Something missing for James and mates
LeBron James had his feet soaking in a bucket of ice, but that was restorative, a postgame soother. It was the cold shooting during the game that frustrated the Cleveland Cavaliers' star forward.
It wasn't bad, it just wasn't good enough, as the Celtics took a 90-85 victory in the season opener at TD Banknorth Garden last night. The Cavaliers reached the Eastern Conference finals last season, succumbing to the Celtics in Game 7. If James wants to lead his Cavaliers to the NBA title, he'll have to take them past the Celtics.
While the Celtics celebrated their championship with a raucous pregame ceremony, lifting the banner to the rafters, James and his teammates stayed in their locker room. This was the kind of party James wants to host, and he wasn't going to be just another guest.
James scored 22 points in 36 minutes, shooting 9 for 21 from the field, including an 0-for-4 night from 3-point range. He led his team in scoring, but it has to count as an ordinary effort from a player who averaged an NBA-high 30.0 points last season.
With the game still up for grabs, James missed two important free throws down the stretch; the first could have closed the Cavaliers within 86-84 with 10.6 seconds left in the game. The second came with 4.8 seconds remaining, and prevented the Cavaliers from closing to 88-85.
"We played well but they played better," said James, who added that his team's biggest problem was "our forced turnovers in the second half, when we let their defense beat us up."
James was disappointed but not discouraged.
"We missed some really, really good shots," he said. "You can play great defense but you've also got to make shots, and we didn't do that in the third quarter. Boobie [Daniel Gibson] missed a couple of threes, Wally [Szczerbiak] missed one that was wide open, I had a couple of layups that I missed.
"You can play defense like we did tonight, giving up 44 percent from the field - but if you don't make shots, it doesn't look so well. In the third quarter, we didn't make the shots."
Cavaliers coach Mike Brown was asked if he thought James was out of rhythm, but he refused to throw his top forward under the bus.
"I thought he played hard," said Brown. "I've got to go back and look at the tape. In terms of other stuff, you'd have to ask him; I don't know if he felt [that] way."
Brown did think the Celtics threw the Cavaliers' team play out of whack.
"They did a terrific job defensively in the second half," said Brown. "One of our Achilles' heels on the floor has been our turnovers.
"We're trying to play a little faster but sometimes that translates into miscues and the Celtics' defensive pressure and physicalness in the second half caused us to have 12 turnovers. That's too many to have."
When the Celtics clamped down defensively in the second half, the whistles began to ring in the Cavaliers' ears.
"We were looking to referees for foul calls and the refs saw 7-1, with us committing seven fouls and the Celtics committing one in the third in a physical game," said Brown. "But we can't look to the refs; we've just got to keep attacking and playing the game of basketball no matter what the call is."
Like Brown, James recognized that calls didn't go their way, but he gave his team the responsibility for missing a chance to top the Celtics.
"We've got to move on," he said. "We had great opportunities to do what we wanted to do on offense." 