The weekend was… interesting? Is that the right word? It wasn’t a very pretty weekend on the sports front. The Cavs and Indians offense are scoring at about the same pace. The most-hyped Final Four games were both blowouts. The Tribe’s ace was ineffective. The Cavs king is hurting and can’t finish. The Gladiators are on a two game losing streak. Our favorite hockey fighting team, the Youngstown Steelhounds, are out of the playoffs (sorry GFB, no chance to go steal a matching helmet for GBW-1). And the only possible reason to watch the women’s national championship game was ended when Stanford beat UConn preventing a Pat Summit-Geno Auriemma showdown that was sure to end with Pat Summit punching Geno in the face. (OK, no one was going to watch any way but still.)
The offenses of the Cavs and the Indians are horrible right now. When a 18-foot jumper from your 7’3” center is the highlight and your go-to-play in the fourth quarter, you know you are struggling. When your offensive highlight and game-winning play is a bases loaded walk, you know you are struggling. That’s the Cavs and the Indians in a nutshell. Both teams are struggling.
We discussed the Cavs Friday (thanks for all your input), however, some things still need to be addressed. I watched first-hand the fourth quarter collapse at The Q on Saturday afternoon. It was embarrassing. The highlight of the game was eating Quaker Steak wings and watching our drunk friend eat three bags for the free potato chips on the way out and then fall asleep in the car. Kind of sad.
Besides LeBron being tired and hurt, here’s what’s wrong with this team. Mike Brown has no idea how to use his rotation. It looks like he finally settled on a rotation of LBJ, Z, Ben, West and Devin Brown as the starters. Andy and Boobie as the first guys off the bench. Then Wally and Smith spelling everyone for a 10 to 15 minutes a game. I don’t agree with the rotation (Damon Jones was great and now gets no minutes?) but at least Brown has it set. Now he just needs to work on when to use his bench. By far the best line-up on Saturday, and even last Thursday, was LBJ, Z, Brown, West and either Andy and Ben. West is playing very well now and I love how he pushes the ball looking for the fast break. Saturday, coach Brown lost the game by leaving his second unit on the floor way too long. The Cavs were up like nine or so when they entered the game and by the time Devin Brown, West and Z came back in, they were down four. A time out and subs was needed long before it happened.
Remember when the Cavs were a great fourth quarter team and led the league in fourth quarter comebacks? Now they have blown to big fourth quarter leads in back-to-back games. Not the way you want to be playing heading into the playoffs.
The other highlight of the game was having seats in the very top row of the arena behind one of the baskets, then finding some one actually sitting in our seats. If you are going to sit in someone else’s seats, why would you pick the top row to do so? So we sat in the top row on the end. Those people came and kicked us out so we moved down to the middle level of sitting to some great seats and stayed there the rest of the game. Our new seats were about four rows up from where some of the media sits. Guess who was in front of us? None other than our large, not-so-jolly friend, Fatty Windmill. He wouldn’t answer or calls to Fatty Windmill or Brian. We thought about throwing food at him but we knew he would see them with the eyes in the back of his head and catch it out of the air like a dog catching a frisbee.
As for the Tribe, they are the only offense worse than that Cavs right now. Well, besides the Detroit Tigers. Seven runs in the last four games isn’t going to get it done. I don’t know if it’s because Victor is out of the line up or what but I hope that one bat wouldn’t bring down the rest of the line up like that. What troubles me is, when Travis Hafner steps to the plate with runners on, I have absolutely no confidence in him to do anything other than strike out. Hafner usually follows through on that for me. Oh, and our awesomely old left field combo is batting a combined .077. And that’s all Jason Michaels. David Dellucci hasn’t got a hit in seven ABs this year. At least its early. The Tribe struggled offensively last year early on too. Cliff Lee, on the positive side, looked great. And things could always be worse. At least the Tribe isn’t winless on the season like Detroit.
In college basketball news, my pick of Memphis looks to be pretty strong. As bad as I did in the first two rounds, my Elite 8, Final Four and champion made up for it. If Memphis wins, I’ll even win Graig’s bracket challenge over on Yahoo. If Kansas wins, then Wes will win. The only two J Beanie guys to enter it and one of us will win. I think this shows that J Beanie is better than Graig since my readers are much more sports educated than his. Prediction for tonight: Memphis by 12.
Fratello
