Wizards work wonders in Game 2

By cutting off passing lanes, Washington denied a poor-shooting LeBron James an outlet.
By JOE SCALZO
VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF
CLEVELAND -- As the nation's reporters tripped over themselves praising Cleveland forward LeBron James following Saturday's victory against Washington, the Wizards gathered together and vowed the second game would be different.
"The playoffs are war and hell," said Wizards coach Eddie Jordan following Washington's 89-84 victory on Tuesday at Quicken Loans Arena. "We go to war and we give them hell."
The biggest beneficiary? James, who followed one of the best playoff debuts in playoff history with an absolute stinker. James, facing one-on-one coverage most of the night, shot just 7 of 25 from the field, turned the ball over 10 times (the Wizards had 11 as a team) and nearly fouled out down the stretch.
In short, he looked human -- something that hasn't happened much in the last month.
"I missed a lot of buckets, layups that I usually make," said James, who also had nine rebounds. "They did a great job of playing one-on-one defense and not helping."
Strategy works
Normally, that strategy is a recipe for disaster. Problem is, James prefers to create for his teammates. On Tuesday (unlike Saturday), the Wizards cut off James' passing lanes and vowed to stop the other Cavaliers from getting easy baskets.
It led to a lot of turnovers.
And his foul trouble led to a lot of jump shots.
"I was one rebound away from a triple-double," said James, who on Saturday became just the third player in NBA history to get a triple-double in his playoff debut. "Tonight, with 10 turnovers, I almost did it again."
James smiled. The reporters laughed.
It was a reminder that this was just one game.
"It's a dog-fight now," James said. "A series isn't won in two games. Just because we won Game One doesn't mean the series is over. Just because they won Game Two doesn't mean they're gonna win."
Wizards All-Star Gilbert Arenas played much better on Tuesday than he did Saturday, scoring a game-high 30 points to go along with six rebounds, six assists, four steals and just two turnovers.
Time to study film
"We had two days to watch the film and we saw how we played," Arenas said. "As well as they played, we just destroyed ourselves."
Arenas made two of the game's biggest plays in the final minutes.
The first came with 1:34 left in the fourth when James tried to save the ball from going out of bounds under the Cavs basket. He got tied up with center Zydrunas Ilgauskas and threw the ball right to Arenas, who made the shot and was fouled by Eric Snow for a three-point play to give Washington an 85-78 lead.
The second big play was just as costly. Cleveland trimmed the lead to three (87-84) and had a chance to tie it with 20 seconds left. James had the ball at the top of the key, got double-teamed and found Anderson Varejao wide open under the basket. Problem was, Arenas doubled back from the weak side and stripped Varejao.
That effectively ended the Cavs' comeback.
"I was going to try and strip it and if I didn't, I was going to foul [Varejao]," Arenas said. "LeBron threw a great pass and if I wasn't there, it would have been a great play."
Overshadowed
The loss overshadowed a wonderful game by Cavs forward Drew Gooden, who had playoff career-highs of 24 points and 16 rebounds on 11 of 12 shooting. It was his sixth playoff double-double.
"Drew played a heck of a game tonight," James said. "We're going to need that again Friday."
The series resumes at 8 p.m. Friday at the Verizon Center in Washington. The Wizards will likely keep up their physical style of play for rest of the series and Cleveland must find a way to solve Washington's defense -- and its own playoff inexperience -- if it wants to regain home court advantage.
"I don't want to say [Tuesday's game] was a wake-up call," James said. "If we haven't woke up by today, we're not going to.
"The playoffs are all about bouncing back. That's what we have to do."
scalzo@vindy.com