Happy New Year

Happy 2009 Cleveland! Is this the year that we finally win a title so I can end this torturous blog? Only time will tell, but we sure do deserve it after all the heartache we've been through...

The Cavs started the new year off in style on Friday night with a 117-92 thrashing (highlights) of the Bulls at the Q to run their perfect home record to 17-0. And it sure was fun to watch old friend Larry Hughes up to his same old tricks with a 1-for-9 shooting performance for the Bulls. It had to be fun for Ben Wallace to counter that effort with 13 points and 9 rebounds against his former team. And LeBron notched his first triple-double of the year with a 16/10/11 masterpiece. So it looked like the Cavs had regained their focus in the wake of Z's newfound ankle injury that will sideline him for up to a month, right?

Not so fast. The Cavs followed that up with an ugly 80-77 loss to the Wizards in Washington yesterday afternoon. I won't bore you with box scores or highlights from this one. Yes, the officiating was pretty bad and the Cavs seemed to be on the wrong end of a lot of those calls. But LeBron's travel at the end of the game was not one of those bad calls. I don't even know how that is up for debate. Bottom line is that the Cavs mailed this one in as an easy victory and then woke up when it was too late to be able to pull it out. How else can you explain a 14-point deficit heading into the fourth quarter? Or being outrebounded 52-35? Or combining to miss 9 free throws and shoot 39.4% from the floor? Just a complete lack of focus all the way around in this one. Hopefully they are more prepared at home Wednesday night vs. the Bobcats and aren't looking ahead to Friday night vs. the Celtics. At least the Celtics did us a favor yesterday by also losing by 12 to the Knicks. That makes four losses in six games for the mighty Celtics...