Advantage, LeBron

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James, Cavs Embarrass Wizards in Game 2

The Washington Post's Michael Lee reports on Cleveland's impressive 116-86 dumping of the Wizards in Game 2 Monday night.

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Instead, the Wizards did the worst thing imaginable: they backed down. It's like when the Miami Heat would say they wanted Michael Jordan, then lose 4-1.

At least in Game 1 the Wizards had stretches that raised hope for the postseason in the first place. At least they moved on offense and scrambled on defense right down the final two minutes of the game.

The effort the first half of Game 2 looked downright feeble. There was nothing whatsoever inspired about their play. They couldn't shoot straight, not even from the foul line and continued to jack up shots instead of looking inside. They allowed LeBron to do the worst thing possible, get his teammates involved. The fact that James had only 12 points in the 53-40 halftime lead detailed just how dreadful the Wizards were.

They let Szczerbiak, who has struggled since coming over in the big trade, get loose for open jumper after open jumper. Big Z, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, had his way inside with 12 points and nine rebounds in the first half, a good bit of it coming after Haywood was on the bench with two fouls.

The Wizards' last truly competitive stretch of the game came at the end of the first quarter when Cleveland Coach Mike Brown decided to rest LeBron. Down 27-22 before the break, the Wizards scored eight straight points to take a 30-27 lead.

Quickly, Brown put LeBron back into the game and just as quickly, it wasn't a game anymore. Ilgauskas scored, LeBron blocked an Antonio Daniels layup with his left hand, threw an assist pass to Varejao, stole the ball from Arenas, who tried to post him up, then forced Arenas into a three-point air ball. You get the picture. Cleveland went on a 25-9 run. No amount of lecturing or calling of timeouts could pull the Wizards back into it.

"They played with a lot more intensity, a lot more disciplined," Wizards Coach Eddie Jordan said afterward. "They beat us. We beat ourselves. Their coach kept them disciplined. And this coach couldn't keep his guys disciplined enough to keep this competitive. I did a horrible job of keeping these guys in an organized fashion, playing with intensity, discipline and organization. We'll see if we can play with a lot more intensity, discipline and intelligence once we get back to Washington."

Asked why this was the case, Jordan said he suspected some of his players were overly excited and didn't properly channel the emotions.

"We've talked about it for two days and still didn't do what we talked about," he said. "Only the guys who came in off the bench did that, and it showed."

Of LeBron's simply throttling his team, Jordan said: "Sometimes he looks like a man playing among boys. He controlled the game, took hold of it and ran with it. I know they changed their team [since last season], but they've got the same coaching staff and they've got the -- I say this [respectfully]-- the monster player and he's taking over the series, taking it over. He was a leader, a difference-maker."