Cavs can't shoot straight, but they're still offensive

While the Spurs played great team defense on James, it was super defender Bruce Bowen who did the most to slow him. The reason Bowen is so good at shutting people down is because he makes it so difficult for the man he is guarding to get the basketball. James had to hustle and bustle just to receive an inbound pass. Eventually, Bowen wears on you.

"Bruce always guards the best player on the other team, or at least nine times out of 10," Popovich said. "He takes great pride out of guarding the other team's best player ... team defense is what we count on but team defense starts out individually."

Their defense was sweat-inducing but it did not have to be much considering how poorly the Cavaliers shot the ball.

The Cleveland shooting percentage of 42.9 percent only came after the Cavs hit a few shots when the game was out of reach.

The Cleveland apologists will say the Cavaliers struggled early in the series against Detroit too. That is true.

The Spurs? They are no Detroit. They are on a different plane of championship existence. They are as above Detroit as Cleveland was over Washington in the first round of this postseason.

The only hope for the Cavaliers is that they are as stubborn and mentally strong as they are scud missile launchers. They made a run late in the fourth quarter, cutting San Antonio's lead from 18 points to eight with less than two minutes remaining. That type of surge can give them hope for Game 2. (Cleveland coach Mike Brown must also find a way to give rising star Daniel Gibson more shots and minutes.)

One thing the Cavaliers tend to do is get other teams to play down to their level, mainly because Cleveland plays defense almost as well as the Spurs do. San Antonio is also not one of those teams that consistently blows out its opponents.

Watching this first game, one would think it was the Cavaliers who had a week off between games, not the Spurs.

Cleveland can attempt to figure out all it wants how to stop Tim Duncan, who was dominant with 24 points, 13 rebounds and five blocked shots.

The Cavaliers won't stop him -- almost no team can -- but even if they did, it wouldn't matter until Cleveland shoots well.

Right now they are the Maxwell Smart's of the Finals.

Missed it by that much.

The basket, that is.