Sports 4 Dorks

Scanning the blogs and beats following the Wizards’ 88-87 win over the Cavaliers in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals …

Brian Windhorst, Akron Beacon Journal: "First, tremendous shot by Caron Butler and a tremendous performance.
LeBron James was on him pretty good and he didn’t have a great angle,
especially with Ben Wallace coming to help, and he got it in there.
Although, am I crazy or did someone’s hand who hit the bottom of the
the net maybe help wiggle that ball in? No matter, it went it. Second,
LeBron drew contract to be sure on his last shot but it was a fair no
call. Darius Songalia didn’t jump or even hit him on the upper body, he
got off a fair try. Though the scene was a little wild. All the Cavs
were standing on the court like they’d heard a whistle and so were some
of the Wizards. Then the refs all go to the center of the floor, look
at each other for a minute and then walk over to the scorer’s table.
Everyone in the arena thinks they are going to review it like the
Philly game but, nope, they were just asking for their jackets. It was
funny sort of, the whole arena didn’t get it was over until they took
the jackets."

Les Bullez:
"Caron Butler has become this team’s number one guy. … Butler
deserves a ton of praise for the way he came out and stepped up in a
must win game. Comcast Sportsnet’s Ron Thompson had it right when he
said that Butler is a different player when Arenas is not on the floor.
He is much more aggressive and has the ability to take over."

Patrick McManamon, Akron Beacon Journal: "The Cavaliers lost Game 5 of their playoff series against the Washington Wizards on Wednesday night because they abandoned their offense. Heck with abandon. For the final few minutes — and, at least, since the Cavs took an 87-82 lead — they did not run an offense. LeBron James is a wonderful player, probably the best in the NBA. There are times when the ball needs to be in his hands, and when the Cavs need to run the play Delonte West described as ”everybody get out of the way and let LeBron do his thing.” But not every time. And especially not every time starting when the Cavs have a five-point lead in a series-clinching game with 1:47 left."

Branson Wright, The Plain Dealer: "There was a strange feeling visiting the Cavs locker room after their Game 5 loss to Washington. NBA players don’t bang their lockers or fret after losses because usually there’s another game on another day. That’s the case in this series as the Cavs will visit the Wizards in Game 6 on Friday. But the locker room had a different identity this time. The Cavs knew they let this one slip through their fingers. LeBron James sat in front of his locker staring at the Boston Celtics/Atlanta Hawks game. Often after games, wins or losses, James will engage in conversation with several teammates. For at least several minutes, James was in deep thought."

Cavalier Attitude: "Shame on any of us who thought that it was going to be easy for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Seriously, has it ever been that easy for the Cavs? They played a depleted Witnesses club in the first round last year and had to play four close games — all of which they could have lost — to complete a four-game sweep. They couldn’t close out the Nets in Game 5 of the East semis last year and had to go back to Jersey to finish it off. And they had to climb out of an 0-2 hole before needing a game for the ages from LeBron to finally get past Detroit."

D.C. Sports Bog:
"As an impartial journalist blogger, I don’t root for teams. But I
don’t think there’s a rule against rooting for inanimate objects like a
playoff series, and dang was I rooting for this
most-ridiculous-of-all-time first-round series to continue. So when I
saw some frowny faces at Tuesday’s practice — Oleksiy Pecherov
"no-commenting" me, Butler looking like someone stole his applesauce —
I briefly considered not coming to Cleveland. In fact — and this is a
true story — I told Butler he had seemed morose lately and asked Butler
whether I should bother going to Ohio. "Yeah," he said. "You should go.
I’ll give you something to laugh about."

WaitingForNextYear: "Mike Brown decided to try and take a knee with 2 minutes left and nurse a 5 point lead. Nice move Mike. What got us back in the game, and in fact got us the lead? Driving the lane, taking the ball to the hole and drawing a foul. Haywood was fouled out. Songaila had 5 fouls on him. But instead we waste time on the perimeter and take 3 point shots, when we were only hitting 36% on the night! Then there was the Wally Szczerbiak factor."

Mike Wise, Washington Post: "The shot with less than four seconds remaining was so clutch, easily the signature moment of Butler’s career, on a night when he could not miss when it mattered. But it’s the gamesmanship that followed, the moxie to saunter up to James before the game’s final play, smiling and jawing at the same time. "Let’s make the series interesting," he said, as LeBron laughed. "Let’s take it back to D.C."

Michael Wilbon, Washington Post: "Not everybody on the Wizards is a talker. Caron Butler is a doer. Antawn Jamison, even on a bad shooting night, is a doer. Facing elimination on the road, with Gilbert Arenas sitting on the bench, Butler and Jamison took control of the team before the game in the locker room. They told their teammates, essentially, to shut up and play.

Mike Jones, The Washington Times: "DeShawn Stevenson remained Public Enemy No. 1 in Cleveland despite basically being a nonfactor in this series. He said he was challenged to fights yesterday when he, Gilbert Arenas, Andray Blatche, Dominic McGuire and Nick Young went to the mall in downtown Cleveland. "I would’ve been beat up if I didn’t have them with me," Stevenson said."