Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Washington Wizards preview

[clevfan]

Windhorst Beat Blog: Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Washington Wizards preview

By Brian Windhorst
November 03, 2009, 11:40AM

Tipoff: 7 p.m. at Quicken Loans Arena

TV: FS Ohio

Pregame

Starting lineups

Wizards: Gilbert Arenas, Mike Miller, Caron Butler, Fabricio Oberto, Brendan Haywood

Cavs: Mo Williams, Anthony Parker, LeBron James, Anderson Varejao, Shaquille O'Neal

Officials

Tom Washington, Jason Phillips, Scott Wall

• Caron Butler missed the Wizards' last game with a bruised knee but he is expected to play tonight. Antawn Jamison is out with a shoulder injury. The Cavs are fully healthy with the exception of Leon Powe.

• The Cavs have had two days of practice and four games of data and film to work off of heading into this game. Delonte West is active and ready to play, and Mike Brown has a better understanding of his rotation. So tonight will be a measuring stick of where the Cavs are and how they've grown in the last week. They didn't show up on opening night fully ready, but they should be in a much better situation now, and a matchup with the Wizards should be an excellent litmus test.

• The Wizards are playing well early in the season and really piling up the points, averaging 105 a night. They already have a good road win, beating Dallas last week. Arenas is shooting a lot but he's scoring it, averaging 28 points. Andray Blatche has been playing the best ball of his career subbing for Jamison, though he's coming off the bench. So far this season, Mike Miller has been making about everything he shoots - heck, Randy Foye is averaging 15 points off the bench. DeShawn Stevenson's shooting is above average for the first time in years. Washington is shooting an amazing 51 percent as a team and 45 percent on 3-pointers. In other words, the Cavs had better be ready to defend tonight. Also, they like to start fast, and playing the Cavs they'll be even more primed. So the Cavs had better be prepared, because their defense has been shaky at times in the early going.

• When the Wizards go with Haywood and Oberto, the table is set for Zydrunas Ilgauskas and O'Neal to play together. It can be done, because neither of the Wizards' bigs can stretch the floor as a jump shooter. But Oberto has only been playing 19 minutes a night, and a big part of that is early in the first quarter when Z and Shaq don't play together. Mike Brown didn't use that look against the Bobcats; we'll see if he goes back to it tonight.