Game 3 thread

[jb]

Yeah, a sweep sure makes it look like title dreams are a lot further away than we all thought a few days ago.

It is great that we are here....but now that we are here, all thefans will expect now is a title and anything else will be a failure. And, this is where my issues lie with future seasons.....I jut don't know how we are going to make the necessary changes we need to make this offseason to put us over the hump (assuming we don't make a miraculous comeback and win this thing).

Maybe Ferry channels David Blain and tricks the entire league into giving us our Pippen and starting PG. Dunno. Gonna be interesting to see what Ferry does moves-wise to get into the draft and/or make roster improvements.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus

[jfiling]

In the postgame presser, Liz Thomas from the New York Times just asked the most asinine question ever, something about "after your experience in the Eastern Conference finals, did you know this series was going to be so difficult?"

Nice waste of a question.

[StewieG]

In this offense, the 2 and 3 are pretty much the same thing. If we keep this offense, it won't make any difference if Lewis is here.

But I don't think Lewis is the guy we need, unless we can somehow trick Seattle into taking Hughes for him. Which, of course, isn't going to happen.

I make a run at Zach Randolph. Supposedly Portland wants to trade him.

First, I see if they're idiots and offer Hughes straight up. Their salaries are close. Since that won't work, I move on to Marshall and Snow, or Marshall, Jones, and Newble for him. Since that won't work, I offer Gooden and Newble. It's iffy, but that might work. And of course if they really are desperate to get rid of Randolph, one of the other two trades have about a .01% chance of happening, but there IS a chance. Which is why I'm offering.

Then, I use either Sasha or Varejao, re-signed, depending on who we have to trade to get Randolph (If Gooden is involved, I trade Sasha, if one of the other two trades are somehow able to get it done, I use Varejao), and trade for a PG. Possibly Jose Calderon in Toronto, or even Jason Kidd (which it would obviously take more salary, so you're looking at some combination of Gooden, Snow, Jones, Marshall, and Newble, or maybe Z - but I doubt that). Other guys I'd look at are Mo Williams (free agent from Milwaukee - it would have to be a sign-and-trade), and I at least inquire about Agent 0, even though I know there's no chance. I'd be doing myself a disservice if I don't at least call. The other options might be Luke Ridnour from Seattle, Andre Miller from Philly, and probably a couple other guys that might be available. We don't necessarily need an all-star at point, we just need someone well-rounded and competent at scoring, defense, and running a team.

[mswerb]

I would really like to see these bastards win the next 2 at home, for the sake of not getting swept. No one want to get swept in the Finals. These guys lack the killer instinct, they need to come out and go balls out the ENTIRE game. Not get down, and then realize that time is running out. What the hell, this is the Finals! God damn sons of bitches, lets win a frickin' game.

[leadpipe]

1. You just can't, YOU JUST CAN'T leave Lebron on the bench for the last 5:30 minutes of a half. Take a look at your team coach. You are essentially the Cleveland Cav. Get your meal ticket in the game. He finished with the same amount of fouls he had then. Horrible. And, to make matters worse it happened a game ago.

2. I'm tired of saying it, but no matter how The King plays, you've got to hit WIDE open shots in the NBA. Lebron should have had 15 assists.

3. People mentioned previously how hot the Spurs were from three but A. They are a good 3 point shooting team and B. They were no more wide open than the Cavs shooters. As a matter of fact they were better defended. The Spurs didn't play well either.

4. The whole Z was great this game, Drew is better than the first game etc. This is a big part of the problem. Good, championship players don't show up every second or third game. They might have a rough one here or there, but Christ, outside of the King nobody reading this would drop dead if Drew, Z or andy got shut out next game. It happens routinely.

[jfiling]

I would really like to see these bastard win the next 2 at home, for the sake of not getting swept. No one want to get swept in the Finals. These guys lack the killer instinct, they need to come out and go balls out the ENTIRE game. Not get down, and then realize that time is running out. What the hell, this is the Finals! God damn sons of bitches, lets win a frickin' game.

But how do you really feel?

[jfiling]

1. You just can't, YOU JUST CAN'T leave Lebron on the bench for the last 5:30 minutes of a half. Take a look at your team coach. You are essentially the Cleveland Cav. Get your meal ticket in the game. He finished with the same amount of fouls he had then. Horrible. And, to make matters worse it happened a game ago.

I was screaming when Brown benched LeBron at that point. You're down 2-0, you play your stud all 48 minutes. I could have understood if he sat him down for a minute just to give him a chance to cool off from the foul calls, but the rest of the quarter? No way.

[mswerb]

How are people going to look at this team if they do get swept? I keep hearing that they are here 1 year ahead of schedule, that's bullshit. They got here by beating the teams they needed to beat to be here. At the end of the season do you sit back and say, what do we need to get a ring? Or do you sit back and say, shit we just got swept. No one expects these guys to win, not at all. Right now, lets just focus on not getting swept. Take it one at a time, and enjoy our run in the finals. San Antonio is a well put together unit, lets beat them down these last 2 games at home and send Tony Longoria back to Texas.

[Guest]

Swept away.

[leadpipe]

They need to win this year. Paxson has left them in a position where they ain't going to get much better any time soon. No draft pick, stiff for stiff trades. I'm as tough on the organization as a whole as anyone, but I really don't blame Ferry. The Pollards, Wesley's...this is the garbage they are forced to throw darts at and hope something works out.

Still anmazing to me that Paxson isn't considered the worst GM ever. You couldn't have possibly done worse. Boozer may have helped this series, for example.

[jfiling]

Boozer may have helped this series, for example.

I wasn't going to go there...

It's been posted on this forum that Boozer (or his wife) was desperate to find any way out of Cleveland, including lying, in order to not play second fiddle to LeBron. I do agree that with Boozer this team is incredible and probably won the championship last year (assuming that the injuries he suffered the past 2 years don't happen because he's somewhere other than where the injuries happened).

[swerb]

Inexcusable sitting LeBron the last 6:30 of the 1st half. He averaged like 1.8 fouls per game in the regular season, and did not commit a foul the rest of the game tonight.

A 38-30 lead became a 40-38 Spurs halftime lead. Cavs were still stuck on like 45 points more than halfway through the 3rd.

Mike Brown has been so thoroughly outcoahced in this series, its sick.

And why does LeBron wait till theres 4 min left to take the ball to the hole? He passed on 6-7 isos against Bowen in the 1st 3 quarters, with no help defenders flanking Bruce. It was obvious that buckets were gonna be hard to come by tonight, and they needed LeBron to be special.

Disappointing.

[leadpipe]

Boozer may have helped this series, for example.

I wasn't going to go there...

It's been posted on this forum that Boozer (or his wife) was desperate to find any way out of Cleveland, including lying, in order to not play second fiddle to LeBron. I do agree that with Boozer this team is incredible and probably won the championship last year (assuming that the injuries he suffered the past 2 years don't happen because he's somewhere other than where the injuries happened).

But you are an NBA GM. It's your job. You see selfish, deceitful, coddled, out of touch athletes every day. Including whipped ones. There are millions of dollars out there, nobody should know better than you. You've got to know about agents in this profession. His name has to be on the God Damned dotted line or it's your ass. Period.

[dragonmeister]

[HoodooMan]

Inexcusable sitting LeBron the last 6:30 of the 1st half.

Mike Brown should be fired & all, but I'm not sure he did anything wrong there. In Game 2, he needed to have a number in his head and when the Spurs got up by that much, regardless of how much time was left in the 1st quarter, LBJ needed to be back in the game. My number would have been 10, and LBJ would have sat for less than two minutes.

But last night he, like Duncan a bit later, gets his 3rd foul on a BS call, so telling him to be careful doesn't necessarily do him much good in that kind of environment. And if you'd have sat him at all, you certainly wouldn't have brought him back into the game while we're pushing the lead to 8, would you? The Spurs started cutting into that lead at 2:30 left in the half--are you going to bring Bron back into the game with so little time left(with Duncan out of the game), or are you going to try to make it to halftime? I don't think it's a bad move to do the latter. Didn't work out, but not a bad move, IMO.

[mswerb]

Lebron is the man, he made no excuses for missing the 3 at the end of the game. When asked about the apparent foul on the shot attempt, he simply said "incidental contact, I had a good look and missed." This dude is calm and collected beyond his years. Some of his interviews remind me of MJ.

[FUDU]

IMO there is no reason he couldn't have played 48 minutes in two of these games this series.

He only played 48 or more twice all year. He was supposedly saving himself for more than half the year as well.

The biggest week of our franchise's history and this kid's life and we don't use him every second, not sure that makes sense.

He could handle it and would have a good few months to catch up on the rest.