Cavs are who we thought they were, so get used to it
Where's
Coming out of the halftime break in a five-point game on Wednesday night against Detroit, he was nowhere to be seen when the Cavaliers took the court. Did getting whacked by simultaneous errant elbows from Rasheed Wallace and Chauncey Billups late in the second quarter knock him for a loop? Did nature call?
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| Geez, LeBron, you had to go and get Mejia riled up about the turtleneck. (Getty Images) |
All were rational possibilities, but word quickly came down that James was done in by a sprained left index finger. He came back a few minutes after the half started, dressed in a nice suit and hideous turtleneck, the kind that shouldn't see the light of day unless you have a hickey that needs hiding. By the time James sat down, his Cavs already had no shot of winning. They lost 109-74.
With no one to run the offense through and make things easier for everyone else, the remaining Cavs fell into what everyone says they are: a subpar supporting cast, lost without its leader. They settled for jumpers, sloppily turned the ball over and shot just four free throws the rest of the way. James averages 11 a game and had nine in the opening half. The Pistons never stopped attacking and the Cavs never knew what hit them.
"I didn't know anything was even wrong until I looked around at the start of the second half and he wasn't there," said forward Drew Gooden. "That was a shock and a surprise. It's tough to not have him out there -- he's our leader -- but we have to keep playing. Injuries happen, and you can't just give up."
So, the Cavs aren't the same team without LeBron. That's not exactly news. They probably won't have to play without him long, if at all. The X-rays on his finger came back negative and he made the trip to Toronto for Friday's game.
If he can, he'll play. If he can't, he won't, but he's not going to be out for long, which means any doomsday scenarios can wait for something more serious. Cleveland has done a nice job of deflecting all the noise it has heard this first month of the season, from holdouts over unreasonable salary requests to the inability to land any new key personnel to yet another Larry Hughes injury.
Before LeBron had to turn to his trusty air supply-threatening turtleneck an hour or so early, his team had an opportunity to roll to its fifth straight win, the sixth in seven games. Among the victims were Utah, Toronto and Boston, who all came into Cleveland hoping to feast on the short-handed team they had heard about, but were chased off the lawn by James' exploits.
Truth be told, when glancing at their November slate in the preseason, there was no way I envisioned the Cavs would have a winning record at this point. When you combined the drama, missing personnel, difficult schedule and the hangover of being swept in June's NBA Finals, it was easy to sell them short.
Then they earned a split on a tough six-game West Coast road swing I thought they had no chance at reaching .500 on, rallying around their leader and showing off a backbone. It might not have looked like it, but the sweep at the hands of San Antonio did teach them something. James learned his lessons, chief among them that he doesn't have time to waste bemoaning the fact that the pieces around him aren't perfect.
So Hughes isn't panning out. He's the player the Cavs would have relied on in the type of situation that arose in Detroit, but he's been hurt almost as often as he's been healthy since signing a five-year, $60 million deal in 2005. In six games this season, he's shooting 29 percent, dragging his clip as a Cavalier under 40 percent. No one is going to take him off GM Danny Ferry's hands, yet at the same time, no one would've predicted that he'd turn out to be this bad a fit, coming off a season in Washington where he averaged 22 points and three steals. After Michael Redd re-signed with Milwaukee that summer, Hughes was tabbed as the next-best choice, and James was on board with that.
You hope Hughes bounces back when he returns, but if he doesn't, you move on without him.
