Welcome to Cleveland

After much speculation , it is official; Shaquille O'Neal is now a Cavalier. Cleveland acquired the future Hall of Famer from the Phoenix Suns in exchange for Ben Wallace, Sasha Pavlovic, their 2nd round pick at the 2010 entry draft along with cash considerations.

In the 37 year old center, the Cavs receive the dominant inside presence they lacked last year. In the conference finals loss to the Orlando Magic, Orlando big man Dwight Howard pounded the Cleveland forwards for 40 points and 14 rebounds in the deciding game of the series.

O'Neal is a fifteen time All-Star, and a four time world champion. Since being the first selection in the 1992 NBA Draft to the Orlando Magic, he has average 24.7 points, 11.2 rebounds in 1117 career games.

It appears to be a good deal for Cleveland because they didn't give up much to get him. Ben Wallace has been frequently injured lately and even hinted at retirement after the Cavaliers third round loss to the Magic. Pavlovic wasn't seeing much playing time with the Cavs and will be a better fit in Phoenix's offense. For Phoenix, the deal provides much needed relief from O'Neal's multi-million dollar salary.

For the first time in his career, LeBron James will get to play with a player as well known as himself. The two stars relationship goes back to James' playing days at St. Vincent-St. Mary where Shaquille attended games to watch LeBron play.

“It is a really unique and rare opportunity to bring in a player of Shaq's caliber," said GM Danny Ferry. "We are excited to see how his presence, experience and play positively impacts our team. We truly appreciate all that Ben and Sasha gave to this team and community in their time here. They were good teammates and we wish them nothing but success.”

Shaq has only one year remaining on his contract, but according to his Twitter, he does not plan to retire after the '09-'10 season. "My numbers are not good enough to retire 3 more yrs left," he tweeted.

Pushed to the Brink

For the first time this post-season, the Cleveland Cavaliers face elimination. The Cavs need three wins in a row or their magical season will be over. The good news is they get to go back home where they have only lost three times this entire year.

The Cavs are 2-1 against the Magic this season at home, and 44-3 overall in Quicken Loans Arena. The key to getting back into this series will be to take it one game at a time. They need to concentrate on winning game five and nothing else. This is not a seven game series, rather a one game series that the Cavs must win...three times. That has to be the mentality they take into each remaining game. Only eight teams in NBA history have ever come back from a 3-1 deficit in seven game series such as the one the Cavaliers face.

The reason the Magic have played so well and have claimed this 3-1 advantage has been because of their impeccable three point shooting. In game four, Orlando shot 44 percent from beyond the arc, sinking a playoff team record 17 of 38 treys, 11 of which came after half-time. In the series, Orlando has shot nearly 42 percent from three, making 42 of 98 shots. It was a three point dagger with 4.6 seconds remaining in regulation of game four that would eventually force overtime and lead to the Orlando win. The Magic are shooting 32.5 percent from three overall in the playoffs, and have a much better record when they shot 30 percent or better from behind the arc. If Cleveland is going to shut down this offense, it will have to start with better defense on the perimeter.

It has been 45 years since a Cleveland team won a title in a major sport, and unless LeBron James and the Cavys step up their game and play to the level they are capable of, we might be kept waiting.

The odds are against them, can the come-back kids pull it off again? Game five is Thursday night.

We are all Witnesses

Scenario: Your team down by two, one second remaining on the clock, who do you want to take the final shot? Everyone in the building last night knew exactly who was gonna take that shot. As Mo Williams said post-game, "Option one was LeBron James, option two was Lebron James, option three was Lebron James...". But still, even without any uncertainty of who was gonna take that shot, James still couldn't be stopped.

This begs the question, how do you stop someone who is unstoppable? We could sit here and pretend to come up with ways to stop LeBron James but none of it would be accurate. The honest truth to that question is you can't. You can't stop him, period. After the game, Magic coach Stan Van Gundy took the blame for the final shot, saying he should have devised a different defensive formation. What Van Gundy failed to realize was that no defensive formation in the world could have stopped him. He could have put all five guys and all his assistant coaches on LeBron and it still wouldn't have made a difference. The only way to even slow him down would be to makes sure he does not have the ball, keep the ball in your team's hands. He is too strong, too fast, and too good, to be stopped any other way.

So who has the momentum heading into game three? On one side, Orlando appears to. They went into Cleveland where only two visiting teams had won the entire year, stole away home court advantage, and were a miracle shot away from sweeping the Cavys out of their own building. On the otherside, the Cavaliers may seem to have the advantage after King James single handedly demoralized the entire city of Orlando. Cleveland has also been very good on the raod all year. Game three will be pivotal in deciding the rest of the series.