I hate to admit it, but King Kaufman is absolutely right this time. The Cavs should not have benched LeBron in the first quarter. King thinks this vindicates his assessment from the NCAA tournament, but I'm of the opinion that fouls and clock management are completely different in the NBA than they are in College.
As much of a laugher as the game was, the Cavs outscored San Antone 30-14 in the 4th quarter negating most of the enormous half time lead the Spurs had built. More importantly, after he returned in the 2nd quarter, James only had one foul for the remainder of the game, so foul trouble was never an issue. If Cleveland had let him play in the first and managed to keep the score close (instead of falling behind 28-17), it would have been a real ball game.
The real problem for the Cavs was the surprisingly poor play of big man Ilgauskas, the soccer-mad shenanigans of Varejao who seemed to spend most of his time flopping to the ground (and finished with 8 points and four personal fouls for his efforts), and the inability of Gibson to get going with his outside shooting (though he finished with a respectable 15 points).
Now the Cavs must win all 3 in Cleveland starting Tuesday night. They needed to do that anyway, so they should just stay the course and learn from their mistakes the way they did against Detroit. This thing isn't over yet, but it really will be if they lose at home.
