Some post-game thoughts (Cavs edition)

Here goes:

• Decent effort tonight by the Blazers.  Most nights they win with that effort. 
• Only Lebron gets away with a goal-tend that blatant in a key moment of a game.  
• To all of you who insist Steve Blake is a bad defender, were you watching tonight?  Blake was almost always in the right spot on defense and he actually did a much better job defending Lebron straight-up than anyone else, including Webster and Roy.  Blake's problem is offense, not defense.
• And his offense really is a problem. Blake played 36 minutes tonight and had zero points. Between Przybilla and Blake, we have two starters who are essentially producing nothing on the offensive end.   You can't win that way.  We need more Miller and Bayless, less Blake.
• The absence of Greg Oden is being felt in a number of ways, one of which is defending the pick and roll.  Both Przybilla and Aldridge are mediocre pick-and-roll defenders.  Tonight they made Williams and Varejao look like Stockton and Malone. Neither Aldridge nor Przybilla knows how to show without switching or letting the screener roll past them. It's embarrassing to give up so many easy buckets to Anderson Varejao, one of the more limited offensive players in the league.  
• The other major area where Oden's absence is being felt is on the glass.  The Blazers got out-rebounded 40 to 30 tonight.  LaMarcus Aldridge had 2 rebounds in 36 minutes.  Juwan Howard had 1 rebound in 16 minutes.  Martell Webster had 4 rebounds in 35 minutes.  With Oden out, these guys have to step up on the boards.  They definitely did not tonight. 
• The Blazers also got outscored 52-28 in the paint.   That's not good.   
• It was sad to see Jerryd Bayless get only 8 minutes of run in a game where only 9 players suited up.  In addition to Blake, Bayless probably should have gotten some of Martell's minutes tonight.  Martell was hot in the first quarter, but he couldn't hit anything after that.  And he really wasn't contributing anything on defense. 
  
• LaMarcus Aldridge's three at the end of the game makes him 4 for 6 from 3-point range for the season (67%).  While that's obviously a small sample size, it suggests to me that maybe he's ready to start shooting more threes.  With both Rudy and Outlaw out, we need more three point shooters.  Maybe Aldridge can pull a Channing Frye and start raining threes on an unsuspecting league.  It's worth a shot.