The first quarter of Tuesday night's game vs. the Wizards was not a thing of beauty. The Cavs found themselves down 31-17, missing 10 of their last 11 shots in the opening period. Washington was running all over the place, putting on an offensive clinic against a team that prides itself on playing defense first. Good thing a basketball game is not decided by just one quarter alone.
The Cavaliers decided to show up for the final three quarters and easily dusted off their wanna-be rivals from the nation's capital 102-90 (highlights) for their third straight win. They erased what had balloned to an18-point deficit early in the 2nd quarter by outscoring the Wiz 85-59 down the stretch. And they finally did it with the big man heavily involved. Shaq ended up with 21 points on 7-of-9 shooting from the field and 7-of-10 from the line. This was the Shaq I'd been waiting to see - taking advantage of his size and not rushing his shots. He was consistent on both ends of the floor and punished the Wizards front court from the 2nd quarter on. The Cavs also shot 11-of-26 from beyond the arc, led by Mo (3/4) and Boobie (4/5).
Shaq was too much for the Wiz on Tuesday nightAside from overcoming the early large deficit, the thing that impressed me most about this win was the fact that the Wizards went to the line 14 more times than the Cavs (41 attempts to 27) and outrebounded the Cavs (48 to 42), yet the wine and gold still seemed to cruise to victory. The team is still not firing on all cylinders, but Tuesday night's final three quarters were by far the best they've looked thus far in this young season. Things are starting to finally click and that could mean the victories will start piling up, much like after last year's slow start. And after the remaining games this week (CHI and @NY) the schedule gets a little more dicey (@ORL, @MIA, UTA). Let's hope what we saw after yesterday's first quarter jump starts this team to a nice long stretch of dominant play.
Delonte Update: Apparently the DA assigned to Delonte's case is going for additional weapons charges. This may end up getting even worse then we originally thought. I consider myself an anti-gun person and even I hope they take into consideration Delonte's mental state at the time this all went down. And that's not the Cavs fan in me talking, that's the human side of me that has experience dealing with someone with bipolar disorder. Someone in a manic state, likely where Delonte's head was when this occurred, just can't think clearly or rationally. He deserves to be punished for his dangerous actions, but jail time will not help at all. Just my two cents.
