At Least the Spurs Scored 85...

Well, our first crack at a game-by-game prediction went, how should we say, into the shitter. The Spurs scored 85, which we'd like to remind you we called, but the Cavs fell woefully short of our 91, and the King...uh...the King went a different direction than we'd thought he might. To try to make us feel slightly better, Sasha went for 13 after we'd said 14. Man are we smart.

In any case, we thought we'd put a little debrief onto paper (html?). We spent an inordinate amount of the game on our feet yelling at the television while our girlfriend huddled in fear in a corner, so our judgements may be slightly clouded. Bear with us:

- Breen, Van Gundy and Mark Jackson. In a word: Boo. Are you kidding me? These guys have as much chemistry as the Donald and Rosie O'Donnell. Breen, who we usually like, was way off his game, not doubt due to the heaps of horrible jokes the boneheads surrounding him were making. And can we please assassinate all of the sideline reporters in the world. Stu Scott reported at halftime that Mike Brown told LeBron to keep being aggressive. Thanks, Einstein.

- As we mentioned in our Prognostication post, LeBron needs to get the ball in places where he is set up to succeed. Mike Brown and the offensive Funky Bunch did not seem to agree with us. Until he scored on that layup in the third quarter coming off of a screen (without the ball) on the right block, he didn't get the rock inside the three-point line or on his way toward the basket once all night. We don't care how much Bruce Bowen pushes, LeBron has to post up. Period. Draw Duncan over, draw a double, shoot over Bowen and draw a foul, this was ridiculous. The pick-and-roll for LeBron did not work once all night. As the (horrible) annoucers pointed out, it brought another defender into Bron's face 25 feet from the basket and forced him backwards or into a bad pass. Good strategy by the Spurs, horrible strategy by the Cavs. This happened in the Pistons series, LeBron took Game 1 (and 2) to get a lay of the land, figure out the defense, but shooting 16 times in the first game of his first Finals is not enough. He has to shoot at least 20 times, regardless of how poorly he's shooting, to give us a chance.

- LeBron should guard Tony Parker. The whole time. I'd even be ok seeing Boobie get a shot at him. The game ended in the first quarter when Parker sliced the Cavs defense into thin sheets of doo doo. After LeBron switched onto Parker, I'm not sure I remember him getting an easy layup--he had 9 easy layups for the game. While the defense played relatively well overall, Parker crushed the Cavs. Manu hitting fall away threes with the clock going to 0 didn't help much, either.

- Props to Larry Hughes for trying to gut it out, but get him off the floor. He's a liability. Everywhere. His jacks have so little chance of going that he looks like he's shooting with the wrong hand, and he couldn't defend us on that foot. Gibson has to be on the floor. Parker made Hughes his tool in the early going, leading him around on a leash before finally stuffing a ball gag in Larry's mouth. Interesting stats from John Hollinger on espn.com that scream for Mike Brown to give Boobie more tick. The on-court +/- (per 48 minutes) for Hughes was -18; for Boobie it was +5. Can't put it any simpler than that.

- The Cavs have redefined the bounds of atrocious offense in the Mike Brown era. There are times when it looks like Brown's calling CYO plays, with no offense intended toward the CYO coaches of the world. Last night was the worst we've ever seen it. By far. Granted, the Spurs played good defense, but give me a break. The number of times LeBron stood in a corner while Larry Hughes pounded the air out of the ball looking for Drew Gooden to free up 22 feet from the rim was staggering. They didn't run a single play in the first half, and the result was 35 points. Is that a joke? 49 points through 3 quarters? What's more, they played scared. We counted at least a half a dozen times when Cavs were headed toward the rim and had relatively open 10 footers and decided to pass. Duncan can block shots, we know, but the Cavs acted like Bill Russell, 'Zo, Robinson and Duncan were guarding the rim. Attack. Go hard, try to create some havoc out there. Draw fouls, get to the line. Also, as mentioned above, Gibson has to be on the floor. He's the only one who can shoot and will shoot with confidence. Sasha disappears too often, though he played pretty well, too.

- Defensively, after 2 full years of getting smoked by the pick-and-roll, can the Cavs please figure out a way to address that brand new, high tech offensive stratagem? How many layups/dunks did Parker/Duncan put down off of the screen and roll? We love Z, but he's way too slow to stick with Duncan out to 18 feet. The Spurs corn holed the Cavs defending the pick and roll, what seems to be the major malfunction for the Cavs?

Ultimately, given that the Cavs didn't even know what sport they were playing until about 8 minutes to go in the first half, they played hard. We thought it was a pretty good effort to bring the final score back to 9 after being down 18 in the 4th quarter, when we definitely would have emptied the bench. There's still a lot of basketball left to be played, but we definitely worried a bit last night. We knew Mike Brown was overmatched going into last night, but we didn't actually think it was this bad.

LeBron needs to get angry, and get a little selfish. As much as the basketball world smokes his pole for his all-court game and his unselfishness, he's got to take it upon himself to win a game or 2 here.