LeBron refuses to let Cavs lose in Game 5

The Cavs started the game by focusing their offense on everybody but LeBron. Screen-and-rolls involving Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Delonte West. Mo Williams taking Rafer Alston to the hole. West, again, with a flipper and a long jumper.

Snappy ball movement was the early game plan, with everybody getting touches and shots. Indeed, James didn’t connect on a basket until 6:20 in the opening quarter.

After Cleveland’s equal-opportunity offense resulted in a 17-point lead at the first quarter break, the game turned into a battle of spurts.

First, the Magic responded to their huge deficit with a sustained scoring binge that lasted through the entire second and early third quarters. Then both teams took turns riding mini-hot streaks … until the fourth quarter. And that’s when LeBron simply took over the entire proceedings.

With the game — and their season — at stake, the Cavs exclusively used a single set during the last 12 minutes of the game: A 1-2-2 alignment that had LeBron massaging the ball a few steps above the center of the foul line, two shooters — alternating among Williams, West, Daniel Gibson and Wally Szczerbiak — stationed at the high corners, one shooter at a low corner and either Ilguaskas or Anderson Varejao roaming the baseline.

And James simply overwhelmed Mickael Pietrus’ ineffective defense. Because of the spacing, any early attempt to double-team James would easily enable him to locate an abandoned shooter. So James drove into the lane, spun away from collapsing defenders, drew fouls, made baskets, or executed slick assist-passes to open shooters. In fact, for the game, LeBron single-handedly matched the total number of assists (12) that were accumulated by all of the visitors.

Time and again, this same turn of events was irresistible — LeBron scoring and creating — and the Cavs lived to play at least one more game.

When the series moves back to Orlando on Saturday, the Magic had better come up with an antidote for this set-up. Like springing into either a box-and-one or diamond-and-one defense, where one player defends James straight-up while his teammates play a 4-man zone behind him. This should force James to dribble into a waiting double team while also having close-out defenders in position to hinder the Cavs’ perimeter marksmen.

Or else, Orlando could simply two-time James as soon as he receives the ball and assume the risk of recovering quickly enough to tag the Cavs’ shooters.

The effectiveness (or lack thereof) of whatever adjustment Stan Van Gundy makes to counter Cleveland’s winning strategy in Game 5 will absolutely determine who will ultimately advance into the Finals.

However, LeBron also made a significant contribution on the defensive end as well. In the last few minutes with the game still up for grabs, his determined body-up and ball-denying defense on Hedo Turkoglu completely stalled Orlando’s offense. James’ efforts here even jammed up the Magic’s high screen-and-rolls that had previously been so effective.

With Turkoglu smothered, the onus was on Rashard Lewis to take over the bulk of Orlando’s scoring. But Lewis had a strangely quiescent game, and the Magic were doomed.

With Turkoglu shackled and Lewis out of sorts, the Magic tried stuffing the ball into Dwight Howard. But Superman scored his last deuce at 9:26 in the fourth quarter, and his last free throws came at 7:36, before fouling out.

In addition to James, the Cavs had several heroes: Gibson, who came off the bench to drop three key triples and 11 total points; Williams, whose six treys and 24 points seemed to come at incredibly auspicious moments; Ilgauskas was a significant factor at both ends; Ben Wallace contributed earnest defense and five critical rebounds in his brief rotations; and Varejao who totaled seven points, eight rebounds, two blocks, two assists and two unsuccessful flops.

Meanwhile, the Magic had nearly as many goats as Cleveland had heroes: Alston, who took several unreasonable risks at both ends and shot poorly (1-for-10 for three points); Lewis who was AWOL; and Anthony Johnson, who did stabilize the offense early in the second quarter, but who wound up forcing too many shots.

And, most of all, Coach Van Gundy, who failed to devise a defensive tactic to counter the 1-2-2 set that won the game. Also, in the waning minutes, the Magic’s offense was virtually reduced to only two possibilities: Trying to stuff the ball into Howard, or else running a perfunctory high screen-and-roll before hoisting up 3-pointers.

Even though the Magic still lead 3-2 in the series, all of the pressure is now on them to win Game 6 on their home court. That’s because both teams understand that there’s no way the Cavs will lose the deciding game on their home turf.

LeBron refuses to let Cavs lose in Game 5

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