Photo: Gregory Smith/AP

In the final chapter of the 2009-2010 regular season, the Cleveland Cavaliers were about as timid and punchless as they've been in the last several years. It was mostly by design though, as Coach Mike Brown sat LeBron for the fourth straight game to close out the regular season and added Mo Williams for the second time this week. Shaquille O'Neal's return was postponed for game one of the playoffs, and both Antawn Jamison and Anderson Varejao played exclusively in the first half. The Hawks, who played only Marvin Williams out of their top six players, had the home energy and role players that responded to it. Seven Hawks were in double digits, and they set out to make a bench highlight film with their third seed in the East already clinched.

Jawad Williams and Delonte West filled the starting spots that they have manned for a decent part of the past week. The wine and gold had just two players reach double figures, led by Jamario Moon's 15 points on 7-of-13 shooting and 7 rebounds. Hanging tough early, the Cavs trailed by just two at halftime. However, several things compounded on the Cavaliers offensively. First, they were nearly shutout from behind the arc for the first time all season. Moon saved them with a fourth quarter three with the Cavaliers hitting just 1 of their 14 attempts. Coupled with their horrific 20-of-36 from the foul line (56%, wrapping up the worst percentage in the league at 72%), the team was wildly inefficient offensively and shot 43% overall. Taking a team's top four offensive options out of play is the prime cause for this, but there are capable guys on this team who can create, but some of them struggled tonight. Delonte West, usually a top performer in these situations, was held to 6 points on 2-of-7 shooting in 25 minutes. Jawad Williams shot just 1-of-6 for 4 points, and 'Tawn and Andy each had 7 points in their limited first half action. Really, the only two guys doing much of anything offensively were Jamario and J.J. Hickson, who had 14 points and 6 boards. These two were active with highlight dunks and solid cuts to the basket. Other than that, it was pretty vanilla for the Cavalier offense.

Defensively, the Cavaliers don't really have any excuses. This team is designed to defended from 1 to 15, and they have done nothing of the sort in the last four games. The wine and gold have given up 109, 116, 98, and 99 points respectively in the last four, and a large part of the time, they have been sleepwalking during the games. Tonight was probably the worst, considering the talent on the court and the number of powerful, in-your-face dunks driving through the lane that the Cavs let pass. Jeff Teague looked better than Mike Bibby for most of the night, playing all 48 minutes and scoring 24 points on 11-of-19 shooting and dropping off 15 dimes. One particularly gruesome moment was Mario West putting Jamario Moon on the wrong side of a facial, and that was just one in a string of third quarter plays that showed the Cavaliers that were out there had to be watching that scoreboard clock tick down, hoping it was running double time.

goes to: Jamario Moon, who has really helped his case for playoff action with LBJ sitting these last four games. Moon had 15 points, 7 boards, 2 steals, and 1 block in 31 minutes. In these recent four games, the Rising Moon has averaged 14 points and 5 rebounds.

Team Grade: D-

The fact that the Cavs were down their top six when Hawks Lite pulled away from them is what saves them from the dreaded failing grade. Cleveland was outrebounded 42-35, made just 7% of threes, hit only 56% of their free throws, and gave up 54% shooting to a bunch of Hawk scrubs and a bench that doesn't play a whole heck of a lot other than Crawford and Pachulia. The defense was nauseating, and it's been that way for a while now. Let's hope the switch is flipped come this weekend.

With Chicago's win over Charlotte tonight, the Bulls have punched their tickets for Quicken Loans Arena this Saturday at 3 pm for the start of a first round best of seven. The season series was a 2-2 split, but one of those games was a LeBron off-day in the past week. To be fair to Chicago, one of the two wine and gold wins came without Rose, Noah, or Deng playing. Other than that, there was a one-point Bulls win in the Q early in the season and a 7-point victory by the Cavs in Chicago.

Chicago presents some matchup issues with the small backcourt of Rose and Hinrich. Hinrich is streaky, but Rose is going to be a nightly menace for Mo Williams to cover. In fact, it may take Delonte West covering him the majority of the time and Mo following Hinrich around. The Bulls' athletic bigs will pick and roll a lot too between Noah, Gibson, and Miller. That makes Shaq's easing back in an issue, but the counter attack to that is for the Cavaliers to pound the ball into the post. I will have an extensive series preview in the next couple of days.

For now, it's time to wipe out the thoughts and pretenses of this four game losing streak and think playoffs. This team is built to get it done, and they can't and won't stop until they win 16 more games. So, say it with me now...

RISE UP! and Get PuMped! for the One Goal! as we do it All Together!, and as always,

All for one. One for all.

Kirk

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