As Shaq Injures Thumb, Cavs Front Court Must be All Hands on Deck

Yesterday the Cavs went to Boston, played one half of the worst defense they've played all year and came back in the second to blow the Celtics off of their own court to the tune of a 20-point victory. Lodged in between the Cavs' disparate halves was an injury to one of the Cavs' key players. Towards the end of the second quarter Cavs starting center Shaquille O'Neal was fouled by Boston's "Big Baby" Davis in injured his hand. The Cavs don't yet know the full severity of the injury (Shaq is getting an MRI today, but has already been called out of the Raptors game later tonight) but have said that he has severely sprained his thumb on his dominant (shooting, passing, catching) hand.

While this may have been a boon for the Celtics game, forcing the Cavs into the type of smaller, more athletic line-up that Atlanta has been using to abuse Boston all season, this raises a few concerns. Chief among them is that, due to the Antawn Jamison trade, the Cavs have lost the services of their backup center until at least March 22. If Shaq's injury keeps him out of multiple games the team will be rolling with zero true centers and one PF/C in Andy Varejao. What does this do to the rotations?

Clearly Andy moves to the starting C position with a starting backcourt of Mo Williams and Anthony Parker. Starting PF shouldn't be that much of a question since Antawn Jamison is just a far better player than Hickson, but curiously it is.

With Jamison the Cavs will be able to maintain some semblance of an inside-out game with Andy picking up garbage in the paint, Jamison setting up from 15-20 feet and the guards hanging out in the corners or on the wing (with Lebron filling in pretty much wherever he wants.) In last night's game much was (rightfully) made of Mo's 14-point fourth quarter as he made it rain on the Cs and opened the floodgates to the Cavs' eventual victory. Less was made of Jamison in the late 3rd stringing together 6 points in a row to slice the Celtics' lead and set the stage for the Cavs' comeback. He his an 18-foot jumper, a slashing lay-up and a post-up jump shot showing his ability to create his own shot and score in a variety of ways.

Hickson, meanwhile, showed tremendous energy on both offense and defense putting up some very good numbers in limited action as the Andy/JJ/Lebron/Delonte/Mo line-up proved to be the most devastating of the game.

However -and this is where things get complicated - who backs up Andy? We're probably looking at Leon Powe being our center coming of the bench since he has length, plays very good defense and showed off some nice post moves in the Celtics game last night. Do you then pair his game with Hickson? I can't see many scenarios in which that works out well. While I could see a Jamison/Powe front court performing well I can't imagine that Hickson's barely directed energy and inability to create his own shot mixing well with Powe's limited range. Hell, a Powe/Lebron/Jawad front court probably looks better.

I still lean towards starting (and finishing) with Jamison next to Andy because of his versatility and experience, perhaps playing JJ and Andy together later in the game. Even with my reservations about rotations Jamison is just too good to not start. I suspect Mike Brown will go with this as well, and will just play Lebron a little longer to deal with any issues a Powe/Hickson pairing will create.

After the Rapters tonight (without Chris Bosh) we play the Knicks and the Nets so there will be opportunities to test out pairings against not-great competition but the sooner Z gets here the better. While a lot of teams in the NBA play without true centers these days, the elite teams (specifically Orlando and Los Angeles) will destroy a Cavs team lacking size in the middle.