remy23

VS

CLEVELAND CAVALIERS (35-30) @ HOUSTON ROCKETS (40-27)

When: Thursday, March 24, 2005
Time: 5:30 pm PT, 8:30 pm ET
Where:: Toyota Center
TV: FSOhio, NBALP

COACHES

Brendan Malone / Jeff Van Gundy

PROBABLE STARTERS

Eric Snow / Bob Sura

Ira Newble / David Wesley

LeBron James / Tracy McGrady

Drew Gooden / Clarence Weatherspoon

Zydrunas Ilgauskas / Yao Ming

6th MEN

Anderson Varejão / Mike James

PLAYERS TO WATCH

LeBron James / Tracy McGrady

Injury List

Cleveland: Luke Jackson, Dajuan Wagner, Scott Williams

Houston: Juwan Howard, Charlie Ward

remy23's Keys

* The Cavaliers need another strong game from the bench. Houston is a gutty team that hustles, scraps and fights the entire way. The Rockets aren't the type of opponent that is beaten by starters-only.

* Zydrunas needs to give Yao as much damage as he receives himself. Don’t let Yao get comfortable and not feel threatened on defense. With Z’s pump fake and up-and-under, he should try to draw cheap fouls on Ming.

* The media will hype the James-McGrady match up but the Cavaliers must avoid buying into the hype and standing around while James does his thing. Malone added a few plays to the playbook, so everybody must be involved.

* Cleveland must keep an eye on Houston’s shooters. Barry, James, McGrady and Wesley will stretch the floor. The Cavaliers might be better letting Yao have his shots and not letting the guards win the game. Their guards provide energy and change the pace of the game.

Final Thought: Cleveland doesn’t play well on the road and the Rockets are a quality Western Conference team. The road losing streak needs to end sometime. Cleveland needs to play at the Toyota Center like they did at the Gund against the Pistons.

Benedict_Boozer

Nice game thread as usual Remy.

McGrady is one of those players who elevates his game against James, so you can be sure he'll come at us hard.

With Snow in the lineup our perimeter defense is MUCH better, and I really liked how he was pushing the ball against Detroit. If we see more of that and solid play from our interior guys (Drew/Z/AV) I think we can pull this one out.

Also let's hope we see less of Harris and more of Sasha.

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Futuristxen:

"This season has been one giant pile of suck. It's been just good enough to keep paying attention. But horrible enough that you were better off if you didn't."

Pioneer10

This is a different team on the road. Malone will get his first real test tonight.

On paper we match up well with Houston especially with Howard out (Z=Yao, Lebron=T-mac, Gooden/AV> Houston PF's). As always it will come down to the guard play where Houston clearly has the edge. We just need a little contribution from the backcourt to pull this out. Hopefully more Sasha will let that happen

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EHL

Pioneer, change your damn sig, it's destroying the format of the boards.

Pioneer10

It looks good on my computer: I'll put more space breaks in

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Pioneer10

Does the sig work better now?

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c-town/c-gurl

hopefully.sasha plays really well with snow and the other guys and harris's cofidences is coming up but him in an away game not a good idea.so more sasha less harris should equal a win.

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i'm only this opinionated when i feel like it!!!problem is i always feel like it !!

Pejavlade

Cavs 101
Rockets 96

Big Z 25pts 14rebs 4blks

Sura 15pts 7rebs 8asts 4stl

remy23

Halftime
Cavaliers - 39
Rockets - 48

McGrady leads the Rockets with 17, followed by Wesley chipping in 8 points. The Cavaliers are led by Ilgauskas's 11, with Gooden adding 10. Houston closed the half well, besides the scooping shot by Z to end the quarter. Tracy has dazzled the crowd with his moves to energize the team. On a side note, Malone got his first tech as a head coach.

Pioneer10

Well Gooden is dominanting the PF battle but as expected Houston has the edge from the guards. Just 7 points total from both the SG and PG position.

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remy23

Box Score: Houston 99, Cleveland 80

That run the Rockets went on in the 4th killed any chance of Cleveland making a game of it. The game went from 8-10 points to past a 14 point lead in a hurry. Barry had that move that nearly broke Harris' ankles, the Rockets ran the court well for fastbreak points and the crowd was really hyped.

Only 3 Cavaliers got into double-figures scoring.

Pioneer10

And we get blown out: we suck on the road

Simply the guard rotation of Snow, McInnis, Newble, and Harris does not have enough offensive output in it. Harris with another abysmal performance. We need to get Sasha some more minutes in there.

Somehow I think Snow still has kept a good +/- out there. He does enough other stuff that he doesn't need to score to be effective. Can't say that about our other guards: might as well play the young one

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JS03

We can do it...

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EHL