Cavaliers back home against Bobcats

Cleveland might be without forward Anderson Varejao who is injured.

GATEHOUSE NEWS SERVICE

They appear to do it with mirrors some nights, winning NBA games with the magic of LeBron James and not much else.

But the mirror cracks once in a while for the Cavaliers, when they turn extra ugly.

So, two nights after some awful stretches of basketball in Atlanta, the Cavs return home to see if they can fix things.

They play host to the Charlotte Bobcats tonight at 7:30 and could be minus forward Anderson Varejao. He left Wednesday’s game with a left knee contusion and a strained left Achilles tendon. An MRI Thursday confirmed those injuries, and he is questionable for tonight.

Seventeen turnovers combined with 36.4 percent shooting summarizes how well the Cavs played offensively Wednesday in falling back to .500 at 18-18.

“We played hard, but we didn’t play well enough to win,” James said after the Atlanta loss. “We made too many mistakes.”

Take away James’ 13-for-22 shooting and the Cavs shot 19 of 66 (28.7 percent). With that type of shooting, the Cavs quickly fell behind after a solid start.

Coach Mike Brown called it “one of the worst nights we’ve had in moving the ball.” The Cavs had 15 assists, but six came from James.

“I thought we took too many quick shots and it seems like a lot of times when we get up big early, we tend to relax and the other team comes out of a timeout and gets one or two quick plays and the next thing you know we’re in a dogfight,” Brown said. “That’s kind of what happened.”

The Cavs entered the final 5 1/2 minutes of the third quarter with just 35 points and 14 field goals.

“At times we seemed disorganized on offense,” guard Larry Hughes said. “You can’t win games like that.”

With James, though, the Cavs have done it before. They erased a 20-point deficit to win Sunday in Toronto when he went for a franchise-record 24 points in the final quarter.

And the fourth-quarter brilliance of James in Atlanta allowed the Cavs to erase a 21-point deficit and get within five before losing, 90-81. James scored 14 of his 31 points in the fourth.

“My mindset is always the same, which is to try to make plays and help my team win,” James said.