“I think we need to have a greater sense of urgency regarding right now, not regarding what will happen in April (in the playoffs)”, Blatt said following practice Monday at Cleveland Clinic Courts.
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Shumpert, who played with an outline of “90” shaved into the back of his head in honor of his birth year, said he was comfortable all night.
“We don’t need to get in the habit of making excuses”, he said.
The Magic got 14 points from center Nikola Vucevic, their only starter to reach double figures.
James hit 10 of 15 shots and added eight assists in only 29 minutes.
We must question why James deserves to earn millions just to wear shoes.
After a rough four-game stretch, the Cavs dominate the Magic from start to finish in a blowout win.
When James was averaging about 40 minutes per game early last season, he called for those minutes to come down. “They were ready and they basically just toyed with us”, Magic coach Scott Skiles said.
The NBA megastar has signed a lifetime endorsement deal with the athletic apparel giant, a deal which extends a partnership James began with Nike before he graduated from high school. The Magic lead the National Basketball Association with seven games (3-4) this season decided by three points or less….
The play, which is fairly simple, features Williams driving to the left side while Lebron slashes hard from the weak side, in time to flush a bounce pass home with a dunk. Cleveland outscored the Magic 31-17 in the second quarter and 30-15 in the third….
All nine of James’ shots in the first half were in the lane and almost all of them were near the restricted area.
Orlando was on the road for 10 days, playing games in the Central, Mountain, Pacific and Mountain time zones. The Magic held a moment of silence before tip-off for Hall of Famer Dolph Schayes, who died at age 87 on Thursday.
“I couldn’t have dragged him out of there [the game] with a crane”, Blatt said.
Because James is arguably the NBA’s best player at commanding the attention of the defense and then finding open shooters, the Magic went into Friday night having to abandon some of their principles as far as helping defensively and double-teaming the 6-foot-8, 250-pound star forward from the same spots.
His 36.1 minutes per game last season were a career low, but the idea was to drop that number even lower, to perhaps 34 minutes per night. “But right off the bat?”
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich grabbed some attention this week when he compared the 3-pointer to a circus shot that he would probably never fully embrace.
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Cavaliers: Visit the Celtics on Tuesday.
