<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">With a player the caliber of LeBron James, the Cavaliers can compete with any team in the league. What's important now, though, is finding a way to not only play with the top-echelon teams, but beat them. The two-game trip to Florida this week showed some of the flaws in the Cavaliers' makeup. They lost consecutive games for the first time in more than a month and have fallen 1 1/2 games behind Central Division-leading Detroit. The Cavaliers (26-19) play extremely tough basketball and don't back down from challenges. But four things are currently keeping them from moving into the elite class. n This is not a real good defensive team at this point. Even though the Cavaliers shored up some of their perimeter defensive woes against Miami, the Heat simply had too much Shaquille O'Neal in their 100-88 win over Cleveland on Thursday. There have been nights when point guard Jeff McInnis has played what some call "matador" defense, when his man just beats him to the basket. That was never more evident than in the Orlando game on Tuesday, when Steve Francis turned him every which way but loose. That puts extreme pressure on the interior defense and causes foul trouble for center Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who is second in the league in personal fouls, and power forward Drew Gooden.</div> Source
