Cleveland 104, Boston 93

[recap] [box score]

I had said I was going to skip this one, but Evan Turner turned the Big11Ten championship game into a formality and so I ended up watching a good chunk of the second half, right up until the Selection Show. I basically watched until our bench played us out of it in the fourth.

Last time this happened -- when Cleveland just ran by us in the second half last month -- I wrote here that I wasn't sure that we were deep enough to beat Cleveland. To elaborate a little on that, consider the lineups at the start of the fourth quarter, with the Cavs holding an eight-point lead:

Cleveland: Delonte West, Mo Williams, Jamario Moon, Antawn Jamison, Leon Powe

Boston: Nate Robinson, Marquis Daniels, Michael Finley, Glen Davis, Rasheed Wallace

That's a complete bench unit for the Celtics, while the Cavs had two starters -- Jamison and Williams -- on the floor. One-by-one, Lebron James, Anthony Parker, and Anderson Varejao replaced Powe, West, and Moon, leaving them with effectively their starting lineup on the floor for the rest of the game.

Mike Brown can get away with this for a few reasons, including the fact that his studs are younger, so he can play them longer minutes. But his older stars, like Jamison, can go a whole fourth quarter because they can rest for a chunk of the third, more than capably replaced against the opposition's first unit by guys like Varejao and J.J. Hickson.

I may be over-emphasizing the effect of the benches on this particular game; both teams were extremely cold to start the fourth quarter, and it was only a ten-point deficit when Doc brought KG back about three minutes in. And even with the big guns in the game, Boston went the first five minutes of the period without scoring. But watching our overmatched second unit really drove home what I felt so discouraged about last time these two teams met.

I hate writing this, but it's almost as though the Cavs, and Lebron in particular, were toying with us. King James took just four shots in the first half, then exploded for 24 points in the second half, getting to the basket (and often the line) at will. We were right there at the start of the fourth, and then Cleveland just coasted away from us. Tough to watch. Something -- health, focus, attitude -- is going to have to change if we have any chance of beating these guys in a seven-game series.