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Suns, Gorat start fast, dump Cavs - Boston Herald

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Suns, Gorat start fast, dump Cavs - Boston Herald
Mar 26th 2012, 12:24

CLEVELAND — Two weeks ago, the Cavs were riding a three-game winning streak, with one of those victories over the Western Conference-leading Oklahoma City Thunder.

Now the Cavs might think they hear thunder, but it may be the crashing end to a season that 14 days ago seemed destined for a promising finish.

On Sunday afternoon, the Cavs allowed center Marcin Gortat to score the first 10 points as the Phoenix Suns jumped out to a 12-0 lead and cruised to a 108-83 victory at Quicken Loans Arena.

It marked the sixth loss in the past seven games for the Cavs (17-29), a string that came on the heels of three impressive triumphs over teams in playoff contention — the Denver Nuggets, the Thunder and Houston Rockets. The Suns (25-24) are one game out of the eighth spot in the Western Conference playoffs after starting the season 4-9.

"We are just not a very good team right now," Cavs coach Byron Scott said. "You've got to give Phoenix a lot of credit. We know what they're fighting for. They played extremely well and executed on both ends of the floor. It was almost like we were sleepwalking a little bit."

Cavs rookie point guard Kyrie Irving knew exactly what Scott meant.

"We're not together out there," Irving said. "It's definitely fixable. Like coach said, 'We can't play the rest of the season with peaks and valleys.' At times we've showed a lot of heart and we've beaten really good teams by playing hard for 48 minutes and communicating and being out there together as one. We haven't been doing that in the last few games."

Gortat finished with 22 points and eight rebounds. Eighteen of Gortat's points came in the first half, when the Suns outscored the Cavs in the paint, 36-12. Gortat was virtually unguarded, taking advantage of the Cavs' woeful pick-and-roll defense and the inexperience of rookie Tristan Thompson, who was making his fifth start at center.

"(He) ate us alive," Scott said of Gortat, a four-year veteran from Poland. "I don't know if Tristan knows that much about him or didn't realize it, the guy is a pretty good player. Gortat has been playing well all season. Tonight he just had his way."

Gortat credited Suns coach Alvin Gentry for making him a big part of the first-quarter game plan.

"This thing is working," Gortat said. "If I get involved in the first quarter, then I'm more productive throughout the entire game."

Even though he led the Cavs with 16 points, six rebounds and four assists, Irving was not exempt from Scott's criticism.

"He's got to get through screens," Scott said. "Not at one point yesterday in practice did we talk about switching. As I told the guys when I called a timeout, 'That's the lazy way out. That's not what we do.' There's certain situations where we do switch, but that wasn't one of them.

"He has to do a better job, our bigs have to do a much better job of showing and helping, then getting back to their bigs. That's just one little part of what we didn't do well tonight."

They also got a season-low and Cavs-low two points from forward Antawn Jamison. He suffered a left ankle and leg contusion with 6:39 to go in the first quarter when Gortat fell on him as they battled for a rebound, but Jamison returned in the second quarter and played 19 ½ minutes.

©2012 the Akron Beacon Journal (Akron, Ohio) Visit the Akron Beacon Journal (Akron, Ohio) at www.ohio.com Distributed by MCT Information Services

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