Lessons learned for Round 2: Cavaliers vs. Nets

[Raji]

Sat, May 5, 2007By Tim Roberts

The Cleveland Cavaliers finally learned Friday they’ll play the Nets in the second round.

The Cavs’ lengthy vacation was a reward for sweeping the Washington Wizards, pocketing three paydays in four chances for their backers to boot.

The New Jersey Nets, however, hardly get a chance to catch their breath.

They edged the Toronto Raptors by a single point Friday night to finish their series in six games, covering the spread four times along the way. Their Game 1 meeting with Cleveland at Quicken Loans Arena falls less than 40 hours after their Game 6 win at Continental Airlines Arena.

Here are some quick notes based on both teams’ Round 1 performances.

The King’s men all chipped in

LeBron James is the face of the Cavs’ franchise and they’ll go as far as he can lead them. He had big-time help from his supporting cast in Round 1 though.

Fellow starters Larry Hughes, Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Drew Gooden took turns in starring roles against the Wizards and their numbers illustrate that the Cavs have more than one weapon in their arsenal. The trio averaged 52.5 points and 27.8 rebounds between them against Washington, a huge step up from their 37.9 and 20 numbers in the regular season.

Their efficiency was also notable, especially in the form of Hughes’ improved shot selection. None of the three hit 50 percent of their shots from the floor during the regular season, but they combined for a 54.5 field goal percentage in the first-round sweep.

Let’s hear it for the … Kidd?

Unlike Cleveland’s, New Jersey’s roster actually allows for argument over whose team it really is.

Vince Carter is the scorer with springs in his legs who dominates when motivated. Richard Jefferson fans could cite the team’s rally after he returned from injury and the fact that the final shot against Toronto was his. Jefferson also provided the series-clinching steal seconds later.

But Round 1 underlined that the Nets are indubitably Jason Kidd’s team. He was easily the player of the series and should benefit against Cleveland by defending slower guards than Toronto’s duo of T.J. Ford and Jose Calderon.

The fact that Kidd averaged a triple-double for the series doesn’t adequately explain how much he killed the Raptors.

Charity stripe was finally charitable

The Cavs took heat all season long for their shoddy free-throw shooting and barely avoided finishing last in the league in the category.

They shot 69.5 percent from the line, joining the Miami Heat as the only teams in the league to shoot worse than 70 percent in the regular season. That changed as the Cavs entered the postseason, with their 82.6 percent success rate actually leading all playoff teams.

More impressive was how they rallied in Games 3 and 4 on the road in front of a loud Washington crowd. Cleveland nailed 44 of its 49 free throws at the Verizon Center to close out the series, a huge factor in the Cavs’ ability to cover the spread as a road favorite in both games.

Nothing but Nets (except in the fourth)

Maybe it underlines the Nets’ lack of depth or maybe it’s just one of those number things, but the Raptors managed to consistently outscore New Jersey in the fourth quarter.

The glaring exception was Game 5 at the Air Canada Center when the Nets nearly rallied from a double-digit deficit.

For the series, New Jersey outscored Toronto in the first quarter (by eight combined points), the second (by 23) and the third (also by 23). The Raptors held a 22-point edge in the fourth quarter despite their near collapse in Game 5.



Can a sweep be unimpressive?

If bettors looked at the Cavs series prices before and during their series with Washington, they realized how little faith oddmakers had in the undermanned Wizards.

Cleveland covered the spread three times in four games, true, but they did so by margins of 2 ½, 1 and half a point respectively. All three of those paydays depended on the Cavs shooting far better from the free throw line than they had all season.

On the defensive end they struggled to stop Antawn Jamison and Antonio Daniels, the only healthy Wizards the Cavs really had to watch out for.

Jamison, assuming a scoring role with Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler sidelined, averaged 32 points a game and wasn’t once held below 28 in the series. Daniels averaged 13.2 points and 11.8 assists at the point after averaging just 7.1 and 3.6 during the regular season.

New Jersey’s three-pronged attack

The big three of Carter, Jefferson and Kidd accounted for 63.9 percent of the Nets’ scoring against Toronto. Bostjan Nachbar was the only other player to average double-digits in points for the series.

Mikki Moore’s late dunk in Game 6 gave him 10 points for the game, making him the only other Nets player to hit double digits in a single game.


Raji