THETRUTHSPORTS

After a few days to reflect, and juxtapose the Cleveland Cavaliers season and playoffs and like many in the sports world I can’t help but to point a finger at Cavs head coach Mike Brown. Finishing with the best record in the NBA two years in a row is an extreme accomplishment, but not making it to the Finals shows very large weaknesses in either the coaching, or players, or both.

In last years Playoffs, Cleveland steamrolled the competition until they ran into the much taller Orlando Magic. This season they added taller players(Jamison, Parker) to help on perimeter defense and also to lift some of the weight of the team off of LeBron’s shoulders. From the beginning of this years Playoffs something wasn’t the same about the Cavs. Eliminating the Bulls in five games seemed to show how good the Bulls could be in the future and less how the Cavs looked like champs. Aside from LeBron(this is an understatement) the Cavs had an aura of nervousness surrounding them, and they carried it into the series with Boston. Majority of the news was about LeBron’s elbow, and you would think alleviating the focus off of the Cavs other players would help them to fully contribute, it didn’t work.

A full season of pre-game extreme hi-five routines, staged photos, and talcum showers, was simply hiding the inner struggles of the Cavaliers. They are a team that relies heavily  on the impact that LeBron James has on the game. When LeBron shot poorly in Game 5 against the Celtics scoring only 15 points, the Cavs were blown out at home. When LeBron had 21 points in the first quarter in Game 3 in Boston, the Cavs won in a blowout. Of course throughout the years their have been teams that rely solely on one player to hit clutch baskets, and to dominate games. Maybe doing it for an entire season was too much for LeBron to contend with once Playoff time rolled around.

I’m 100% sure Mike Brown is not going to be in Cleveland next season. How does a player like J.J. Hickson play 81 games during the season averaging 20 minutes a game, get zero minutes in an elimination game. MAKES NO SENSE. Putting Shaq on KG in Game 6 MAKES NO SENSE. Playing Zydrunas Ilgauskas 14 minutes in Game 5, and 15 minutes in Game 6, after not playing him the since Game 2 of the first round MAKES NO SENSE. Mike Brown was Coach of the Year last year, and in hindsight that was a major mistake.

James is eligible to opt out of his contract this summer, a move that would make the two-time MVP — and zero-time NBA champion — a free agent and set off a scramble for his services from New York to Miami to Los Angeles and, of course, back in Cleveland. Here’s hoping he does whats best for him and his family, not whats best for whichever cities budget.