Cavaliers-Bobcats Preview

By KATE HEDLIN
Posted Jan 15 2012 9:05PM

The Cleveland Cavaliers won't return from a seven-game road trip with a winning record, but they feel strides have been made.

The Cavaliers close the trip looking for a third victory when they visit the Charlotte Bobcats on Monday afternoon.

Cleveland is 2-4 on its longest road trip of the season, having defeated Minnesota and Phoenix while showing some positive signs in competitive losses to Utah and the Los Angeles Lakers.

After falling behind by 19 points Friday at Staples Center, Cleveland (5-6) pulled within three in the fourth quarter. In the end, though, it had no answer for Kobe Bryant, who finished with 42 points in the Lakers' 97-92 win.

"It shows a lot about the character of our team," forward Omri Casspi said of his team's comeback attempt. "We didn't let it get out of hand. We just wanted to keep our composure, keep playing defense and share the ball on offense, and we knew good things would happen for us. Our guys kept fighting, but in the last four minutes, they had a big run."

The Cavaliers' competitiveness has largely been due to Kyrie Irving. The rookie has scored at least 20 points in four straight games while shooting 54.7 percent. He leads all rookies with 17.0 points per game and his 5.1 assists are second behind Minnesota's Ricky Rubio.

Cleveland will try to return home with a .500 overall record, and more importantly, with some extra road confidence.

"A lot of teams would take that," forward Antawn Jamison said of the possibility of a 3-4 trip. "For us, we want to finish the road trip on a winning note and mature and learn from it."

The Bobcats (3-10) haven't had much success anywhere this season, but they snapped a six-game skid with a 112-100 win over Golden State on Saturday.

Rookie Kemba Walker made his first NBA start in place of benched veteran Boris Diaw, who had started a franchise-record 235 straight games but had scored just three points in the previous two games.

Walker scored a season-high 23 points and added four rebounds, five assists and two steals. Gerald Henderson had 26 points and six rebounds.

The Bobcats averaged 82.0 points the previous six games, but with Walker starting, they played effectively with a smaller lineup, shooting 50 percent and going 7 of 13 from 3-point range.

"Oh boy, it was just wonderful tonight to see the guys just play and just run the court," coach Paul Silas said. "We were talking about running and they did it tonight. A little change I thought really helped that, putting Kemba in.

"I think time is the key to life and it was the right time for him to get in there and he's ready. He's played like 11 or 12 games so far and he was ready."

Walker, the ninth overall pick in the 2011 draft, is averaging 11.1 points.

The Cavaliers have won their last two games against the Bobcats after Irving led the way with 20 points in a 115-101 victory Jan. 3 in Cleveland. They have, however, dropped four in a row in Charlotte.

Irving's 25 points lead Cavs past Bobcats, 102-94

By STEVE REED
Posted Jan 17 2012 1:27AM

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) Rookie Kyrie Irving is making the transition from college to the NBA look pretty easy even though he insists it's not.

The No. 1 pick in the draft continues to produce big numbers, scoring 25 points and adding seven assists Monday to lead the Cleveland Cavaliers to a 102-94 win over the Charlotte Bobcats. The Cavaliers finished their longest road trip of the season with a 3-4 record.

"It hasn't been easy," said Irving, who came into the game averaging 17 points and 5.1 assists per game. "I mean it's gone pretty well, but it's definitely not easy. The back-to-back games and the travel, I mean, it's not an excuse, but it's something I'm trying to get used to."

Irving called the transition to pro ball "an ongoing process."

"Every single day you try to learn something new," Irving said. "It's not easy but I'm enjoying this process and that's the most important thing for me."

Bobcats coach Paul Silas has been impressed, saying Irving is pretty good now but will be "awesome" in a couple of years once he learns the ins and outs of the NBA game.

Irving has now scored 45 points in his two games against the Bobcats.

"He's going to be terrific," said Silas. "He understands the game. He penetrates to the hoop. He can shoot the basketball."

The Bobcats led 94-93 with less than two minutes to play, but the Cavaliers closed out the game by scoring the final nine points, getting a pair of key inside baskets from Anderson Varejao, who finished with 14 points and 12 rebounds.

The Bobcats simply couldn't hit a shot down the stretch, much like most of the second half.

Antawn Jamison added 20 points and seven rebounds for the Cavs, who returned to .500 on the season at 6-6.

Omri Casspi played a big role in Cleveland's second half comeback with 14 points and seven rebounds with most of his damage coming in the third quarter.

D.J. Augustin was on fire early for Charlotte, scoring 19 points and handing out six assists in the first half. But he was held to five points in the second half as Irving and others stepped up their defense.

"Like I told them before the game, if we're going to win this game, one thing we have to do is guard," Cavaliers coach Byron Scott said. "If we guard, we'll win the game. The second half, they got 37 points, so we did a great job."

The Bobcats (3-11) led 57-46 at halftime after shooting a blistering 59.5 percent from the field. Together, Augustin and Charlotte's reserves were a combined 18 of 22 from the field in the first half. Derrick Brown and D.J. White were both 4 of 4 from the floor as the Bobcats built a nine-point lead.

However, as hot as the Bobcats were in the first half, they were just as cold in the second, shooting 29.5 percent.

They didn't do much better from the free throw line, converting just 14 of 26 for the game.

"It was a tough one because we did come out with energy in the first half," said Bobcats forward Gerald Henderson, who had 17 points. "You need to continue that at the start of the third quarter and we didn't have that great of a third and quarter and that led into the fourth. And we just couldn't come up with the plays."

Silas said as a young team the Bobcats still need to make winning plays.

"I think that kind of hits it right on the head," Henderson said. "When you get in late game situations like that you really have to be sharp and very precise on defense and offense. That's what winning plays are. We won't win until we learn how to do those things on a consistent basis."

The Cavs shot 48.8 percent from the field and pushed their offense into overdrive in the third quarter against the league's worst defense. The Bobcats came in surrendering 102.2 points per game.

The Bobcats are now 1-1 since turning to the "small ball" lineup of Augustin and Kemba Walker in the backcourt.

They've averaged 103 points since Walker replaced Boris Diaw in the lineup after averaging 89 points per game in their first dozen games. After scoring a career-high 23 points in his first start Saturday against Golden State, Walker cooled off against the Cavs, scoring just 14 points on 6 of 21 shooting.

The Cavaliers rebounded from the nine-point deficit in the third quarter, getting a boost from Casspi and Alonzo Gee, who had a driving dunk on the baseline and a 3-pointer on back-to-back possessions to tie the game at 77 near the end of the third quarter.

Scott called Cleveland's road trip a success.

"I'm not surprised that we competed every night," Scott said. "I told the guys that if we can come off this 7-game trip with three wins, it'd be pretty good. And we did that. And we had some other close ones, so the road trip pretty much was a success."

Cavs starting guard Anthony Parker played less than 10 minutes before leaving with a sore lower back. He took only one shot and did not score.

NOTES: Paul Silas talked Monday about how when he was an NBA player he had a chance to meet Martin Luther King Jr. and get his autograph. However, Silas laments that he long ago misplaced the autograph and doesn't know where it's gone. ... Byron Mullens came into the game averaging 18.5 points per game over his previous four games. ... In his first 83 games, Gerald Henderson averaged just 4.3 points per game, but has averaged 14.5 in the 42 games since.

Notebook: Cavaliers 102, Bobcats 94

By Derek S. Smith, for NBA.com
Posted Monday January 16, 2012 5:42PM

THE FACTS: Kyrie Irving made his return to North Carolina in style. The former Duke player scored 25 points and added seven assists to lead the Cleveland Cavaliers to a 102-94 come-from-behind win over the Charlotte Bobcats Monday afternoon at Time Warner Cable Arena. The Cavs improve to 6-6 overall while the Bobcats fall to 3-11. D.J. Augustin led the Bobcats with 24 who now hit the road for nine of their next 11.

QUOTABLE: "I said if we're going to win this game guys we're going to have to guard. If we guard, we'll win the game. We'll have an opportunity to score, but we have to do a better job of defending. In the second half they only got 37 points. We did an excellent job with that."
-- Cleveland coach Byron Scott

THE STAT: Free Throws. The Bobcats have shot well all season long at the charity stripe, but today when it counted the team faltered. Charlotte was shooting 76.8 percentage percent from the line but connected on only 53.8 percent of its 26 attempts while the Cavs went to the line 29 times and made 20 of their chances.

TURNING POINT: Shot clock violation. The Bobcats had almost stolen the momentum back from the Cavaliers when Byron Mullens fumbled a pass from D.J. White underneath the basket which resulted in a 24-second shot clock violation. Cleveland scored again to go up three and would close the game on a 7-0 run after that Bobcats turnover.

HOT: Charlotte native Antawn Jamison scored 20 points and grabbed seven rebounds for the Cavaliers Monday afternoon, but was most effective in the second half. Jamison scored 11 of his points and grabbed five of his rebounds while shooting five-for-seven from the floor to help Cleveland outscore Charlotte 56-37 in the final 24 minutes of action.

NOT: Kemba Walker. The Bobcats rookie guard struggled in his second career start. Walker scored 14 points, but it took 21 shots for him to connect on six field goals. He was one-for-four from behind the arc and made just one-of-two from the line.

INSIDE THE ARENA: The Bobcats played the full version of the "I Have A Dream" speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from 1963 on Bobcats TV.

ROOKIE WATCH: Irving was unstoppable again for Cleveland. The number one pick netted 25 points and scored in double figures for the fifth consecutive game. He's averaging 22.2 points in his last five games. He added a career-best seven assists. Charlotte's Bismack Biyombo was his first DNP-CD of the season.

NOTABLE: Anthony Parker left the game in the second quarter with a sore lower back and did not return for Cleveland ... Jamison scored 20-plus points for the fifth time this season ... Anderson Varejao scored in double figures for the seventh time this season ... Ramon Sessions had a season-best nine assists ... Charlotte guard Kemba Walker recorded career highs with four steals and two blocked shots and hit double figures for the eighth time ... Gerald Henderson was in double figures for the tenth time on the season ... Mullens grabbed a career-best 12 rebounds.

UP NEXT: For the Cavaliers, Tuesday vs. Golden State, Friday vs. Chicago, Saturday at Atlanta. For the Bobcats, Tuesday @ Orlando, Saturday @ Chicago, Sunday @ New Jersey.

• Cavaliers: Eyenga, Thompson
• Bobcats: Najera, Williams

• Cavaliers: --
• Bobcats: --

• Lead Changes: 7
• Times Tied: 6

• Arena: Time Warner Cable Arena, Charlotte, NC
• Officials: #13 Monty McCutchen, #40 Leon Wood, #66 Haywoode Workman
• Attendance: 14988
• Duration: 2:14