Game 2 a must win for Cavs

By CHRIS BEAVEN

INDEPENDENCE — No one sounded panicked. No one expressed any big concerns.

But a day after being beaten on their home floor for just the third time this season, none of the Cavs hesitated in calling tonight’s Eastern Conference finals Game 2 a must-win situation.

“That is obvious. My grandmother knows that,” Cavs point guard Mo Williams said before practice Thursday.

“You don’t want to put too much added pressure on yourself,” Cavs forward LeBron James said, “but you don’t want to go down 0-2 going into somebody else’s building. So we look at it as a must win.”

One thing is for sure, Wednesday’s 107-106 loss to the Magic did nothing to diminish Williams’ confidence.

“I don’t see them beating us four times,” he said.

The Cavs had their way with the Magic early in Game 1, building a 16-point lead in the first half. They looked poised for a ninth straight playoff win, and James was on his way to a franchise-record 49-point postseason game.

Then Orlando starting hitting shots. The Cavs got stagnant on offense, and the Magic were able to take charge. A Rashard Lewis 3-pointer with 14.7 seconds left decided it.

“I hate to lose, so I was definitely sick after the game,” James said Thursday.

“We had a whole arena full of shocked people,” said guard Delonte West, who missed a potential game-winning 3 with 4.9 seconds left. “But you have to put things back in perspective. It’s one game. That’s the beauty of the playoffs when you have a seven-game series.”

After watching a tape of Game 1, the Cavs saw plenty of room for improvement.

Despite scoring 106 points, their most of the playoffs, the Cavs were not a fine-tuned offensive machine. They relied too much on James, who hit 20-of-30 shots.

“We’re running into a problem where we get stagnant in the second half of games at times, start watching LeBron too much and asking him to do too much,” Cavs center Zydrunas Ilgauskas said. “I think the ball movement has to be better.”

When James got the hot hand, he did start holding the ball more to look for his shot. He said he has to do a better job of balancing things out.

“We can’t fall into that game a lot,” he said. “[We have to] get the ball moving a little bit more and get everyone involved.”

Coach Mike Brown wants to see the ball reversed more than it was in the second half.

“We got into a mode where we came down and basically gave LeBron the ball and stood and watched for long stretches of the shot clock,” he said, “and that can’t happen against a good defensive team in Orlando.”