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No one know more about losing a franchise more than Cleveland sports fans. Seattle fans are going through the same thing since the league approved the sale of the team to Clay Bennett, an Oklahoman whose idea from the beginning was to ensure Seattle’s failure to upgrade or replace Key Arena and then move the team to Oklahoma City.

The Sonics are to Seattle what the Browns are to Cleveland. Forty one year history is hard to replace and the NBA will not approve the addition or the replacement of the Sonics anytime soon. Not in three years like the Browns.

There is a petition that was created by Cavaliers fans urging Dan Gilbert to stop this. You can sign the petition and help Sonics fans keep their forty one of history in Seattle where it belongs.

You can read more about this issue here.

Sasha Pavlovic injured his left ankle in the third quarter of Monday night’s 91-90 win at Philadelphia.

He underwent an MRI this morning at The Cleveland Clinic which confirmed the ankle injury.

He’s expected to miss two to three weeks.

For the third straight year, the Cavaliers will face Washington Wizards in the first round of the playoffs. Unlike last season where the Wizards batteled with injuries during the playoffs, this time everyone is healthy on their team.

With a Cavaliers win tonight over the 76ers or Wednesday against the Pistons, the Cavaliers will have homecourt advantage.

“Yay, that is so fun, I am excited,” James said with heavy sarcasm. “I wanted to play somebody else, but if we have to play somebody, I’m glad it is Washington.”

Trash talk time

“This is the third straight year of trash talk,” James said. “I’ll read the clippings and it’ll help me get some more gas under my belt.”

After getting swept by the Spurs in the NBA finals last season, the Cavaliers, from coach Mike Brown all the way up to management realized that Lebron need help on the offensive end.

The idea behind the new offense installed by Mike Brown during training camp was to get the ball out of James’ hands in an effort to make everyone more effective and efficient and increase movement by having plays that kept the defense from being able to tilt toward James.

That idea failed for many reasons. The Cavaliers didn’t have a complete roster for most of the season because of injuries, contract holdouts, and finally the big trade.

“Much of the blame can be put at Brown’s feet.” Brian Windhorst said in today’s article. “He is responsible for getting the team to run the system. A defensive coach at heart, and a good one at that, he has refused to allow anyone to run the offense but himself since he was a rookie head coach, even when it was clear it was his weakness.”
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Having a super star in Lebron James can also be a problem. Just look at Kobe and how people kept saying he’s a selfish player who never got his teammates involved. But he decided to change his attitude this season and trust his teammates and now the Lakers are on top of the Western conference.

But that is not the case with Lebron. He has always trusted his teammates and his style was to pass first then shoot. Media and fans criticized him so many times for passing the ball to a wide open teammates who couldn’t make a wide open shot. A perfect example was game two of the Eastern conference last season when he passed the ball to Donyell Marshall instead of taking the shot himself.

But you can also blame the Cavaliers offense failure on Lebron, “Ultimately, he is the one who stops the ball, the one who dribbles on the outside, where he is so much easier to guard, the one who sets the tone for his teammates.” Windhorst said.

In few days, James will get his scoring title and will be the first Cavaliers in history to win the NBA scoring title but the Cavs will have significantly fewer wins than a year ago and that will put a damper on the party.

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The Cavaliers played one quarter last night in their loss to the Bulls. Actually Lebron only played one quarter and the rest of the Cavaliers were cheerleading Lebron scoring 24 points in first quarter.

Lebron James finished the game with 34 points after his amazing 24 points, (10 of 10 shooting) in the first quarter. James ended up making 3-of-11 shots the rest of the game.

“LeBron got hot, he had whatever he had in the first quarter, and then everybody stood and watched,” Brown said. ”We have to get some movement to generate something offensively.”

“The defeat came packaged with several lessons that already should have been learned. First, having a LeBron James-dominated offense doesn’t always work. Second, when the Cavs don’t play defense, they really don’t give themselves much of a chance to win.” Brian Windhorst said.

Luckily the loss didn’t impact the Cavaliers standings because the Wizards lost to Detroit and the 76ers lost to Indiana. The Cavaliers still lead the No. 4 spot by two games.

”I am embarrassed with the way we played as a team throughout the game,” said Cavs coach Mike Brown as his team dropped to 43-36. ”Something’s got to change for us to go into the playoffs the right way. Because right now we will get our behinds kicked if we are not focused and not trying to play the right way.”

Wally Szczerbiak and Daniel Gibson were a combined 1-for-11 on Friday night. Szczerbiak canned an 18-footer in the fourth quarter and Gibson was scoreless on the night, coming up empty on six attempts.

Chicago took the season series against the Cavaliers, 3-1 – the first time they’ve won the season series against the Cavaliers since 2002-03.

The Sixers’ Archie Clark was the last person to make 10 field goals in the first quarter against the Bulls. He did so in 1969. LeBron’s 10 makes ties a United Center record for field goal makes in a quarter – held by New York’s Jamal Crawford – and his 24 points falls one point shy of the mark held by Jalen Rose, who dropped 25 points on the Pacers in the fourth period in 2002.
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Damon Jones was the only Cavalier player on the active roster that didn’t see any  playing time in last nights 104-83 victory over the visiting New Jersey Nets.  I understand that Mike Brown needs to tighten his rotation but this has to be hard on DJ.  I am not one of his biggest fans but I have to admit that he helped the team this year and was shooting well from the field.  The Cavaliers were looking as though they were heading for a major loss until they managed to turn things on in the third quarter.  Boobie ran the floor well and the scoring was well balanced with LeBron leading the pack with 33, followed by Wally with 14, Z with 13 and Delonte and Boobie both adding 12 points.  For quotes from the game see below.
HEAD COACH MIKE BROWN
(On the game as a whole):
“In the second half I thought our sense of urgency picked up. It’s evident by our offensive rebounds in the second half. It’s evident by them getting zero fast break points in the second half. There were a lot of things that we did in that second half with a sense of urgency as a group, and it started defensively. When our defense picked up, everything else kind of picked up after that.”
(On the team):
“Daniel was big for us. Wally was big for us off the bench. Daniel came in and he gave us a big boost, as well as Andy early in the third quarter. Daniel gave us a big boost by tracking down long rebounds and loose balls, and looking to push the tempo to get us an easy basket once and awhile.”
(On LeBron James’ back):
“It’s one of those situations where we need to monitor his minutes and try to get him as much rest as we can throughout the course of the game. For him to play 35 minutes is great. If we can keep it around there, maybe under 38 (minutes), then that will help him out.”
(On Daniel Gibson improving):
“In the last game he started to look like himself a little bit. I thought he had a terrific practice yesterday. You can just see him today take another step forward in his overall play. That’s the fastest and hardest he’s pushed the ball.”

LEBRON JAMES
(On staying in the game late despite back pains):
“Right now we’re a team where we need to catch a groove. Me sitting out is not going to help that. I felt good enough where I knew I could be effective tonight. I tried to play well and try to get us into a groove. ”
(On the bench play tonight):
“Those guys really stepped up. I think Daniel (Gibson) did a great job of controlling the second unit. He got Joe (Smith) a dunk, got Wally (Szczerbiak) two jumpers, got himself a layup. The second unit really played well tonight.”
(On whether back spasms has limited his performance):
“When I’m out on the court, I’m going to play. I’m going to do what I have to do to help us win. I didn’t feel 100 percent but I felt that I could do everything in my arsenal that needs to be done for us to win.”
(On the second half defense):
“That’s what helped us. We didn’t start out the half really well… We didn’t come out in the third quarter like we knew we could defensively. But we locked down in the second [part] of the third quarter and the whole fourth (quarter). To give up nine points is pretty impressive.”
(On the overall team play):
“When we defend and make shots, we’re hard to beat. We played 10, 11 guys tonight and everybody played well and, for the most part, everybody had a significant role in our win tonight. It was the first glimpse that I’ve seen our whole lineup and the whole unit really click at the same time.”
(On the team’s depth):
“We have a lot of depth. We just need to figure out how guys want to play with each other… The second unit really looked good and the first unit came in and finished the game.”
(On the win):
“We needed this win. We had a three-game road stand where we played pretty well, but we lost the first two. To beat a team that has really beat up on us the whole year, it was impressive. Defensively, I know it made Coach Brown happy. It makes us happy. The offense is easy when you can defend like that.”
(On the few days of rest prior to tonight’s game):
“A few days off from practice really helped me. The training staff has done a great job at helping me regain the strength that I need to get back to playing at the high level I’m at.”

WALLY SZCZERBIAK
(On why the bench played well tonight):
“Getting comfortable in spots in the offense and when to be aggressive. It helps to get some buckets in transition when we can push the ball and take advantage of the crowd and take advantage of our defense and get stops and rebounds and getting easy buckets on the other end, especially at home. With the athletes and the energy we can bring off the bench and with the starting unit, that can really get teams back on their heels.”
(On his play tonight):
“The last three or four games I’ve been playing pretty well. I just try not to get down when a few shots don’t go down. Instead I try to stay aggressive and do some other things; do some rebounding and play defense. Tonight I was able to do a good job on Vince (Carter). He’s a helluva player and he had it going for a little bit but with the help from my teammates, I was able to help slow him down a little.”
(On LeBron playing hurt):
“He just comes out here and plays the game at such an even tempo. He just lets the game come to him and it doesn’t even look like he is exerting himself very hard. He made all of his teammates better and this was a big win for us. He got into the team a little bit at the beginning of the third quarter, when we got down by 12-14 points and said ‘We better step it up guys. It’s put up or shut up time.’ From there on out the team stepped on up and hopefully this can springboard us to a few more wins and then the playoffs.”

DANIEL GIBSON
(On tonight’s game):
“Fun. That’s the key word, fun. That’s what I’ve been waiting to try to bring and try to get out there and smile and get out there and push the ball and get some open looks and have fun. That’s when we play our best, when everyone is out there running and getting touches and scoring the ball.”
(On what his play tonight will do for him):
“I think it can really start to help my confidence, as far as in my legs. I’ve never had an injury like this but I’ve heard about it. I know that sometimes you get hesitant when doing different things and it takes away from your game. Once you regain that confidence, it’s all downhill from there. I think that a game like tonight will give me the confidence to know that I can push the ball, know I can get to the paint and know I am capable of still doing some of those same things I did before I was injured.”

HEAD COACH LAWRENCE FRANK
(On the game’s turnaround):
“One was their ability to get into the paint offensively. Between transition defense, LeBron’s pick and roll attack, we went a little bit dry, then we had four shots, dunks or layups, that didn’t go our way. There were no calls and they came back and hit either perimeter shots or they got to the free throw line. It was one heck of a swing. Then, to go totally dry in the fourth quarter because we came out great with great intent. Then, a little bit of us going dry offensively, a little bit getting unlucky, not finishing shots at the rim, maybe sometimes not getting the benefit of a whistle at times on some paint attacks. Then, defensively, we just had a hard time with LeBron who took over the game.”
(On the 4th quarter):
“We tried to regain our poise, but one little run to get back and that just kept on going. We couldn’t buy a field goal and we couldn’t get a stop. That was a 35-point swing.”
(On the Nets):
“We couldn’t weather going very, very dry offensively. It just wasn’t our bench, we just had a hard time making shots. And, you look at the points in the paint, and there’s a huge disparity in the points in the paint, which is a plus 20 for them (Cavs).”
(On Nets playoff picture):
“”I have no doubt that we are going to keep on playing. We’re disappointed we lost, obviously, a team like Cleveland, that has one of the best players in the league, is going to make a run. But, you can’t hang your head. It’s part of the job of being a professional. We’ve got to bounce back, we’ll watch some tape tomorrow, and then we’ve got a back to back coming up.”

BOSTJAN NACHBAR
(On game turnaround):
“We definitely had some bad moments in there. I think, defensively, they were forcing things. When we had ball movement, we were great. Once we stopped doing that, we missed some shots. Guys, who were driving the ball, it was just unfortunate not to get those calls because those calls could slow down the game and it would have been to our advantage, getting us to the line and those free throws, instead of us having two or three guys going to the boards. They (Cavs) would get the rebound and go. I think that was definitely a game-changing moment right there.”

VINCE CARTER
(On Nets missing last 19 field goals and 1-20 FG in 4th quarter):
“It was tough. But, I liked everybody’s aggressiveness, trying to get to the basket and get ourselves to the free throw line. We weren’t hitting shots, and we were just trying to get to the basket. It’s tough when you’re not hitting shots, not making layups and calls we felt we should have gotten, we werent’ getting. It was just triple threat negative.”
(On what happened after Nets led by 14 points, 65-51, in 3rd quarter):
“They started hitting shots and they started getting fouled, getting to the line with the clock stopped, giving themselves a chance. We weren’t converting on the other end. Our transition defense was a little suspect in the second half.”
(On Nets scoring 4 points in paint in the 2nd half):
“You have to give them credit. They do a great job of clogging the paint and making it tough for you if you are going to go in there. You have to find a way to finish or get a foul, and we weren’t finding a way to finish and we weren’t getting the foul. So, you have to credit them. The effort was there. Guys were being aggressive and getting to the basket. ”

RICHARD JEFFERSON
(On what happened when game turned around in Cavs favor):
“They kept attacking and we couldn’t get the benefit of too many calls. They continued hitting shots and we just couldn’t get a break.”
DEVIN HARRIS
(On game’s turnaround):
“It was tough. We felt like we had control of this game and we gave up a lead in the third (quarter) and didn’t have enough momentum to finish the game. We played great in the first half and we were solid in the third, then we just kind of lost our way for a little bit, and it’s tough to come back from that.”