Blog City

The Cleveland Quit-a-tiers

Supporting Cast is a no show, but doesn’t excuse James’s performance

With a minute to go in the game Paul Pierce stood just over the 3 point line watching the clock as the game winded down to a displeasing finish for Cleveland. Down by 7 the Cavs didn’t foul Pierce, didn’t double team him either. Anderson Varejao stood 5 feet away from Pierce waiting with him. Pierce fired up a shot and sunk it. Celts up by 9. Lebron James dribbled sloppily and quickly down the court, ran to the corner of the floor, and just through the ball in the paint. The Celtics grabbed it, waited some longer and the Cavs didn’t foul, then a thrown up shot by Rasheed Wallace clanked off the rim. Mo Williams grabbed the rebound, but didn’t rush the ball up court, didn’t heave a pass to an alongside player, or fight up the court and chuck up a 3. He slowly brought the ball up as if it was just the end of a quarter, not a season. Then Varejao found his hands on the ball and shot a 3. Of course it rattled out of the basket, and with that the Boston Celtics were going to Orlando for the Eastern Conference Finals. And the Cleveland Cavaliers were going back to lame old Cleveland, Ohio to reminisce on yet another disappointing year, dealing with a cold hard question as to whether the King will keep his throne in Cleveland or venture elsewhere.

“Win a ring for the King,” Shaquille O’neal said when he signed with the Cavaliers. But in the playoffs O’Neal was just one of the dozen role players alongside James. He was just another body on the court that may’ve made things harder on them. Without Shaq on the floor the Cavs were a speedy and quick team overmatching the Celtics old team in the speed category. But with Shaq the Cavs were a slower paced team. O’neal’s best game came in game 5 when the Cavaliers suffered their worst loss in Cleveland Cavaliers playoff history. He may’ve scored 21 but the Cavs lost by 28.

And how about Antawn Jamison. A lot of the time he looked like Red riding hood prancing around on the court floating up shots, too afraid of contact. In game 4 he started the game off right, finally showing some aggression. He drove baseline and instead of floating up another loopy dee doo shot he ducked it on Kevin Garnett. That was the only time I ever noticed something done by Jamison when he came here. Jamison wasn’t even a player worth starting. He was too short to guard Garnett, too slow to guard Paul Pierce, and too bad to be called a key part of playoff success for the Cavaliers.

I hope Jamison and O’Neal realize that Lebron has never not got passed the first round in his whole career. And that is as far as they could help #23 get. This year isn’t just a disappointment; it was a catastrophic atomic bomb that wiped out entire city’s dream. And to not even make it past the Eastern Conference Semis, now that’s just a pity.

O’Neal’s was supposed to be Lebron’s security guard, like he was for Kobe Bryant and Dwayne Wade in their NBA Championship seasons. But all Shaq was, was an old, fat giant that stood in the middle of the key and dunked the ball when necessary.

Jamison may be a reason for the huge fallout for the Cavs. He messed the whole rotation up and kept Ilgalskus and JJ Hickson from keeping a flow with their game because they didn’t know if they were going to play or not. I bet if you looked at the performance with Jamison in the game versus without you wouldn’t see anything different. Jamison flat out sucked.

Now for the guards: Starting with Anthony Parker, better known as Candace Parker’s brother because he deserves no notability for his horrid performance in these playoffs. Sure he is just a role player and shouldn’t be expected to do much, but the problem is that he is a starter. While guarding Rondo he was too slow for the 6 foot 1 point guard. He couldn’t keep up with him, and was just another shameless body who was embarrassing himself. And to think that the whole city thought he could be the guy to guard Kobe Bryant in the NBA Finals. Parker made me cringe every time he went in. The lineup should’ve consisted of Delonte West and Jamario Moon coming in, maybe even Daniel Gibson getting some action, but Parker….no. Get out.

The fact that kills me the most about this playoff loss aside from it being the last game Lebron will wear a Cavalier uniform, or how there is going to be another month of basketball without the Cavs playing-  was they quit. They straight-up quit.

 Did James show us what he really was, a player that can’t step up under pressure? I don’t know if that’s the answer considering what he has done for this city with such little supporting cast. But once he has a supporting cast with at least a little bit of accolades, he can’t get it done. I never thought I would’ve saw back to back performances by James in the playoffs where he just was awful. And if you say to me he had a triple double in game 6, I’ll smack back at you saying he almost had a quadruple double. He had 9 turnovers and the Cavs as a whole had over 20. To expect to win in the playoffs you can’t do that, you can’t even do that in high school and expect to win.

James was making Tony Allen of the Celtics look like an ALL NBA Defender, but rather Allen is really just a role player that comes off the bench to give some of the guys a rest. James never had reckless abandon going to the basket, couldn’t make an outside shot, aside from those two 3-pointers in the 4^th, but it didn’t matter. James couldn’t stay consistent and even when those 3’s were hit and the Cavs pulled within 4 the Celtics starters weren’t in. And once the starters got into the game the Celts quickly pushed the lead back to double digits.  The bottom line is that the Celtics were the far better team in this series.

 We couldn’t handle the ball and we couldn’t make a dam free throw.

When will be the day that we sit back and reminisce about the year without cold feelings for the city of Cleveland.

All of you 49er Faithful saw this game. The most frustrating, aggravating game I’ve ever watched. The whole year has been one giant train wreck. The Niners give me headaches. I have at least a million questions to ask about the play calling. How does Singletary call himself a coach. I don’t see him do anything out there except call some dumbass play on 4th and goal, along with Jimmy Raye airing it out long when we’re on our own 15 with 40 seconds left in the game. I can’t watch this team anymore. Gore rushing for a total of 25 yards!!!!! ARE YOU SERIOUS! We can’t do jackshit on the ground and that was Singletary’s whole messsage to the NFL that he wanted to go out play smash mouth football, hit people in the mouth and all that shit. Well guess what we’re 5-7 and can’t run the ball to save our life and have to now rely on the pass on just about every play. We have found a quarterback and that is with Alex Smith, we have a running back Frank Gore, We’ve got recievers Vernon Davis and Michael Crabtree, we have a defense led by Patrick Willis, we dont have an offensive line, actually our line is a bunch of bithass fat guys who can’t rush block for shit. And our coaching (Mike Singletary and Jimmy Raye) may be the worst brand of knowledge in the NFL besides Oakland with Tom Cable. Singletary and Ray are killing this team. Until these guys figure out how to coach the Niners are screwed.

bball practice +mall+mcdonalds+dairy queen+ride home+ madden for 3 hours+ carls jr+ duck taping + madden again=  a productive day…….kinda. With chris, miguel, sean, and freddy watching them play mini games. Dam im sleepy

Wednesday

Sitting in the Tech Center writing my stories for the paper, 3 more days and we get a break. FINALLY! Nothing but sleep and Modern Warfare 2 All WEEK. CHYEA!

Man this thing looks dope, but I’m not getting it that much.

Day 1

First Week of the school year where I’m not suiting up in the football gear. Man it’s depressing, Coach Mike was right the last game is the one that stays in your head. Can’t stop thinking about that CV loss. Playing basketball now, dam it’s a whole different kind of shape, running up and down the floor with no breaks, plus a coach you can’t even compare with Junior and Hubb. I’m already missing football.