Encouraging

As the final period dawned last night in Seattle, things appeared pretty hopeless for our boys. They were down 17, and playing without Mr. Fourth Quarter, who had sprained his ankle Wednesday in Portland. And of course, they were also without Sasha Pavlovic and Anderson Varejao; not superstars, but nice weapons to have. So that meant guys like Shannon Brown, the Jones boys and Ira Newble would have to key the comeback, along with regulars Big Z, Boobie and Hughes. It would have been easy for those guys to pack it in and save their energy for Saturday's game against the Clippers. But they didn't do that.

The Cavs outscored the Sonics 27-16 in that fourth quarter, and got within three points with 2:50 to go, after Z hit two free throws. That was as close as they'd get, as they missed shots on each of their next three trips to the offensive end, and failed to get any offensive rebounds. That's a bit disappointing, but you know, they were all good shots to take. Hughes missed an 8-foot jumper, Ilgauskas missed a short turnaround, and Damon Jones missed a three. By that point, it was near-desperation time, as our guys had failed to get any defensive stops in the meantime, and we were down nine with 1:16 to go. I think they just ran out of juice, which is understandable, considering how short-handed they were. They nevertheless managed to cut it to four after a Dwayne Jones layup, a Boobie Gibson three-pointer and a Larry Hughes lay-in. Had Boobie not been called for charging while hitting a shot with 8 seconds left, it would have been 99-97, and a quick foul on the inbounds could have kept us in it. But it was a good call; the defender clearly had his feet set, and was outside the circle.

I can't help but notice that all of this happened with Drew Gooden on the bench. In fact, three of the men who started the game wound up playing fewer than 20 minutes. Gooden and Newble each played 19, and Devin Brown, starting for LeBron, played nine. But Newble was in there in the waning seconds. Where was Gooden? He came out halfway through the third period, and never got back in. I'm not necessarily criticizing Mike Brown; Gooden's 19 minutes had been fairly uninspired, but he did put in 10 points on 3-of-8 shooting, but with just three rebounds. You'd like to see a better effort on the glass from your starting power forward. He also committed three turnovers and three fouls. This is the guy we got to make up for losing Carlos Liar, but unfortunately, he's a pretty pale imitation. He's a better man than Boozer, to be sure (not that that's saying much), but if he can't contribute in the fourth quarter of a close game with three key players hurt, I don't think the club's getting its money's worth.

Regardless, it was a good effort by our scrubs, and I'm proud of them, even though they fell short.

On a side note, the game had one of those "Did I really see that?" moments. Donyell Marshall, getting into his first game since Nov. 2 due to wrist and finger injuries, got sent in for Boobie with 2:35 left in the first quarter. He pulled off his warm-up jersey ... and his game jersey came off with it. I don't think he noticed right away; he was walking onto the floor in some sort of blue tighty underwear thing before someone pointed out to him that his number wasn't showing. He looked pretty ridiculous, and you could see he was embarrassed. But he laughed about it later.