<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">AUBURN HILLS, MICH. - In a region where they are renewing a 30-year-old search for the remains of missing Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa, the Cavaliers' offense disappeared in plain sight Sunday afternoon. Five field goals in the second half of a Game 7. An NBA playoff record-tying 23 points after halftime. LeBron James not only failed to make a basket in the third quarter, but also endured a nine-minute stretch without attempting a shot. Where did coach Mike Brown have his superstar placed? Witness protection? And so an inspired playoff run, which carried the Cavs further than anyone expected, ended with a 79-61 loss to the Detroit Pistons at The Palace of Auburn Hills. The Cavs battled the NBA's best team to a virtual standoff for six games and nearly three quarters before succumbing to offensive breakdowns problematic since training camp. They averaged just 80.9 points in this series, a tribute to the Pistons' defensive tenacity and the Cavaliers' lack of offensive ingenuity. Brown and his players deserve credit for forcing the Pistons to expend maximum energy while fighting off two elimination games. If playoff failures produce learning lessons, however, the Cavs must realize they cannot return next season with a stagnant offense that bogs down at the first sign of defensive adjustments. James had 21 points at halftime Sunday. He finished with 27. The kid is too talented to be hamstrung by an offense featuring less motion than your average waterbed. Brown's defensive adjustments helped the Cavs get back into the series, but the staff's struggles offensively suggest the need for a coordinator next season. The Pistons deserve full marks for their Game 7 dragnet, but what happened in the third quarter Sunday -- James scored one point and had only three field-goal attempts -- also occurred several times against the Washington Wizards. The Wizards play defense with all the passion of a man carrying trash to the curb. Remember Game 4 in Washington? The third quarter Sunday was a chilling replay: James drawing double coverage and staying on the perimeter; the pick-and-roll seemingly the Cavs' only option. The result was a playoff franchise-low 10 points as the Pistons pulled away in the final three minutes of the quarter to build a 58-48 lead. ``They doubled me as soon as I got the ball if I was in half court or if I was in full court,'' James said. ``So me being the player I am, me being the person I am, I had to give the ball up and rely on my teammates.'' Larry Hughes, who returned to the lineup after missing four games because of his brother's death, was the only other Cavalier in double figures with 10 points. Zydrunas Ilgauskas was James' only teammate with more than two field goals. The paucity of production doomed the Cavs. Its ancillary causes are subject to debate. Brown said James' second-half offensive dry spell might have been caused by fatigue from his volume of playoff minutes. Asked if he agreed with his coach's assessment, James dismissed it with the terse response, ``No.'' The Cavs didn't post up James in the second half the way they did during stretches of the first and second quarters. How could they not take more advantage of a matchup of Pistons guard Lindsey Hunter on James during stretches of Games 6 and 7? Hunter is listed at 6-foot-2. Yeah, and I was runner-up to Matthew McConaughey for People's ``Sexiest Man Alive.'' The Chosen One against the diminutive one should have returned more dividends. The Cavs' only fluid span of offense came when Hughes was inserted at point guard late in the first quarter and James moved to the low block with Anderson Varejao. The trio turned a 13-point deficit into a 31-31 tie in a 10-minute surge. ``We were executing, that's all,'' James said. ``We found some comfortable spots.'' Why did it take the coaching staff so long to reunite that group in the second half? Hughes played less than four minutes in the third quarter. Varejao, who scored six first-half points, didn't see the court until the 1:30 mark of the third. By then the Cavs trailed by nine points. Curious.</div> Source
