i really like the gameplan. we've got talented offensive players all around, so we focused rip on defending james up close and physical and not worry about his offense, while giving tay a break and eliminating pavlovic as any sort of threat, since there's no way he can beat tay. afflalo continued it and did a good job. as long as we stay up in lebron's face we can throw him off, even at the cost of some early foul trouble or less offense from rip. you saw that lbj checked out of the game before too long.

i like pairing theo and max. varejao, as much as i dislike him, is a force when offensive rebounding, so it's good to have theo, max, and dice to stay physical with him. stuckey continues to get his hands on loose balls (har har) and has a much better leaping ability than i thought. would a 6' guard block one of wally's shots? no, but stuckey at 6'5" could, and did.

i think the key here was that we just beat the cavs up physically (and thankfully the refs let both teams play), while pushing the ball and forcing cleveland to react to us and defend in transition, which they are terrible at. the other key was doing to their guards what they try to do to chauncey...force them to work just to get the ball up the court, challenge them defensively, and take the ball out of lbj's hands.

great game all around.