To see if I had a bet for game 6, I needed to understand what happened in game 5. Why was Lebron so disinterested?
Let's go to the game's play by play at NBA.com.
Cleveland is up 29-21 in the 2Q, and Boston calls timeout with 9:44 to go in the half. So far, Cleveland is in control. Did something happen here?
Boston makes it 29-23, and James is taken out with 9:06 to go. Now he's on the bench. Ilgauskas comes out at the same time and is replaced by Shaq...
With 8:22 to go Shaq misses a shot.
With 7:10 left Shaq causes a turnover (offensive foul). He then picks up a technical as well. James comes back in. He's rested all of two minutes. The Cavs lead is down to 3 points: 29-26.
Shaq comes out with 4:02 left in the half. The Cavs committed six turnovers during his five minutes on the floor and failed to score a single point. The 29-21 lead is now a 29-36 deficit. Shaq was negative 15 points here...
Now without Shaq, but with James and Ilgauskas, the Cavs are able to come back to 40-42 with 1:49 left in the half! It's a game again.
The Celtics close out the half strong, and take a 50-44 lead into the locker room.
With the above in mind, I don't believe that James could have been too happy with Shaq starting in the second half. Ilgauskas did not return until the start of the fourth quarter! By that time the game was lost. The Cavs were trailing 63-80. Another minus 11 points added to Shaq's total, which is now minus 26 points.
It's not rocket science. And it's obvious why James can't say anything. What's he going to say? "Why on earth is Shaq playing when he messes up the team chemistry we worked for years to build?!"
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Edit. Fact check at popcornmachine.net for things not shown on NBA.com.
Shaq had started the game and was 0 plus or minus for his first stint of 8:19. That means the Cavs build their lead to 29-21 with him out of the game. So the Shaq theme is even worse than it looks at NBA.com. Lebron must be astonished at the stupidity of the coaching staff.
Ilgauskas came back in with about 3 minutes left in the 3Q and was +1 during that period.
It's not only Shaq. He played alongside Jamison for the first half, the other new addition. When they came out, they were replaced by Varejao and Ilgauskas. Same idea. The 'old' Cavs make it work, the new pieces do not.