Nothing plays out as planned for Cavs
Injuries make transition difficult after big trade, and time is running out

By Brian Windhorst
Beacon Journal sportswriter
Beacon Journal

Published on Friday, Mar 28, 2008

INDEPENDENCE: This was some rocky honeymoon.

Not much has gone to plan since the Cavaliers took the risk of making the largest midseason trade in team history about five weeks ago. After Wednesday's one-point loss to the New Orleans Hornets, the Cavs are just 9-8 since the deal. Deeper than that, none of the new players has seemingly been able to find any sort of rhythm and make the expected contributions night in and night out.

The entire plan was optimistic, integrating four new faces into the rotation with no training camp, limited practice time, and fewer than 30 games before the playoffs. Some injuries made everything more complex, and now it seems all are struggling to get comfortable within their roles.

Minutes are changing almost every night, roles are changing, even positions have
changed. No one seems to know what to expect from one game to the next, neither the players nor the coach.

''I know for sure that we haven't had the lineup I envisioned or the rotation I envisioned when the trade happened,'' Cavs coach Mike Brown said. ''Not once.''

Ben Wallace has been hardest hit, missing three full games and parts of two others with a back injury he suffered in his fourth game with the Cavs. When he has played, often he has not been able to play next to Zydrunas Ilgauskas, the pairing the Cavs dreamed about when they made the deal. The Cavs have shut Wallace down for a week to rest his back, but no one is sure when he'll be 100 percent.

Delonte West has started every game and increased his scoring, shooting, rebounds and assists from his averages with the Seattle SuperSonics. But his defense has been uneven and it has resulted in large minute swings from Brown. He also hasn't shown the ability to be a consistent shooter from the outside, which has forced Brown into some tough decisions about when to put him on the floor down the stretch.

Now West is dealing with a tweaked left ankle. The Cavs did not put him on their injury list, but he was being treated after Wednesday's game and he did not practice on Thursday.

Joe Smith has been in and out of the starting lineup, playing as many as 30 minutes and as few as six. He's never been able to get comfortable in playing alongside a constant center because the injuries up front have meant he's been playing in different lineups. He's shot the ball well, but he's seen his offensive chances dip since coming from the Chicago Bulls, where he averaged 12 points a game. He's averaging less than eight with the Cavs.

''It has been hard to find a rhythm and that is a key for all of us,'' Smith said Thursday. ''There's a lot of things that have gone into that, especially the injuries.''

Wally Szczerbiak has had the roughest transition. After getting lots of minutes when he first arrived, as many as 38 in one game, his inconsistent shooting has made his role vary wildly. He's played as few as six minutes in a game recently and Brown has seemed to set his court time on whether Szczerbiak is making outside shots.

It has been uncomfortable for Szczerbiak. He's shooting just 35 percent since coming in, after shooting 48 percent during his time with the SuperSonics. His position also isn't constant. On Wednesday, for example, he played power forward during one stretch after playing mostly shooting guard.

But Szczerbiak is taking the same approach everyone else seems to be using at this point. With 10 games left and Wallace and Daniel Gibson, who has yet to even play with this group, expected back, the idea is to finally capture a rhythm heading into the postseason.

''We all have to find our niche on the team and that's what we're all going through right now,'' Szczerbiak said. ''All you can do is keep working with your teammates and coaches and believe that the chemistry and consistency will grow.''

Sounds as Coach Brown is as much to blame as the injuries. You can't give a guy 38-minutes one night and 6 the next based on shooting in any certain game.

Joe Smith seems to be the easiest to fit into a role, yet his minutes are inconsistient as well. That seems to be keeping him off rythm s much as injuries around him to other players.

I'm still not sold on Mike Brown. I don't think he is the coach to help lead LeBron to the promise land.

The problem with Mike Brown and his defensive philosophy is, you have to play absolute perfect team basketball to win with it. A team needs season upon season to build the kind of unconscience chemistry necessary to win playing that type of ball, especially with no fluent offense.

And you STILL need multiple absolute studs as basketball players who are good individual defenders and can score. See the Pistons and Spurs of recent years.

You're not going to play mind boggling defense very often with the type of individual defenders the Cavs have. Maybe once they grow up a bit, but not now. Save Z, Wallace, Smith and Jones, the team is still insanely young.

This is why it's all on LeBron to carry a team with no real offense and only pretends to play dominant defense.