Cavs Snap Skid Despite Sloppy Play

CLEVELAND -- It's not tough to know which team came out of Tuesday night's game at Quicken Loans Arena feeling better about its play.

The New Orleans Hornets, without standout point guard Chris Paul, gave the Cleveland Cavaliers everything they could handle.

Led by the rookie tandem of Darren Collison and Marcus Thornton, the Hornets were that close to giving Cleveland its second loss in a row at home.

The Cavs ended a three-game losing streak with a 105-95 win that was nearly as deceptive as Bush over Gore, 2000.

While Hornets coach Jeff Bower was saying he was "pleased with so many things," Cavs coach Mike Brown was down the hall talking about mental challenges and physical challenges and his team needing "to get to where we need to be in order to win games at a high level."

The Cavs all season have downplayed the importance of any one, three or 10 games, instead focusing on how they are playing at a particular moment in time.

With the losing streak ended and with Antawn Jamison winning for the first time in Cleveland, they even downplayed the losing streak, which in Cleveland -- a town where sports disaster hides around every corner -- was topic A, B and C on the talk radio shows.

"Eighty-two games," LeBron James said.

But the way the Cavs played for long stretches against the Hornets was not ideal, to say the least.

There was Mo Williams following a 1-for-9 game in Orlando with a 2-for-9 game. Williams also lazed his way to a loose ball in the fourth quarter that resulted in a turnover and New Orleans basket.

There was Shaquille O'Neal getting two silly fouls a good distance from the basket -- including one when Collison was well beyond the three-point arc.

There was New Orleans -- behind Thornton -- scoring 40 points in the second quarter. That would be 10 more than 30 -- a standard good NBA quarter. In that quarter, New Orleans shot 71 percent and outrebounded Cleveland 15-4.

There were missed assignments, lazy passes and some lackadaisical play.

There were two quick rookie New Orleans guards playing like veterans.

Until the Cavs clamped down in the final five minutes, the game belonged to either team.

This from a team that entered the All-Star break on a 13-game winning streak.

"We're not where we want to be right now. Everybody feels it. We just have to fight through it."
- Cavs coach Mike Brown "We've had some slippage," James said.

"We're not where we want to be right now," Brown said. "Everybody feels it. We just have to fight through it."

This kind of talk seems misplaced for a team with a 44-14 record. Many teams go through lulls during a season. This just might be the Cavs' time.

Williams has played four games since returning from a shoulder injury, and it's reasonable to expect in time he will find his form. Delonte West showed signs in the win of being more like his former hard-nosed self. And O'Neal and James -- who had another of those point-forward nights with 13 assists -- seem to be treating the regular season with the panache of veterans pointing to the playoffs.

"We know what we have to work on," O'Neal said

That would be their defense. Brown said matter-of-factly that his team is "not playing at a level where we need to."

"We've got to be consistent for 48 minutes, and right now we're not," he added.

New Orleans shot 50 percent, making it the fifth team in the last seven games to shoot at least 50 percent against a team that prides itself on defense. Thornton made 15-of-22 and scored a career-high 37. There was little the Cavs did to stop him -- until West started to play Thornton physically.

West's effort came in the final five or six minutes, when the Cavs as a team kicked things up a notch (apologies to Emeril). With the game in the balance, the Cavs turned an 85-85 tie into a 105-95 win. Which, when all is said and done, is what matters -- a fact Gore would attest to.

That has been the Cavs' habit this season. They have played to the level of their competition, and more often than not have been able to win in the fourth quarter.

It's not as if they are saving themselves for the playoffs, but there seems to be clear recognition that what happened a year ago in the regular season was pretty much forgotten come playoff time. The team fought for the first seed, danced on the bench and generally had a rollicking good time -- until the world -- and the Orlando Magic -- crashed down on them in the East Finals.

Now the Cavs have a lull they must fight through and James said simply: "We'll get it back."

One thing the Cavs have not lost is their pregame handshake ritual, one of the longest and most choreographed in the league. Tuesday's was just plain silly, with guys jumping around and doing the old-fashioned "low 10" -- palms up and below the waist -- on a night when the team wore throwback jerseys.

It was some serious attention to detail.

They just need to give the same attention to the on-court details.