By Karl Kimbrough (pictured), Cleveland Urban News.Com Sportswriter (kimbrough@clevelandurbannews.com).
Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Leaders In Black Digital News . Tel: 216-659-0473
CLEVELAND, Ohio-As the playoffs begin, the Cleveland Cavaliers, with a 53-29 win-loss regular season record, continue to navigate through unexplored territory. The Cavs 113-108 win on April 15 over the Washington Wizards at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, the final game of the regular NBA basketball season, was a sweet finale, even though King LeBron James did not play.
This Cavaliers team is new to the playoffs. But King James, the team leader under Head Coach David Blatt, a rookie coach, is familiar with playoffs territory, having led his previous team, or his intermittent team of the Miami Heat, to two of its three NBA championships.
James, 30, has more NBA playoffs experience than the entire starting line up of the Boston Celtics, and it showed on Sunday, April 19, their first game of the Eastern Conference playoffs, again a game on the Cavs' home turf at Ouicken Loans Arena.
Reaching the playoffs for the first time in five years, and led by James, Kyrie Irving, who scored 30 points, and Kevin Love, a power forward, the Cavs won the first game of the playoffs season on Sunday, beating the Celtics 113-110, another sweet victory, and a feather in the cap for the city of Cleveland, a major American city on the rise.
The two teams, which must fight for the most wins out of a possible seven of their Eastern Conference games, or the first four team wins of those potential seven games, will play again tonight, April 21, at 7pm Eastern Standard time, also at Quicken Loans Arena, a game that will be televised on TNT, and some other cable channels.
The Eastern Conference playoffs are divided into two preliminary rounds followed by the Eastern Conference Finals, with the winner of the conference championship facing the Western Conference champion in the NBA Finals to determine the champion. All conference playoffs are the best of seven games.
The Cavs must win the Eastern Conference championship, and then the Western Conference championship to walk away with an NBA championship title. Will they win, is the question that many have asked? But the other question, the main question, in fact, is whether the team is ready or not to go all the way.
The coaching staff decided to rest some starters periodically during the regular 2014-2015 season since they clinched second place in the Eastern Conference. Was that the right decision ? We will see after the playoffs get underway.
This Cavaliers team has never been in the playoffs together, so what do they do ? This coaching staff and roster of players as they are presently constituted have dealt with new issues as they have felt their way through this season, which has been very successful, for the most part. Although having not played with each other, this team came into this season with a lot of expectations, assumptions and beliefs from national and local media as well as fans. Many felt that anything short of making the NBA finals would be a disappointment.
All of that is hanging on their shoulders, and two of the Cavs three All Stars, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, have never played even one playoff game. Talk about a daunting task. But Kyrie , and the others, showed us in beating the Celtics team on Sunday in the first game of the playoffs season that anything is possible. But it an't over yet.
This Cavaliers team has been swimming in uncharted waters all season, but they have had a season to write about. The first few months of the 2014-2015 regular season they compiled a 19-20 after 39 games. Playing under 500 basketball at almost the halfway point in the season the national media members who had such lofty expectations were now forecasting gloom and doom for Cleveland fans. During those turbulent first two months of the season when things went wrong, fingers were pointed at head coach David Blatt and his lack of NBA experience as one of the key reasons. Even though there were great expectations for the team there was equally as much doubt that the selection of Blatt to lead this talented group as a neophyte to the NBA was a good one
There was concern about Blatt's player rotation in the first two months of the season. Also, early in the season Blatt played James, Irving and Love close to 40 minutes per game. The high level of minutes and injuries to key players soon caught up to the Cavs and contributed to their struggles last November, and December. Looking back it is easy to see that the players who constituted the bench was the main reason Blatt's rotation didn't work very well. To stay in most games Blatt used Love, James and Irving more than he wanted. Dion Waiters, the one scoring threat that could offer relief for the starters, fit this team like a square peg in a round hole. The age in basketball years of the other bench contributors early in the season would make Methuselah proud.
Cavalier General Manager David Griffin had a plan though, and it did not include having to depend on older veterans Mike Miller, James Jones or even Shawn Marion playing major minutes and rolls coming off the bench all season. Griffin had his eyes on a few players with specific skill sets and athleticism who were wearing different uniforms earlier in the season. But he knew he had to be patient to line up all the assets needed to seal the deals. When the time was right Griffin sent Waiters packing and acquired guards JR Smith and Iman Shumpert from the New York Knicks, and Timofey Mozgov from the Denver Nuggets. Those three players plugged the holes in Cleveland's ship perfectly, and their chemistry with the other players clicked right away.
In Mozgov the Cavaliers have a center with great length who can defend the interior and prevent offenses form scoring in the paint at will. Defense, inside and out was a problem for this team before the trades. Even before Anderson Verjaeo was injured and out for the season, a center with length and size was needed. In Smith and Shumpert the Cavs speed, quickness, defense, athleticism, size, ball handling and shooting was improved dramatically at the guard position. Now Cleveland truly has the complimentary players around James, Irving and Love that fit their style and skill sets. As a result, after going 19 and 20 in the first half of the season the team galvanized quickly after the trades and were 31-7 after the 19 and 20 start, when they clinched the second playoff spot in the Eastern Conference by beating the Milwaukee Bucks on April 8th. Doing so they also won the Central Division Title for just the fourth time in franchise history.
James quietly had another MVP type of season by averaging 25.5 points, over five rebounds and over 7 assists per game. He was also named Eastern Conference Player of the all important month of March. Coach Blatt went from the out house in December to the penthouse as he was named the East Conference Coach of the month of March. In recent decades only the 2008 Boston Celtics have been able to add two All Star players (Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen) and win the NBA Championship the same season. So far the Cavaliers have put themselves in position to do the same, which would be a phenomenal accomplishment, given the team's huge player turnover from last season, including major trades in mid season.
This says a lot about the entire organization. But the players and coaches are the ones who have to deal with the pressure of the playoffs as a unit for the first time, as they go up against the NBA's best. With two of their three All Stars having never experienced the post season it will be on the shoulders of two time NBA Champion LeBron James to lead the way on and off the court. Although they probably won't get a lot of playing time, fans can expect former NBA Champions Shawn Marion, Mike Miller, James Jones, and Kendrick Perkins to lend support and guidance.
Many have underestimated the wisdom of Coach Blatt. He has been a major factor in the teams turn around this season. Even though he is a rookie NBA coach, it should be remembered that Blatt has a number of years of experience coaching under pressure at a high level when the stakes were highest. So although the Cavaliers have not explored the playoffs as a team, many individual team players have had success in past championship runs. There are several factors in play, along with their star studded cast that will make even the casual fans look on with intrigue during this playoffs season. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
