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Cavs Regular Season

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1/4/06

Cavaliers at Bucks

Wednesday, January 4, 2006

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>[FONT=Verdana, Times New Roman, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]MIKE POPOVICH[/FONT]



Cavaliers at Bucks
8 tonight, Bradley Center, Milwaukee

TV WUAB RADIO WQKT-FM 104.5, WAKR-AM 1590, WTAM-AM 1100, WJER-AM 1450 FAST BREAKS The Cavaliers lost to the Bucks, 111-106, on Dec. 10 in Milwaukee. LeBron James scored a career-high 31 points during the first half and finished with 52 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. ... Larry Hughes (sprained finger) and Donyell Marshall (flu-like symptoms) did not practice Tuesday but are listed as probable for tonight. Anderson Varejao, who has missed the entire season with a dislocated shoulder, went through a limited practice and is now day-to-day, though he will not play tonight.

... Former Ohio State star Michael Redd is averaging a team-best 24.7 points for the Bucks. ... The Cavaliers have lost seven straight in Milwaukee.
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Huge win tonight, the Bucks are a tough team, and we were without a great player in Larry Hughes. Realistically, LBJ carried the team tonight, Damon Jones has a bad game, but Marshall played pretty well, along with Gooden. We will learn alot about this team while Hughes is out.
 
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1/5/06

James is poison vs. Bucks

His triple-double again leads Cavaliers' victory

By Brian Windhorst

Beacon Journal sportswriter

<!-- begin body-content -->MILWAUKEE - On a day when the Cavaliers suffered a painful loss, they pulled off an uplifting win.
The news filtered down via cell phones, e-mail and the rumor mill before Wednesday night's game against the Milwaukee Bucks that shooting guard Larry Hughes faced surgery and an eight-week absence.
Therefore, it wasn't all that surprising that they emerged from the locker room in an early game haze that hinted it was going to be another one of those long nights in the Beer City. But as they've been doing for weeks now, the Cavs buoyed their own spirits with physical defense and it once again carried the day.
Getting a strong defensive effort in the last three quarters -- downright robust in the fourth -- the Cavs were able to grind one out for a 91-84 win.
It earned them their first victory in the Bradley Center in eight tries, the last coming in March of 2002. More apropos to the moment, it was the Cavs' (19-10) eighth victory in the past nine games and the fifth over a team .500 or better in that span.
``We all get paid to win games,'' Cavs coach Mike Brown said. ``Our job is to win no matter who is in uniform.''
Hughes was out with a fracture in his right middle finger, but LeBron James was indeed in uniform and the definition of active.
Tuesday before he left for Milwaukee, James was asked if he thought the Bucks would change their defense after he scored 52 points on them last month. His retort was to harken back to last season, when the Toronto Raptors threw double-teams at him after he tore them up for 56 points in an earlier game. The result was a triple-double, as he remembered, and thus issued the following warning: ``Pick your poison.''
The Bucks (17-12) didn't double-team James exclusively Wednesday, but they certainly brought help whenever he showed aggression. It worked for quite a spell, but apparently the poison was simply slow-acting.
In the pivotal fourth quarter, James racked up 17 points, six rebounds and four assists and finished with a triple-double: 32 points, 11 rebounds, 11 assists and, not to be forgotten, five steals.
``I told you,'' James said matter-of-factly of his sixth career triple-double and second of the season. ``It was like deja vu.''
It was something. The key, of course, being that he had help. Without Hughes in the lineup, the offense struggled at times. Damon Jones started in Hughes' place and managed just three points, and the Cavs shot just 42 percent.
Had it not been for Drew Gooden, who had 18 points on 8-of-10 shooting, the Cavs might not have been close enough to make a fourth-quarter rally.
Down the stretch, Donyell Marshall and Zydrunas Ilgauskas got active with James' help. Marshall finished with 17 points and nine rebounds, and Ilgauskas had 14 points and nine rebounds.
It was defense, though, that got it done. After allowing the Bucks to make 10-of-19 shots in the first quarter, the Cavs held them to 33 percent shooting the rest of the night. It really showed up in the fourth quarter where the Bucks missed 10 consecutive shots at one point.
It enabled the Cavs to go on a 19-0 run, 11 of those coming from James, which gave them the lead after trailing almost the whole night. It also seemed to break the Bucks and the spirit of their fans, who have seemingly grown tired of watching James torch them. In his past three games against Milwaukee, James has averaged 41.3 points with two triple-doubles.
``You kind of take him for granted,'' Brown said. ``It seems so natural for him.''
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I didn't care to see Jones starting in place of Hughes. His defense is way too suspect, and he shot horrible.

I'd like to see Marshall start alongside Gooden and move LeBron to guard. Marshall has been scoring and rebounding.
 
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Losing Hughes for 6 to 8 weeks is going to hurt, but try to look on the bright side. The Cavs fell just short of the playoffs last season w/o Hughes, Jones, and Marshall. Hopefully Jones and Marshall will put the Cavs over the top and get them in the playoffs even w/o Hughes. Even better Hughes hasn't been himself yet this season with the bad finger and various other injuries. Hopefully this will give him a chance to get totally healthy for the playoff run. I would like to see Jackson get extra playing time, but it looks like Brown is just going to use James, Jones, Newble, and Marshall to fill the void.

Don't forget Wild Thing comes back next week.
 
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