It couldn't last forever

A great man once said, "no good thing ever dies." After the Cavs' 88-72 win (highlights) over the 76ers on Friday night they reached a franchise milestone by tying a club record for 11 consecutive wins. But before it could become another team record, the streak died on Saturday night with a 97-92 setback in Atlanta. Of course the Cavs can't win every game they play but this one was rather frustrating, especially given the torrid pace that the Celtics are setting in the East.

It was one of Those Games. You know the ones where your team is playing on the road, shorthanded, with the refs making a lot of terrible calls in favor of the home team, and every loose ball seeming to bounce the home team's way? Yep, that's how it went on Saturday. The free throw disparity doesn't even begin to tell the story, with the Hawks getting to the line 39 times compared to just 23 for the Cavs. And don't be fooled by LeBron's 12 free throw attempts in the box score. He was hacked on numerous other drives to the rim that resulted in non-calls. So given the lopsided officiating, coupled with the fact that we were playing without two of our top six rotation guys (Z and Boobie) I'm actually quite pleased that we almost pulled it out in the end.

One of the few times LBJ wasn't fouled on his way to the rim

Thankfully for the Cavs they get to rest up for a bit before returning to the court to take on a bad Timberwolves team in Minnesota on Wednesday night. With a little luck Z can take the next few days to rest that ankle up and maybe he can even be ready to go on Friday night when the Cavs have another tough road test in Denver. It's obvious that we're missing the big guy in many of our offensive sets. Speaking of that, here's a great in-depth look at the Cavalier offense. Interesting stuff if you really want to see the different sets that can run from something that seems so simple, yet so hard to defend...

Unfortunately until the Cavs play again we are relegated to watching the Browns tonight in Philadelphia to take on the Eagles on Monday night football. Ugh. $20 for the first person that can give me one solid reason to watch this game tonight.