San Antonio — The Cleveland Cavaliers insist there is more to their offense than LeBron James.
So on a night when James couldn't shoot, Thursday would have been a good time for them to prove it.
It didn't happen until it was too late to matter.
The Cavaliers wasted a decent defensive effort with a woeful offensive one in an 85-76 loss to the San Antonio Spurs in Game 1 of the NBA finals.
James' 4-for-16 night was far from the only ugly mark in the Cavs' portion of the box score. Zydrunas Ilgauskas was 1-of-8, Larry Hughes was 1-for-5, and Cleveland was shooting under 40 percent deep into the game.
"I don't think any of us looked particularly good," Ilgauskas said. "Not a great game for us. You've got to give them credit. They took us out of our sets. They made us take tough shots. Even the layups we tried to get they contested. There were no easy layups."
The Cavs put five players in double figures, but four of them - including James - didn't get there until the fourth quarter, when the game was essentially over. Cleveland didn't even reach the 70-point mark until the final two minutes.
They started to hit their shots in the final quarter, when they scored 27 points to make it respectable.
And they hope that gives them a boost heading into Game 2 on Sunday night.
"You have one off night, but the thing like this is it's not like the NCAA Tournament, where you have one bad game and you're out," James said. "We've got to regroup and be ready for Game 2."
Comments
Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.
Commenting has been disabled for this item.