Swatted in Utah

UTAH - The Cavs lost a heartbreaker this evening on the road in Utah to the upstart Jazz 99-98. Instrumental in this loss was Utah's Deron Williams, who scored a career-high 33 points to go along with 12 assists (Why is it that the Cavs, well all Cleveland teams for that matter, give up career-highs or milestones to opposing teams' players?). Another sour note for the Cavs is that Daniel Gibson went down in the game with what is now being referred to as a "Sprained Lebron." For those of you who don't understand humor, Gibson has a sprained toe, and no word on his availability for tomorrow night's game has been spoken yet.

The bright spot this evening was Larry Hughes, who scored 33 points on 10-19 from the floor and looked as if he couldn't miss at times. Hate to keep harping on Lebron (Which seems to be everyones favorite past time these days) but the guy scored 23 points, on 9-25 from the floor and a miserable 5-9 from the line. I can't help but wonder why it appeared as if Lebron was forcing shots tonight when he wasn't feeling it instead of deferring to Hughes who clearly had the hot hand. Let's also discuss him continually getting rejected down the stretch by Andrei Kirilenko (A White Russian...no pun intended) which really helped the cause (He also played matador defense on a key possession with less than 2 minutes remaining that allowed Kirilenko to get an uncontested layup). Can't help but wonder if the Cavs are going to continue to blow second half leads on the road throughout the rest of this season?

All I keep hearing from these commentators is that Lebron has nobody to pass the ball to, however I couldn't disagree more. This is a very deep Cavs team, full of guys who get inconsistent minutes but show signs of life when given consistent opportunities. Think about it, coming off the bench we have Pavlovic, Varejao, Marshall, Snow, DJones, and David Wesley (That's 11 guys, granted they aren't superstars, but most NBA squads aren't nearly this deep). These aren't no-name players who fill out the rosters of many other NBA teams, it just appears difficult to get the right guys minutes on a steady basis. Well hey, we're only 52 games into the season, we'll figure it out come playoff time....won't we? Tomorrow night the Cavs travel to L.A. to face-off with Kobe and his D-League supporting cast, hopefully the Cavs will be able to sneak out a win before No-Star Weekend begins.

(AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac)