Attention Cavs Sidekicks, Feel Free to Show Up!

How does a team go from over-whelming favorites to trailing in a series? Easy, one player does not beat five. Right now, on both ends, Lebron has been the only advantage that Cleveland has against the Magic. He is the only player who is efficiently scoring, and he is the only player that can shut down the man he is defending. The Magic have been dominating the other 4 match ups on the court.

It's sad when Sasha Pavlovic is the best answer that the Cavs can come up with, because no one on Cleveland can defend Rashard Lewis or Hedo Turkoglu. Mike Brown is making a mistake by not assigning Lebron James to defend one of them instead of Rafer Alston. Anderson Varejao is not comfortable guarding Lewis, and Delonte West is too short to battle Hedo. We have not even mentioned the biggest mismatch of the series, Zydrunas Ilgauskas against Dwight Howard. Face it, the supporting cast of Lebron has to step it up on defense.

Also, the sidekicks have been a huge disappointment on offense. Mo Williams and Delonte West have been missing way too many open 3's. Lebron is the best passer in basketball, and when he drives the lane he finds ways to get them open looks. They have knocked those shots down during the regular season, but it is a different story in the playoffs. Instead, those two are taking difficult jumpers and are turning the ball over. If those two players don't become more consistent, Cleveland has no shot to win this series. Moving to Big Z, he should not take another 3 in this series. He only made 15 during the season, and every time he misses, the Magic get an easy fast break.

If I was Mike Brown, I would make a change to the starting 5. Joe Smith needs to start over either Zydrunas Ilgauskas, or Anderson Varejao. Smith is one of the few players on the Cavs that has a chance to defend Rashard Lewis. Therefore, Lebron can defend Hedo, and the Cavs have a lot fewer mismatches on the court. Also, it gives the Cavs the flexibility to switch on more of the screens. Big Z is just awful at defending the pick and roll, and Anderson Varejao isn't really giving the Cavs anything. One of them needs to come off the bench to let Joe Smith enter the starting lineup.

It looks like the Nuggets mental errors will prevent them from disrupting our dream matchup, but Orlando is not backing down from Cleveland. If the Cavs supporting cast continues to shrink from the big stage, and Mike Brown doesn't make adjustments, instead of having a Dream Final we will have a Disney Final.