A new year has brought new hope to the Cavaliers, but whether they can sustain their resolve remains to be seen.
Cleveland opened the 2008 portion of its schedule on Wednesday with a hard-fought 98-94 home win over the Atlanta Hawks, giving Mike Brown’s troops three wins in their last four games and improving their overall record to 15-17.
“We wanted to start the new year off right,” LeBron James said after scoring 32 of his 36 points in the second half. “Being at home and getting the first win under our belt in 2008, it’s a great start.
“We’ve played great basketball our last few games. We’re excited about what’s going on right now.”
With a home game tonight against the below-average Sacramento Kings, Cleveland has a chance to build some much-needed momentum at the start of 2008.
Furthering the optimism, the Cavaliers are also entering a fairly easy portion of their schedule.
Discounting what will be a tough road game Sunday in Toronto, Cleveland will play very winnable home games against Seattle and Charlotte next week, plus winnable road games in Atlanta and Memphis.
That means it’s not out of the question that the Cavaliers could win five of their next six, which would give them eight wins in 10 games and improve their overall mark to 20-18.
“The time is definitely now to make our run and gain ground on the other teams in the Eastern Conference who are on top of us right now,” point guard Larry Hughes said.
“We have to go out and play. It’s not going to be easy and nothing is going to be given to us. When teams come in our gym, we have to protect our home. We have to win games.”
That, of course, has not been easy for the Cavaliers.
Were it not for James’ second-half heroics, in fact, Cleveland probably would have lost to Atlanta on Wednesday, a game that would have joined home defeats to Milwaukee and Philadelphia as “ones that got away.”
Simply put, the Cavaliers don’t have much margin for error right now. The reason for that is equally simple: They’re still not a very good team.
There are numerous theories as to why the latter is true, but rather than wasting time debating them or attempting to come up with verbal solutions, the Cavaliers should just try to play better — and harder — at both ends of the court.
In the end, it’s highly doubtful this club will come anywhere close to duplicating last season’s run to the NBA Finals, but it’s too early to totally rule Cleveland out, because it still has No. 23 on its side.
Not only that, it’s a new year. With that comes new hope for pro basketball fans in the Cleveland area — at least for a while.
Contact Rick Noland at (330) 721-4061 or rickn@ohio.net.

TONIGHT

WHO: Cleveland vs. Sacramento
TIME: 7:30
WHERE: The Q
TV/RADIO: FSN Ohio; WEOL 930-AM (after high school game), WTAM 1100-AM

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