<font color="Red">Preview created by lyxo of RCF.</font> <font size="14">VS</font> <font color="darkred">CLEVELAND CAVALIERS</font> (6-3) @ <font color="orange">NEW YORK KNICKS</font> (3-5) Sunday, Nov. 21 7:30 pm, Madison Square Garden COACHES Paul Silas / Lennie Wilkens PROBABLE STARTERS Jeff McInnis / Stephon Marbury Ira Newble / Jamal Crawford LeBron James / Tim Thomas Drew Gooden / Kurt Thomas Zydrunas Ilgauskas / Nazr Mohammed 6th MEN Eric Snow / Anfernee Hardaway Players To Watch LeBron James / Jamal Crawford FAST FACT: Cavaliers attempt to extend their streak to 7 wins in the Wine & Gold, while the Knicks try to gain momentum to improve their 3-5 record Injury List Cleveland: Anderson Varej?o, Luke Jackson Charlotte: Jamison Brewer, Allan Houston <font color="black">lyXo's Keys</font> * We need to have good perimeter defense. Marbury is an agile point guard who can draw screens, and kick it out to #11 who shoots 42.1% from the arc. Either Newble or Snow has to be in at all times, or both if Newble can shoot like last game, because others don't run through screens very well on defense. * Feed the ball to Z. Nazr is 6'10, Jerome is 6'9, Baker is 6'11. Z has at least 4 inches in height advantage, his jumper will work wonders. We'll score big in the paint. * Crash the boards. Grab offensive rebounds. New York is a good rebounding team. If we outrebound them, we have a good chance of sealing it. Use size to the advantage (hint hint, Diop) * Attack them right away, quickly. We need to crush the momentum they have from the big win against Houston. Keep a hand in Jamal's face at all times. If we shut him down, Marbury is the one to take the load. The benefit is that Marbury has a lower FG%. * Don't let shots go. Step UP on defense. This is a very good shooting team because Penny is shooting 44% from the arc off the bench while Crawford and Marbury are both guns, we need to challenge every shot. Crawford is their main go-to guy, he had a big night Friday, going 6/14 from 3pt territory. The result of this game will show exactly how good we are with our perimeter defense, if we improved from last season or not. FINAL THOUGHT : The Cavs are on a 6-game winning streak. Fantastic defense, offense, everything is going well for them. They're playing as a team and have immense momentum. The Knicks are trying to climb out of their hole, having a 3-5 record. They're hungry to be .500. It should be an offense-oriented, exciting game. Prediction: Cavs take it, 112-107 Visit Real Cavs Fans
Yep, I agree. We are gonna take our 6th in a row. We are to tall, and well have LeBron! Im not sure how Newble will contain Crawford but anyway.
The New York Knicks despite their close loss are playing better basketball right now, then they were at the start of the season. I like the New York Knicks in this one, being that the Knicks are at home and can shoot it out with the Cavaliers, as both teams really are not that great on the defensive end, and with the Knicks having more offensive weapons then the Cavaliers. The Cleveland Cavaliers really haven't beaten anyone worthy (to be harsh), their best win was at home against the Phoenix Suns, in which I believe was more luck to get it into OT then a solid win. Take a look at their last 6 wins, not the best teams in my opinion. I mean they twice beat the Charlotte Bobcats. http://www.nba.com/cavaliers/schedule/ Not to take too much away from them, but I think the New York Knicks (despite not having an answer for Lebron James) should be able to pull this one out, I think they are a deeper team, and have an advantage playing at home, where they have won 2 straight and should extend it to 3. New York Knicks win; who is going to slow down Stephon Marbury? New York Knicks 98 Cleveland Cavaliers 91 http://www.justbball.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27537
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Primetime:</div><div class="quote_post"> New York Knicks win; who is going to slow down Stephon Marbury? </div> Eric Snow and Ira Newble. I think the Cavs will take this one, LBJ is going to lit it up again and with good help from Ilgauskas. Z has a 4-inch advantage on Mohammed and the Cavs will take full advantage of that.Tim Thomas will be his usual self: 10,4,0 and will get burned by LeBron time and again. I don't see a large margin of victory, 'cause of the fantastic backcourt of Crawford-Marbury but I don't think the Knicks will find enough answers to get a win. Cavaliers 104 Knick 92
This is going to be a very tough game for us. We will need to step it up on defense because NY has a lot of scoring and shooting threats. I think we can win this game and extend our winning streak to six. But it will have to take a good all around effort from the team. Cavs by 3.
I think the Cavs matchup well in this. Both JMac and Snow are great defenders, and I think they can cause problems for the NYK backcourt, the strength of this team. The frontcourt will be interesting to watch as well. The Cavs should win this matchup due to their size, with LBJ, Gooden and Z. I'm going with the Cavs on this one.
Cavs Lose, 88 - 98 Cavs relied too much on jumpshots at the end of the game instead of attacking the basket, and it cost them. James came close to a tripple double with 13 Points, 10 Assists and 9 Boards. Gooden had an awesome game with 25 Points, 15 Boards on 11 of 16 shooting.
Knicks played excellent defense on James. James was shooting horribly in the game. He had very few highlights. I'm glad the Knicks protected their homecourt. The Cavs are too young and played a easy schedule the past 4 games or so. Now they got a wake up call playing the Knicks.
LeBron comes off flirting with a triple-double again, all his fans like me have been waiting so long to see him pull one off. Next game hopefully LeBron gets his triple-double. The Cavaliers were doing good in the 1st quarter then it all went down hill and we ended up losing. We are still over the .500 mark and were 6-4 if im not mistaken. Hopefully we go on another win streak preferrably a longer one this time.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Buckets:</div><div class="quote_post">LeBron comes off flirting with a triple-double again, all his fans like me have been waiting so long to see him pull one off. Next game hopefully LeBron gets his triple-double. The Cavaliers were doing good in the 1st quarter then it all went down hill and we ended up losing. We are still over the .500 mark and were 6-4 if im not mistaken. Hopefully we go on another win streak preferrably a longer one this time.</div> I'm not surprised that the Cavs were on a streak because they were playing bad teams. They need to go on a more meaningful streak. And whether LBJ gets a triple double without the W makes it highly less significant than it really is.
LeBron is going to be something really special. He'll just continue to improve. Don't worry, the triple double will come anytime now.
Basketball isnt all about triple-doubles and stats you know. Basketball is about coming together as a team and playing well. Team averages are a lot more important then 1 players average (look at last years magic we had the top scorer in the league but nobody to back him up)
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting OrlandoMagicFan:</div><div class="quote_post">Basketball isnt all about triple-doubles and stats you know. Basketball is about coming together as a team and playing well. Team averages are a lot more important then 1 players average (look at last years magic we had the top scorer in the league but nobody to back him up)</div> That's true. If LeBron got a quadruople double but, lost a game it wouldn't really mean too much. The W is the most important thing.
Even though he almost got a triple double, that was maybe lebron's worst performance of the season so far. It looked like he was focusing too much on putting on a show at the Garden. He made poor decisions with the ball and turned it over too many times. Lebron shot really poorly too. We need to see a better performance out of him in our next game if we want to win. NIce to see Gooden have a great game. Hopefully we will see more performances like this on a more consistent basis throughout the season.
