The Next Lamb: The Cleveland Cavalieres

Game 17: Boston (12-4) at Cleveland (7-9)

Tuesday, November 30

7 p.m. Eastern

NBATV

Last meeting: @Cleveland 95, Boston 87 (10/27/10)

The last time the Celtics faced the Cavs, it was the night after the big opening win over Miami -- looking back, it doesn't seem so big, does it? -- and after Boston blew a double-digit second half lead, everyone was quick to blame the hangover from the night before.

Since that time, however, the Cavs have played a bit better than nearly everyone expected they would, emerging as a contender for a low playoff seed in the East. They play hard and are well-coached, and teams with those characteristics are tough to beat.

J.J. Hickson did the most damage to the Celtics in the earlier meeting, and he's again the guy to watch -- he's mobile, active, and has a good jumper. I mentioned last time that offensively, he reminded me a bit of Kevin Garnett, and that's the kind of player that can give Boston trouble if Garnett doesn't stay at home.

The ever-pesky Anderson Varejao mans the middle for the Cavs, and his mobility could give Shaquille O'Neal trouble. Varejao is the kind of player whose value you don't recognize until he goes off the floor and you realize how much easier everything is without him on it. As such, I'd like to see Boston try to ride Shaq's recent hot hand in the early going and maybe get Varejao in foul trouble.

Mo Williams is the starter at point guard. He didn't play in the first Boston game, and while he adds some scoring punch, he's missed five games this year and it's not at all clear that Cleveland suffers too much with him in street clothes. The other change in the lineup is that Joey Graham has recently replaced Jamario Moon in the starting lineup, which really matters very little in the grand scheme of things.

Cleveland's bench had a nice game the last time we played them. They've got some pretty good second-unit weapons, as second-unit weapons go. The most obvious is former All-Star Antawn Jamison, a versatile forward who we can hope decides to content himself with launching perimeter shots. Daniel Gibson is legitimate three-point sniper. I'm not a Ramon Sessions fan, but he has his moments; a big key to defending him is letting him take all the crazy shots he seems willing to take, rather than over-reacting to his penetration and leaving someone else open or by bailing him out with a foul call. None of those guys has a reputation for defense, however, and while the other two bench guys -- Ryan Hollins and Moon -- are decent on D, I think the Celtics bench could do some damage.

It's a game Boston should win, but to reiterate, they'll have to do more than just show up.

The Next Lamb: The Cleveland Cavaliers

Date: October 27, 2010

7 p.m. Eastern

TV: NBA League Pass (free preview going on this week!)

Last night's opponent wasn't the only franchise transformed by LeBron James' decision to join Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami. The King's departure from the Cleveland Cavaliers instantly turned a title contender into what appears to be one of the league's worst teams.

Many believe that LeBron's inability to win a championship in Cleveland was not his fault, but was a byproduct of the players around him simply not being good enough. Whether or not you subscribe to that particular theory, you have to admit that a team built around LeBron's former "help" -- Mo Williams, 34-year-old Antawn Jamison, J.J. Hickson, and Anderson Varejao -- promises to be a pretty sorry outfit.

We really have little indication as to how the Cavs are going to play. Like most NBA teams, they were idle Tuesday night, so Wednesday night's game is their opener. Additionally, Byron Scott takes over this season as head coach, and it remains to be seen what changes he'll make from Mike Brown's tenure. Williams was a scoring point guard in Milwaukee during the early part of his career, and I suspect we'll see him back in that role this year, though he should pile up a fair number of assists simply by virture of being the one who initiates the offense, as he did with the Bucks. Hickson is a promising young power forward, and Jamison may play a lot of three to make room for Hickson at the four. Beyond that, there's very little to talk about re: the Cavs, at least until we see them play a few games.

Celtics-Cavs was very recently a marquee matchup, the opening game of the NBA season each of the last two seasons. With James' departure, it's now nothing more than a trap game for a contender, coming on the road the night after an adrenaline-sapping win over, of all teams, James' new squad. For the the Cavs and the city of Cleveland, it's the chance to show LeBron -- and the rest of the basketball world, but mainly LeBron -- that life goes on without him, at least for a night. There will be nights this season that a half-assed effort will beat the Cavs. Tonight is not likely to be one of them.

Boston 99, Washington 88

[recap] [box score]

Boston was relatively flat for most of the night, but one look at the box score reveals good news for Boston fans: a 25-10 fourth quarter (on the road) and an 11-point win (going away).

The last period had been something of a bugaboo for the team during its recent three-game losing streak. Boston blew double-digit fourth quarter leads in Orlando on Thursday and against Los Angeles on Sunday, and let Atlanta pull away from them over the final 12 minutes on Friday. So holding a team to two made field goals against 16 misses -- even the lowly Wizards -- in the final period is a nice thing to see.

It's even more encouraging, depending on how you look at it, when you consider that the Celtics played the whole quarter without Paul Pierce, who injured his foot in the first quarter. Pierce returned to play parts of the second and third, but apparently Doc wanted to be careful. Hopefully he'll be back for Wednesday night in Miami.

Time for a mini-rant about officiating:

You're playing against the Boston Celtics, so you're not going to get a lot of calls. KG's going to set illegal screens; they're not going to be called. That's just part of the game. -- Brendan Haywood, via the Daily Dime

My timing might be a little unfair to Haywood, as I thought last night's officiating, if it favored anyone, favored the Celtics. But the moving screen comment addresses something that's been on my mind for a while, but which I didn't want to bring up because I didn't want anyone to think I was blaming refereeing for our struggles.

In this day and age, moving screens are a way of life in the NBA. Everyone sets them. You can probably spot one, and perhaps several, on every offensive set run by any team in any game on any night. What motivates officials to whistle one while letting dozens of others go remains something of a mystery to me. The obviously violent ones tend to get called; other than those, you're kind of rolling the dice.

Without hard statistics to back it up, this may seem a lot like whining (and maybe it is), but I maintain that we get called for more moving screens than any other team in the league. I know we play physically and that all of our barking at officials makes us less popular with them, but I think it's a bit dubious to think that we set meaningfully more illegal picks than our opponents. I'm not complaining about the ones where Glen Davis goes up and hits the guy (rather than stopping and letting the defender run into him), like he did so often last year. I'm talking the garden variety high screens that you see on every play. Those calls should be distributed evenly across both teams.

I'm going to try and keep track the rest of the season to see if I'm right or if it's just selective memory. I will say that I think it's a little ironic that Haywood is complaining, because his teammate, Antawn Jamison, got away with a handful of the most egregious bad screens you'll ever see last night.