By Zac Jackson
FOX Sports Ohio
October 27, 2010
CLEVELAND -- Five quick, random and final (for now) thoughts, notes and quotes from a wild night at Quicken Loans Arena...
1. What's to like, besides just the result? Guts, hustle, tempo and post presence. Byron Scott is smiling, believe me. The Cavaliers were trailing, a superior team was knocking down shots and following Rajon Rondo's lead and it would have been easy to fold up the tent. Everybody expected the Cavaliers to do that, right? The Celtics are old and were supposed to be tired, but it's still early in the season and they're still a darn good basketball team. They let up a little at the defensive end, quit feeding the post and suddenly had to scramble because the Cavs kept attacking. The more energetic, more desperate and more focused team won, no matter the circumstances. "This (Cavs) team is hungry," Paul Pierce said. "Everybody's against them. Everybody's writing them off." For a night, anyway, everybody was wrong.
2. "I'm very proud," Byron Scott said. "There were times...our guys could have mailed it in. We're starting to see they believe in each other. They're starting to trust each other." Scott trusted, too, in the two guys that remind him of himself. He's trusted Ramon Sessions since the beginning of camp because Sessions has grasped everything quickly, attacked the basket with bravado and been more than just fine as a replacement for Mo Williams. He's trusted Daniel Gibson because he went to Gibson early on, before camp, and told him he wasn't as much concerned with the "book" on Gibson and what he supposedly couldn't do. He was (and is) more concerned with what Gibson can do, and so far that's been a lot. Sessions missed one of his first jumpers by about four feet Wednesday night but came right back. Gibson turned an early shooting nightmare into a 16-point strong finish. They did it against Rondo and Ray Allen. Kudos to both.
3. Shaq isn't the same player he once was, but he's still a great interview. The Cleveland media tried to get him to open up about last season after Wednesday's game, but Shaq kept it very much between the lines. He basically said the Cavs just didn't get it done, he would have loved another shot to chase a title here with LeBron and he was just as surprised as anybody that LeBron went to Miami; so surprised that he didn't believe the first person who told him the news. He didn't talk about what, exactly, went wrong and said he didn't think LeBron quit. He said there were no problems in the locker room and had no regrets. Asked specifically about a quote earlier in the week when he said he believed he was the only guy in the Cavs locker room that his current Celtics teammate Delonte West respected, Shaq said: "I'm the only one crazier than he is."
4. Dan Gilbert also talked before the game and was asked about the letter he wrote the night of LeBron's decision/defection that eventually earned the Cavaliers owner a $100,000 NBA fine. Here's what Gilbert said:
