’s Game 2.

“We were the best team in the playoffs last year, defensively,” said LeBron, following Saturday’s win. “We started off on the right foot this year, giving up only 40 percent shooting on the night, and 25 percent from the three-point line – something they’re very good at. We know when we go out there and lock down defensively, we can be very good.”

Rounding Third, Headed Home

If the Cavaliers are to rediscover the late-season magic that propelled them headlong into last year’s playoff run, they need to get busy – the clock is ticking.

Last year, they started the month of April at 2-3 before rattling off their final four to earn the three-seed in the Eastern Conference tournament. Cleveland rode that momentum all the way to San Antonio.

This year, they have just about zero momentum heading into their final five games. A couple of wins early last week – against Philly and Charlotte – seemed like they would turn things around. But two tough, uninspired home losses have the Cavaliers wondering where this road will lead them, and where will it end?

The haters have been lined up all season, ready to label last year’s run a “fluke.” And after two anemic nationally-televised collapses, they’re eagerly anticipating validation. The Wine and Gold lost a 17-point lead to the Bulls on Thursday night and blew an eight-point advantage on Saturday.

On Thursday, Larry Hughes was the most intense player on the floor. On Saturday, the only field goal Dwight Howard had was the opening dunk of the game and Cleveland lost by 15. Combined, the Cavaliers were 10-of-46 from the field in the fourth quarter. These are not good things.

LeBron James has been “Mr. Fourth Quarter” all year long, but back spasms have hampered him in the past two games as well. LeBron has gone 1-for-9 in the fourth quarter over his last two outings and was 2-for-13 in the second half on Saturday.

“I definitely haven't had the lift that I've had in the past with my back tightening up,” said James. “But I don't use that as an excuse. I've just not been able to come through for my team in the fourth quarter the last two games.”

But the fact is that one game, one quarter, one play could turn it all around.

The Cavaliers have refused to use their injuries as an excuse and still feel like there’s plenty of time to turn it around. Delonte West – who’s played very well lately – insists the team isn’t concerned.

“Not at all,” said West. “We’re a no-excuse team. Last two games, we lost – teams beat us. We’re a real good team, but sometimes we get up on teams and go through the motions and allow people to get back in the game. We just have to get that killer instinct where we don’t want to win a game by four – we want to blow teams out.”

Coach Mike Brown has shortened his rotation – so much so that Sasha Pavlovic and Damon Jones, integral parts of the process just two weeks ago, got DNP-CDs over the last two games.

Asked if he will re-visit his new rotation after Saturday’s loss, Brown was particularly terse: “No.”

Aside from his much-publicized missed dunks, Ben Wallace seems to be rounding back into form, and his work on Dwight Howard – (along with Anderson, Joe Smith and Z’s) – is one of the reasons he was brought to Cleveland.

“We just have to go out there and play basketball and everything will take care of itself,” said Wallace after Saturday’s loss. “We’re just turning the ball over too much.”

Big Ben is a man of few words, but he hits the right chord with them. The Cavaliers turned the ball over 16 times on Saturday, leading to 25 Magic points. These are not playoff numbers and will add up to a postseason loss every time.

“I don’t know if we’re looking forward to the playoffs or what it is, but we’re letting some close games get away,” said Devin Brown, who had another strong outing on Saturday. “But we’ll work on it in practice, fix a couple more things and get ready to go again.”

There is still time to get the kinks worked out. It’s ugly now, but everything can turn around as quickly as Wednesday night against the Nets. The Cavaliers ended the season with four straight wins one year ago – and that was all the juice they needed for their run. Five straight sounds just as good.

April Showers

Nothing has come easy for the Cavaliers this season. From a rough road schedule to start out the season to the nagging injuries that are making the final weeks a struggle, it has been a complete departure from last year’s relatively smooth sailing.

After Saturday night’s debacle in Detroit, Coach Mike Brown knew that he had to make a change and by tip-off 20 hours later, Sasha Pavlovic went from starting two-guard to a DNP-CD. He had ice on his foot throughout the second half, but Brown asserted in postgame that Pavlovic could have played.

Brown knows that time is growing short for the Cavaliers, who have seen their lock on the fourth spot become more tenuous in recent weeks – due in large part to the surging Sixers and the Wine and Gold’s woes on the road. The Cavaliers have won just one road game since making the 11-player trade back in late February – and it took LeBron James scoring 50 points to get that one.

Of course, it’s not too late to finish strong and go into the postseason on a roll. Over the past two seasons, the Cavaliers have gone 14-6 in the month of April, including 8-3 in 2005-06 and 6-3 last season. The 14-6 record is the third-best April record in the NBA during that time behind only the Bulls and Magic.

Cleveland bounced back from an anemic first half against Philly to win it down the stretch. Delonte West had easily his best game as a Cavalier, draining a pair of huge three-pointers in the final two-and-a-half minutes and becoming the first player since Eric Snow – and, obviously, LeBron – to have 11 or more assists in a game for the Wine and Gold.

Talking about his two big bombs, West quipped: “It’s funny because it goes to show how mental this game actually is. I remember sitting on the bench right before we came out from a timeout and thinking, ‘I’m getting ready to hit it; I’m going to sting them.’ Sure enough, the ball came right to me and I let it fly.”

The only other Cavalier to have two good games this weekend was Joe Smith. The rock-solid reserve forward went 9-for-12 from the field, averaging 11.5 points and 6.5 boards in 23.5 minutes per contest. He was 4-of-4 from the floor in Saturday’s embarrassing loss to the Pistons.

He and Ben Wallace were both perfect from the field on Saturday. Big Ben was in the midst of having one of his better games with Cleveland before re-aggravating his back.

The affable Smith probably used the most appropriate term to describe the season: “It is very frustrating and we understand that injuries are a part of the game, but at the same time when you are trying to get healthy bodies back on the floor to get a rhythm it is frustrating.”

Wallace might have been able to go as early as Sunday, but the Cavaliers are going to play it very safe with him and any other essential pieces to this year’s postseason run. Daniel Gibson made his return on Saturday – in limited minutes – but had to leave with soreness in his ankle on Sunday.

The Cavaliers got the win and kept the Sixers at bay. And they were still able to give players like Wallace and Gibson a little extra time to get as close to 100 percent as possible. Gibson, especially, is a critical piece to the puzzle if the Cavaliers are looking to make another big run.

“I know it’s a struggle for him mentally because he’s never been injured in his career,” said LeBron James, in reference to the player he considers a younger brother. “Hopefully he can just get his ankle back right and not think about it much. Hopefully he can just continue to get healthy. We’re going to need him.”

It’s likely that Devin Brown will get another start on Wednesday night when the Cavaliers travel to Charlotte. Cleveland has won 11 of 14 all-time against Charlotte, but it doesn’t feel like it. The Bobcats always seem to give the Wine and Gold a hard time.

It could be a crazy eight games in April, as the Cavaliers look to solidify themselves before making another run at the Eastern Conference Crown. To get there, they won’t be facing an undermanned Wizards squad in the First Round or an underachieving Nets squad in Round 2.

So now it’s time to get healthy and get focused on going into the playoffs on a roll.