Wild Thang... You make my heart sing

Little review action from last night thanks to masug24:

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It was ugly early on and it looked like the Cavaliers were on their way to another losing streak. Luckily, Michael Redd was cold in the first half and somehow, we went into halftime up by seven.  In an interview over the weekend, Mike Brown noted that we’re not just streaky game to game, but also quarter to quarter, which will be a problem come playoffs.  Hopefully when Hughes returns we’ll have another reliable force on the court, and we can start playing consistently for 48 minutes every night.

But back to the game… We slowly built a lead and were up double digits late in the fourth.  Redd got hot, and Simmons hit a few crazy shots to put the Bucks up one, and we all started to sweat.  Bucks up one, 18 seconds left, the ball is in the Assassin’s hands and I’m waiting for LeBron to put up an ill-advised jumper.  But Bron did what Bron does best and took the ball to the hole, flying past Bobby Simmons, faking a dish to Yell and laying it up with his left hand untouched.

Then, out of the jungle, came Wild Thing, who switched onto Redd off a pick and took an obvious charge, crashing to the floor amidst insanity in the stands. Varejao drew four offensive fouls in the game, including a flop when Bogut put a forearm to his chest.

So the Cavs take it up the floor and the Bucks take their last foul to give.  Inbound to Bron, who is triple teamed, and somehow he gets the ball to Marshall before getting fouled.  Marshall brings it home and the Cavs are up three.  The Bucks miss at the offensive end and the clock runs out.  Cavs win a thriller 89 – 86 to win an important season series against the Bucks, 3-1.

Observations:

1.  Bron makes two nice plays in the last twenty seconds of the game.  I almost wish they had fouled him on the Cavs last possession to see if he could’ve made the free throws.  In any case, he came through in crunch time, which he needs to learn how to do before April.

2.  Donyell has Damon Jones syndrome and can’t buy a bucket from outside. He took it inside a few times, but he has that ability that Damon didn’t.  He needs to remember that he’s a big dude and can take the ball inside when he’s cold from the arc.

3.  Damon is better when he plays with the flow of the game.  He didn’t spend much time camped out at the three point line last night and made some nice drive and dishes (and ended up with 4 assists).

4.  Andy looked more comfortable at the free throw line than in his first few games. The thing I like most about him is how much he frustrates opponents with his “sacrifice my body” style of play.  Let’s just hope he doesn’t start dying his hair and wearing women’s clothes.

5.  Snow had four boards, but mishandled one and missed a few open shots.  He’s been rebounding well lately, but I think it’s more being in the right place at the right time than it is actually crashing the boards.