Short Memory

Hey everyone! It’s AC, checking in. What’s happening?

Well, we’re heading back to my hometown – Washington, D.C. – for Game 6. Wednesday night, the Wine and Gold couldn’t quite close it out.

When we went up five, I really thought we had enough to win the ballgame. But then we went back into giving the ball to LeBron and standing around to watch him. Consequently, Washington had set their defense, they were ready to stop him and LeBron had nowhere to go.

LeBron had a couple of turnovers where he tried to force his way through the double-team and everyone was so busy trying to spread the floor that nobody moved. But you have to cut through that defense to get the defense to move. They couldn’t get that to happen and it’s almost like once we got into that offensive set, we really had nowhere to go with the ball.

It was basically LeBron or nothing at that point – and that’s when we have our troubles.

We have to find ways to get other people involved in the offense, late. The other night in D.C., it was a similar situation, but it was on a transition play where LeBron came across halfcourt with motion. That way, he was able to get inside and find Delonte in the corner. But in a halfcourt situation, it’s been tough.

The Wizards are obviously a much different – and some might say better – team without Gilbert Arenas. They’re a better defensive team without Gilbert, and I just think that they played so long without Arenas that they’re just more focused without him.

It’s going to be tough for the Cavaliers now, because Washington is going to force us to be the aggressor on the offensive end of the floor. And I don’t know if the Cavaliers are used to having to score a lot of points.

On Wednesday night, they just didn’t come out with the right attitude. It didn’t look like they were aggressive enough or focused enough to get the job done. They tried to play themselves into the game last night and found out that it doesn’t work that way.

At this point, every game it’s going to be whoever produces is who’s on the court. Because you can’t afford to play guys and wait. Wally’s got to play better. He got off to a horrible start – two quick turnovers and he shot poorly for the rest of the night. Those kinds of situations have to be diminished if we’re going win one on the road. Because this Wizards team is going to be jacked up on Friday night – the crowd will have them pumped up, they’ll make shots and the Cavaliers will have to weather the storm in Washington.

I know it sounds like a broken record, but the Cavaliers succeed when Delonte West is aggressive at the point. It looked like Delonte was more concerned with handing LeBron the ball, instead of looking for opportunities off the high pick. He got 12 points, but he didn’t get enough penetration to force the defense to react to him to make things happen.

On Friday night, Cleveland can’t come out and play the way they did on Wednesday – waiting until the fourth quarter. They’ve had a propensity for that all season. They have to come out and make it happen in the first quarter, second quarter, third quarter. They can’t play themselves into an opportunity to win the game. That is not working for them. And that doesn’t work during the playoffs.

The Cavaliers have to have a short memory. They went through the same thing last year with New Jersey in the Second Round, so they’re familiar with the situation. So, it’s not like they don’t understand what they have to do.

Now they just have to go out and do it.