Snow In Utah And Other Disasters

last night's one-point loss to utah hurts. badly.

i suppose the first thing that we should mention in the no-call on sasha at the end of the game. brian windhorst says on his blog that he "didn't even look at a replay to see if Sasha Pavlovic was fouled on the last play. It doesn't matter and I don't care." well, i looked at the replay countless times and i do care that it was clearly a foul and shame on the two veteran refs for not calling it. look, i know what the unwritten' "rules" are in the nba. as i've said before, i've been watching it for 25-odd years. and i understand that refs like to swallow their whistles at the end of games. and yes, the refs had been "lettin' 'em play" for most of the game BUT i think you've got to call an obvious foul at 11:59 left in the first qtr. or 1 second left in the game. because if ya don't, then teams like utah know that they can get away with bumping and all that other junk they do.

of course, if LBJ made his FTs we woulda won...if we got ANY POINTS AT ALL from snow, we woulda won! when gibson went out in early in the game, he had 5 assists. at the end of the game he lead the team in assists. so, in other words no one, esp. snow was moving the ball very well. in fact, snow reminded me why i was so happy when he went to the bench. he made no shots, had stupid turnovers and generally played like crap. his defense was not anything to write home about either.

andy played well in Z absence but i expected that. though he kept switching with snow on those pick and rolls. i'm not sure why brown was ok with that, yet he seemed to be...hughes was great. the best i've seen him play since being in a cavs uniform. too bad it was wasted.

LBJ struggled with his jump shot but made some damn good plays down the stretch. gooden was en fuego in the 3rd, of course...damn what a waste as well...

brown made some questionable coaching moves, mainly his keeping jones on the bench all game. i think damon can be useful; certainly more so then wesley, who somehow got 6 minutes of action. also, he left LBJ on the bench too long in the 4th.

but okur and williams made shots in the 4th. btw, it'll sound like sour grapes but williams carries the ball ALL THE TIME. the refs have done a good job calling that this year but for whatever reason turned a blind eye to williams' many infractions last night.

sasha had his worst game in sometime as well but made a big 3 and shoulda went to the line at the end...i was concerned he might get psyched-out playin' against sloan and the jazz and it appears he did. but it's a growing process with him and we've gotta expect some clunkers still from him...


the good news, fwiw, is that both the pistons and bulls lost so the cavs lost no ground but oh, what might've been...


tonight we get the lakers with revenge on on their minds. and no gibson or Z either. sheesh...


* bud shaw thinks LBJ is tired and i think most would agree, but it's unlikely that he'll get much rest during all-star weekend

* gordan giricek lies to the press after the game about the last play of the game: "There was nothing,” he said. “No foul because he did not know where he was going. He saw me, like, at the last moment. He tried to slide by me and he hit into my shoulder. But I was standing there about two seconds, in my spot.”
sorry, gordo, you MOVED into sasha AND threw your shoulder at him to intiate the contact. but there was no call, so "who cares," right?

*truehoop, a damn fine nba blog, is now part of the espn "family." we wish good luck to henry...