Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Chicago Bulls in the semifinals to advance to Eastern Conference Finals and will play the Atlanta Hawks....By Cleveland Urban News.Com Sportswriter Karl Kimbrough
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| Cleveland Urban News.Com Sportswriter Karl Kimbrough |
CLEVELAND, Ohio-The
Cleveland Cavaliers routed the Chicago Bulls 94-73 Thursday night in round two of the NBA Eastern Conference Semifinals, winning the best of seven series four games to the Bull's two.
It was not a
surprise that the Cavaliers would win game six and advance to the Eastern
Conference Finals to play the Atlanta Hawks, but what was a surprise is how they did
it. The teams leading scorer in the previous nine playoff games this season
was either LeBron James or Kyrie Irving, with James taking the honors seven
times. Reserve point guard Matthew Dellavedova's total point production in the previous five games
against Chicago in this series was 31 points. That's an average of six points
per game for Dellavedova.
So when
Dellavedova scored a team leading 19 points to help close out the Bulls it was
more of a shock than a surprise. Not only did Dellavedova have an impressive
performance, but there were other unsung heroes who stepped up to help the Cavaliers
win game six to send the Bulls home for the season.
All season the headliners
for this Cavalier team were All Stars Kevin Love, Irving, and James. They did
most of the heavy lifting, especially in the scoring column. But with Love out
for the season after sustaining a
shoulder injury and both James and Irving struggling with injuries of their own, other players needed to step up. They now were to provide whatever was needed
to win, even though they were not known to have the skill sets to do the job. After playing just 12 minutes, Irving went down to the floor early
in the second quarter, re-injuring his left knee when he stepped on teammate
Tristan Thompson's foot. As Irving
limped to the locker room
Cavalier head coach David Blatt had to wonder how he could replace Irving's
production.
Ironically, it was after Irving went down in
that second quarter that the Cavaliers took control of the game. In came
reserve forward James Jones, who hit on three three pointers for nine points
before the end of the first half. At 5:19 of the second quarter the Cavs went
on a 20 to four run and ended the second quarter with a 58-44 lead. That 14
point lead was fueled by Jones, Thompson who added 10 points, guard Iman
Shumpert's 11 points and center Timofey Mozgov with seven.
James could not find
his shooting touch in the first half and made only three of 11 shots for six
points. J. R. Smith on the other hand continued to shoot well from the three
point arc contributing two key three pointers in the third quarter when it
seemed that no one on either team could make a shot as the Cavs and Bulls were
one out of 19 to start the third quarter. Smith would finish the game with 12
points and eight rebounds. On a night where this Cavaliers team could have
wilted behind their wounded leaders, they galvanized instead. They would win
this game with true grit and determination, outworking their opponent in every
key aspect of the game. As a team, they held the Bulls to 37.5 percent shooting.
Thompson, who played 40 minutes filling in for Love, also added 17 rebounds to go with his 13 points and was very active on both ends of the floor. What really shows that Cleveland out hustled and out worked the Bulls is their 53 to 32 rebounding advantage. They also held a 16 to nine rebounding edge on the offensive end. James finished the game with just 15 points, making 7 of 23 shots. But he still showed his never say die teammates the way by distributing 11 assist and pulling down nine rebounds despite his physical limitations.
In the end though, the players who were normally counted on to give support to the big three of James, Irving and Love, and asked to do a lot of the little things that go unnoticed came up big and were the heroes in the closing out of the Bulls. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)
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