The King's Throne

Even though the Cavaliers have won 9 of their last 11 games after beating Milwaukee last night, they will be without Larry Hughes for 6-8 weeks after having surgery to repair a fractured right long finger. This doesn't come as a huge surprise to me because he has been injury prone over the last few season. If you remember, he was out for a chunk of the season last year because of a broken thumb. After that, his shooting stats went down. I wish him a speedy recovery.

The Cavs have won 2 out of 3 without him, but the energy that he brought onto the court is missing from Cleveland. Jones has started at shooting guard in his place. He's been going through a bit of a funk as of late. In three games as a starter, he is averaging 3.0 ppg, while shooting 15% from the field and almost 17% from the land of three. This is a guy who is the self-proclaimed "best shooter in the world". Also, he has been playing lack luster defense. I don't know about you, but I would rather see Ira Newble start instead of Jones. DJ has done much better when he has come of the bench.  Newble may not score a lot of points, but he bring a defensive presence to the Cavs line-up and I think he could score more points as a starter than Jones is right now. Mike Brown should give Newble a chance and go back to bringing the combo of Jones and DMarsh off the bench like before.

Back to the Milwaukee game, it wasn't pretty, but it was a win nonetheless. LeBron once again had to dominate because of the lack of help. Remember how Michael Jordan always had big moments and big games against the Cavs. Well, that's what LBJ is doing to the Bucks this season. Here's his stats from the first three games against Milwaukee this year:

December 10th: 52 points, 7 rebs., 7 asts, 19-29 shooting, 5-9 3pt shooting

January 4th: 32 points, 11 rebs., 11 asts, 12-29 shooting, 2-8 3pt shooting

Yesterday: 35 points, 7 rebs., 6 asts, 14-22 shooting, 3-7 3pt shooting

Season avg.: 39.7 ppg, 8.3 rpg, 8 apg., .563% shooting, .417% 3pt shooting

Dominating. That's the only word to describe it. Dominating. We'll see just how dominating he is when the Cavs host the New York Knicks. This is a very important game because this is their last home game for the next to weeks. After this game, they will go on a 6-game West Coast road trip. It's important to continue their dominance at home before going out to the West side, a place where they have struggled the last few years.

In other news, "The Wild Thing", "Sideshow Bob", "The Human Palm Tree" Anderson Varejao has returned to practice is planning to make his long-awaited return to the Cavs within the next couple of weeks. He was projected to be out for as long as the All-Star break, but he's made better progress on his rehab than people thought. I can't wait for him to come back because he is just the defensive energy player that the Cavs have needed all year. When he returns, expect him to get Alan Henderson's minutes.

 Hurry back, big man.

|  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this