<div align="center">vs</div> <font color=""Navy"">New Jersey Nets</font> @ <font color=""red"">Cleveland Cavaliers</font> (Series tied 0-0) Time: Sunday, May 6th 2007 1:00 EST TV: ABC Away/Home The second round of the playoffs begins as the Cavs, who easily disposed of the weak Wizards in the first round, host the Nets, who denied Toronto and beat them in an impressive 6 game series. Obviously, the Cavs and LeBron James are favorites to win this series, unlike the Raptors/Nets series which could have gone either way. If the Nets can beat the Cavs in Game One, it'll give them home court advantage and really hit the Cavs hard right off the bat. LeBron is going to try to lead his teams to their first ever conference finals, after losing to the Pistons last season in the 2nd round, and he and his teammates are very determined to succeed. But, on the other end, the Big Three, who have been playing excellent basketball lately, both team-wise and individualy, and Richard Jefferson has proven in the past that he can slow down LeBron and sometimes even shut him down completely. We'll have to wait and see which team is successful in this intriguing Game One. Starting Lineups: New Jersey Nets: PG:Jason Kidd SG:Vince Carter SF:Richard Jefferson PF:Jason Collins C:Mikki Moore Cleveland Cavaliers: PG:Eric Snow SG:Larry Hughes SF:LeBron James PFrew Gooden C:Zydrunas Ilgauksas *Key players in bold Keys to the Game: -The Nets need RJ to give a good game on both ends of the floor: take off some pressure off VC on offense and slow down LeBron on the other end. -VC needs to drive to the basket instead of settling for jumpers, like he did in game one and two in Toronto. -Interior defense if very important. The Nets can't let Drew Gooden and Zydrunas Ilgauskas demolish them in the post. Prediction: Nets +5 and a strong start to the series.
Somebody beside VC needs to step up. Antoine Wright is playing well defensively. Doing great on Lebron. Freakin ABC is awful, I'm sick of hearing all about Bron. Give it a rest.
<div class="quote_poster">XSV Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">Somebody beside VC needs to step up. Antoine Wright is playing well defensively. Doing great on Lebron. Freakin ABC is awful, I'm sick of hearing all about Bron. Give it a rest.</div> I know. Lebron this Lebron that. This media makes you sick of him.
Nice job at the rim for New Jersey ABC is so repetitive. They always talk about Steve Nash. Even if he has a 4 assist game they'll say "Nash is one of those special guys who passes." Just shut up and focus on the game.
Halftime, all tied up 59-59. A low scoring game so far, somebody needs to step up in the 4th in order to win this game. LeBron is having a terrible shooting night so far, great defense on him by the Nets.
You guys need to stop running VC iso's. The Cavs are defending it pretty well and its a predictable play. I'd give Jefferson more touches, because he can take Hughes all day. If Frank wants to get Carter some scoring opportunities, he should have him getting the ball off of picks, like they did in Game 3 against the Raps.
Final Score: 81-77. Too bad, really...we could have won it. VC and LeBron (and Kidd, but that's no surprise) had bad shooting nights and RJ wasn't effective enough on offense. Plus, we couldn't grab a damn rebound in the clutch. We need to win game two now, and VC needs to start scoring more effiecently for that to happen.
In reality the Cavs beat us because of all those offensive boards. If we cut down on those, then we have a better chance of winning. Kidd 7 pts 10 rebs 9 asts Carter 21 pts 13 rebs 6 asts Jefferson 16 pts Moore 10 pts Nachbar 12 pts BoxScore
