Cavs looked like dominant selves ... with Shaq on bench

MINNEAPOLIS -- There wasn't a ton of mood in the visitors' locker room at Target Center Friday evening about an hour before tipoff. Nothing somber. No whistling past any premature graveyards. But what there was, J.J. Hickson tried to lighten, announcing to no one in particular that "This is the worst start of my career. I've never been 0-2.''

Hickson is a second-year forward. The Cavaliers split their first two games last season. Get it?

Jawad Williams did, but warned Hickson off that sort of comic relief fast. "Don't say that,'' said Williams, also a rookie last season. "Don't say it with LeBron around.''

Much later -- after Cleveland righted itself with a 104-87 victory over the Timberwolves -- LeBron James said he hadn't heard all the teeth gnashing or seen the hands wringing publicly over his club's unexpectedly sluggish start. That didn't mean, though, that he didn't have his jaw set to fix things Friday or that he was going to let any kidding around sneak into the Cavaliers' game prep.

"We had a sense of urgency,'' James said, and that was apparent in the serious-as-a-heart-attack way Cleveland felt out Minnesota early, sagged briefly in the second quarter, then asserted itself the rest of the way. Five points by James in two trips -- a three-point play, followed by a thunderous slam -- had the Cavaliers up 46-36 and, over the 28 minutes, 35 seconds that remained, their lead slipped back to single digits for all of 17 seconds.

There was a familiarity about the result, too, not just that the Cavs won, but how they won. With James dominating and posting crooked numbers, naturally, but also with Anderson Varejao active for 13 points and 11 rebounds. With Mo Williams scoring 20 for the first time this season. With Zydrunas Ilgauskas launching 14 shots and hitting half on his way to 15 points. With Daniel Gibson adding 14 off the bench, fueled by his 4-for-8 from beyond the arc.

Maybe, contrary to what so many suggested over the previous 72 hours, there really wasn't anything wrong with the Cavaliers.

So what's wrong with Shaq then?

You know, you absolutely know, that is the next great crisis for Cleveland. The fact that we're this deep into a piece about the Cavs' early season and had not been compelled by game action to mention Shaquille O'Neal should tell you something. The fact that head coach Mike Brown went nearly three minutes -- I timed him -- in his postgame comments without mentioning his new supersized weapon should tell you even more.

O'Neal already was having a low-impact night by his and most observers' standards -- four points, six boards in 12 first-half minutes -- when he picked up his third and fourth fouls in rapid succession in the third quarter. Out he came, logging just 2:10 in that period. In the fourth, with the Cavaliers' work largely done and facing a back-to-back game against Charlotte Saturday, Brown used O'Neal for another 4:35. Done.

But it wasn't just the big guy's play on the court that raised some eyebrows. It was the rest of the Cavs' play when he wasn't out there. They looked good. As good as ... old.

"Um, I don't know if I would say that,'' Williams said. "But you had all guys out there who had played together for a while, and kind of know each other. Spots on the floor. I thought today we had a better flow, a good flow. But we had a flow with Shaq on the floor. He got involved in things under that rim and made plays. Made some good passes and we scored off them.''

Said James of the lineup that played best Friday: "We trust each other. We've been together, a nucleus with myself and Mo, Z and Andy [Varejao], for the most part, and Daniel. We know how to feed off each other. That kind of happened in the second quarter when the big fella got in foul trouble, that kind of cohesiveness that we've had in the past regained itself.''

The Cavaliers noticed early in training camp that blending new players into a winning formula was no snap. Anthony Parker, Jamario Moon and especially O'Neal required tinkering and tweaking what had worked before. It demanded patience, too, to build some new familiarity, that patience getting strained since the schedule turned hot Tuesday against Boston.

Like breaking in a pair of new shoes, sometimes the surest way to avoid blisters is to step out of them for a spell. That's what Cleveland, aided by the refs' whistles, did against the Wolves and, boy, did their dogs stop barking.

The offense virtually hummed with seasons bests of 24 assists and 12 turnovers compared to the 18 and 14.5 it averaged in the two defeats. You can't blame that on Shaq -- the Cavaliers had 10 assists and just three turnovers while he was on the floor, and he wound up with a solid plus-15 in not quite 19 minutes. Still, a guy touted as so vital to Cleveland's championship plans wasn't missed much when he sat. Flashing back to the Cavs circa 2008, in flow, raised the question: Would this team be better off without this dominator in decline?

"The one thing that those guys have is, they do have a familiarity with one another,'' Brown said. "[But Shaq] got our guys throughout the game a lot of great looks, because he's a guy who has to be double-teamed. I've just got to keep playing him minutes and he's going to work himself into great game shape.

"Then defensively, what he allowed us to do against Minnesota, with Al Jefferson, we're [previously] talking double-team right away. ... And we didn't have to double-team him at all tonight.''

All right, OK, we get it. Brown and the others are being very careful not to grumble about, object to or, heaven forbid, criticize O'Neal. Or general manager Danny Ferry's decision to acquire him. Or anyone else in the organization who might have been on board with the move. Maybe that's politics, maybe that's good team building. Maybe they're more sensible than so many fans, refusing to panic before the first pumpkin's been smashed.

Remember, Cleveland split it first two games last season, then lost again to start 1-2. After that, it won eight in a row, lost one, then strung together 11 more victories. You know for a fact that these Cavaliers can't do that?

"For anybody to look too [hard] at the first two games of the season, you can't do that,'' James said. "We play too many games in the NBA. It's like baseball, they play 165, 170 games a season. And like the Yankees, if they go 0-5 to start the season ... ''

Besides, it wouldn't do any good for the Cavaliers to throw O'Neal under the bus. The bus would lose.

Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA for 25 years. You can e-mail him here.

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