Photo: Scott Shaw/The Plain Dealer

I'll be the first to admit that I thought a Cavalier victory tonight was highly improbable. This team, however, showed its true grit and tremendous depth in the absence of their second leading scorer and point guard Mo Williams. The wine and gold did it with tremendous defense in the final three quarters and a brilliant six-minute fourth quarter surge from LeBron James to pull into a virtual tie with the Lakers for the NBA's best record, sending the sellout Q crowd home thrilled with a season sweep of the hated Lakers.

No Mo = Uh oh!: The disappointing news came in today that Mo Williams was not only going to miss tonight's showdown with the Lakers, but the All-Star point would miss 4-6 weeks with a left shoulder sprain. This is a huge blow to the Cavaliers, who are just embarking on a home-heavy and easier portion of their schedule. The Cavaliers have just Delonte West and Daniel Gibson at the point guard, and given West's inconsistency and off-the-court issues along with Gibson's history of struggling with ball-handling, the Cavaliers should look to sign a veteran point guard. My personal choice would be Antonio Daniels, who has good size, scoring ability, and worked out for the wine and gold earlier in the season. Some other possible candidates are free agents Juan Dixon, Brevin Knight, Damon Jones, Tyronn Lue, Coby Karl, and Andre Barrett. For the length of time that Mo Gotti will be M.I.A., adding a veteran to run the offense for stretches could payoff and keep the Cavs afloat. The Cavaliers are also still without Jamario Moon, who had an excellent game last time against the Lakers defending Kobe.

Punch in the mouth: Analyzing the game before-hand, my greatest fear was the Lakers would come right out, punch the Cavaliers square in the mouth, and the Cavs would not be able to recover. It almost happened that way, too. The Lakers sprinted to a 9-0 lead on 5-of-6 shooting, while the Cavs missed their first three looks from the field. It didn't phase the Cavaliers, though, because they cut it to 11-10 in just three minutes. The first quarter offensive success came via LeBron and J.J. Hickson of all people. Hickson was the one the Lakers chose to sag off and allow Gasol to help-side defend James. The result was eight first quarter points from J.J., including three powerful wide-open slams. J.J. had one of his most meaningful performances of the season, finishing with 11 points and a career-high 14 rebounds in 25 minutes. I'm guessing Hickson had a little extra motivation from last season's Lakers-Cavs contest in the Q, where J.J. was abused by Lamar Odom on the offensive glass. Whatever reason there was, J.J. helped lead the frontcourt charge, which paced the team tonight.

Offensive crawl: The offense was downright lost in the first 24 minutes, which is certainly understandable. Delonte West, starting in place of Mo, didn't have a good night by any stretch. Most of the time, Delonte dribbled the ball out front until he could find LeBron or dump it into Shaq late in the shot clock. The Lakers wisely threw Kobe on West to bother him with pestering D and his size. In future games in the coming weeks, Delonte is going to have to look to attack much more. In addition, Daniel Gibson, who found himself back in the rotation, is going to need to look for his shot much more. Gibson hit the only shot he took in 19 minutes, a triple at the start of the second quarter.

Drawing fouls: The only time the Cavaliers got any offensive flow for the most part was when the ball went to Shaq in the post. Shaq started slow, forcing shots outside his present-day range, but he found his comfort zone and the team started to draw fouls on the Laker bigs. Both Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol finished the first half with three fouls, and 2 of those were drawn by The Diesel. O'Neal ended up shooting 5-of-9 from the floor for 13 points, adding 6 boards and 3 assists in 28 minutes. Shaq also made 3-of-4 foul shots, a reassuring trend of late. In fact, in 10 games this month, Shaq is shooting 65% from the line, which has raised his free throw clip to 53%. If Shaq can hit 60% from the line instead of less than 50%, the Cavaliers can leave him on the floor longer late in games, and that will be invaluable come a few months from now.

Three for the first lead: The Cavaliers hung tight for the entire game, but it wasn't until more than halfway through the third quarter that the Cavaliers took their first lead of the game on an Anthony Parker corner three with 4:42 to go. Cleveland hit just 1-of-6 threes in the first half, but A.P. drilled two in the third to get the Cavaliers going from long distance. The best three point shooting team in the association shot it 6-of-18 overall, but the non-LeBrons made 5-of-9 attempts. LBJ is just 1-for-16 over the last two games from beyond the arc, and he is really forcing most of those shots. In fact, King James has been shooting the three ball lately like he's hitting them at 40+% like Mo, Boobie, and A.P., but he sits at 36%, which is respectable. However, it means he shouldn't be shooting 8 or 9 of them a game on most nights.

Crank up the physical play: In a striking resemblance to the yuletide beatdown, in the second half, the officials seemed to swallowed their whistles more. Once again, the Cavaliers took advantage of it much better than the Lakers. The result was a series of blocks and tough play inside that frustrated Pau Gasol, a couple of mega-strong Shaq backdowns in the post, and tough shows from Varejao. The fouls and free throws for each team were virtually a push, but the Cavs being able to get the Laker bigs in foul trouble was huge. If you give the Cavalier bigs (Shaq, Andy, Z) the ability to throw their weight around down low, scoring against the wine and gold is that much more difficult.

Two stars sit in extended coaching chessmatch: Shockingly, both Kobe and LeBron after playing about 34 minutes each in the first three quarters, sat for the first half of the fourth. LeBron sat until the 6:22 mark with the Cavs going -1 in his absence. Kobe sat an additional minute, returning at the 5:23 mark with the Lakers going -1 without him. You got the feeling it was a battle of wills between Mike Brown and Phil Jackson about who would blink first and put their star back in the game. Brown got LeBron in first, and those two went toe-to-toe in the final five minutes, but it wasn't even close on this occasion.

His time: Even without his running mate, in front of his home sellout crowd, he was not going to be denied. Despite the lip service after the game with Craig Sager, LeBron wanted this one, and he wanted it BAD. He even felt inspired to recite Eminem's verse in the Drake song "Forever" word-for-word in the game's final moments, an intimidating and motivating scene. The King made 5-of-7 shots in those final six and a half minutes, piling up 12 fourth quarter points. He took charge of the point and ran the offense through him. On most nights, that's a bad thing, but tonight, when not much else on offense was working, it was a necessity. LeBron was 1-of-9 from deep, but he hit jumpers from 21, 25, 20, and 18 feet in the final minutes, taking what the Lakers gave him, and he capped it off with a slicing layup that gave the Cavs the lead for good and a split of free throws with 21 seconds left. That's right, this time, it was LeBron who got the ball to shoot the free throws, not A.P. or Z. Sure, LeBron missed the second one that would've given them a two possession lead, but his moppy-haired teammate of five years had his back.

Winning plays from Wild Thing: Anderson Varejao had one of the most important plays of the night when he was tied up by both Ron Artest and Pau Gasol on the LeBron missed free throw. Andy fought through it, got a hand on the ball, and the officials blew their whistle on Artest, sending Andy to the line where the 66% shooter this year drilled both crucial free throws with ice flowing through his veins. Varejao scored 7 of his 11 points in the fourth, and he added 8 rebounds in his 24 minutes. For tonight at least, you could measure Andy's impact on the stat sheet. Most nights, it doesn't do the wild one justice.

goes to: LeBron James. The Cavalier frontcourt outscored the Laker frontcourt an astonishing 79-40 tonight, and LeBron led the charge nearly outscoring the Laker frontcourt on his own. LBJ made 13-of-25 shots, nailing 10-of-13 free throws, for his game-high 37 points, 5 rebounds, 9 assists, 2 steals, and 1 block. He had to break the 40 minute mark, but he may have to do that more often without Mo backing him up for now.

Team Grade: A+

Considering the circumstances in this one, knowing for less than 24 hours they would be without Mo, facing a full-strength Lakers team at the start of an East coast road trip, without two of your top nine rotation players, the Cavaliers couldn't have played much better. They shot 48% percent and held the Lakers to just 39% percent shooting, the second time the Lakers shot sub-40% against Cleveland this year. The Cavs won the rebounding battle 48-43 despite giving up 15 offensive rebounds. Assisting on 21 of the 34 field goals and turning it over just 13 times were also a plus. The Cavaliers have found a formula that they can use to beat the Lakers in a seven-game series, and they hope they are fortunate enough to meet them (or another West team) again in June.

The challenge now will be not letting down on Saturday night at Q against the Oklahoma City Thunder, who are poised for a playoff berth with young stars Kevin Durant, Jeff Green, and Russell Westbrook all rounding into form.

After the game, it was revealed that Delonte West suffered a finger injury to his left hand late in the game. While he did return, if this is deemed serious and Delonte has to miss a couple games, the Cavaliers are in a serious world of hurt at point. Antonio Daniels, I hope your phone is on....

All for one. One for all.

Kirk

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