NBA teams
Brian Windhorst, ESPN Senior Writer 9y

Cavs fall flat in LeBron's return

NBA, Cleveland Cavaliers

CLEVELAND -- Wearing a Pharrell Williams-style hat, LeBron James worked the receiving line outside the Cleveland Cavaliers locker room for more than a half hour late Thursday night.

It was deep, too: Lots of VIPs had flown in or been invited, and James gave his coveted face time to family members, business associates and friends-of-the program types. There was a plane to Chicago but no need to catch it. It was going to wait for him.

It was the final scene of what felt like a wedding day, an over-the-top extravagance that most everyone rationalizes by adding once-in-a-lifetime tags. OK, so sometimes it's twice in a lifetime. The Cavs, for example, celebrated their second marriage to James by buying a scoreboard and 3D floor projection system that cost them about as much as the $21 million they're paying James this season. They even gave all the fans packets of confetti to mimic James' freshly returned chalk toss, adding to the theme.

Ultimately, marital success isn't determined by just the wedding day, and nor will it be for the Cavs after they were outplayed by the New York Knicks in a 95-90 loss. Leave it to the Knicks to steal the show when they weren't getting proper attention, which is rarely the case.

The emotion that poured out from the fans was predictable but still poignant. From the crowd standing throughout during warm-ups to everyone raising their hands to fit into a well-executed and well-placed Nike ad just before tipoff, it was everything everyone figured it would be. Despite the thousands of dollars some of the tickets went for on the secondary market for this game, had they just cleared out the arena after the tension release of James' introduction, there might not have been too many complaints. Everyone got what they wanted.

That explains why the game felt a little unnatural, and not just because the Knicks, who were embarrassed the night before in their home opener by the Chicago Bulls, actually looked like the better team for the bulk of the final three quarters. It was such an outlier because of the overwhelming force of James' return that it sort of ruled the game invalid.

This is one of the reasons James was so relaxed after what was pretty poor performance. He certainly embraced and encouraged this event. There were promotional campaigns and social media strategies. He was a part of trying to take advantage of the moment, but he also recognized it was somewhat absurd in terms of what it did to his game and to his team.

"It was exciting for the fans, exciting for the city, but now we can play regular basketball," James said. "It was trying to focus as much as I could. It was a special night for not only myself, but for everybody."

He missed eight of his first nine shots and committed eight turnovers, a groan-worthy number. Cavs fans, who were perhaps incited to a bit of panic after his disjointed 17-point game, should realize that James had eight turnovers in his Miami Heat debut in 2010 against the Boston Celtics. That performance didn't portend four straight Finals runs.

Overall, the Cavs were surprisingly disorganized. They allowed the Knicks to shoot 54 percent, and Carmelo Anthony was easily the best player on the floor, scoring 25 points on 17 shots. But those defensive issues were expected to a degree. It's not the team's strong suit.

Offensively, where the Cavs are expected to break records, they oftentimes turned into a mess with periods of too much passing and then no passing or movement.

"It was something we had to get over with," said Kevin Love, who had his first double-double as a Cav, with 19 points and 14 rebounds. "Just get it out of the way."

David Blatt, who was coaching his first real NBA game even if there was nothing typical about this scene, wasn't able to quickly fix the issues. He also seemed to forget about his bench, playing Shawn Marion just 10 minutes and Mike Miller just three. It's not surprising that neither did anything and were both a little mystified by how Blatt used them. So it wasn't his finest night either.

In short, after that stirring 10 minutes everyone had looked forward to for months in Cleveland, the rest of the night could be shoved into the trash for the NBA's newest "it" team. With a four-game road trip starting and the next two games against the Bulls and Portland Trail Blazers, whiffing on a chance to smack the less-talented Knicks when they were on a back-to-back might come back to sting them over the next few days.

And if the Cavs continue to play as they did Thursday -- they were outscored 44-12 in bench points and gave up 26 points off 19 turnovers, two of the more illustrative issues -- they will probably have to deal with some of that adversity that James has been not so boldly predicting for the recently assembled team.

Before getting too far ahead, it might be more prudent to see how the Cavs play when they're not wound up before a game like children on Halloween to properly evaluate them. Perhaps even the upcoming set of games will be good for James. He said that his newborn baby girl, Zhuri, contributed to the unease of the game. At least when he's on the road, he might sleep better.

"This was great," James said. "But I'm glad it's over."

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