Fundamental ballers

Wednesday night's Cavaliers-Sonics game contained all the requisites you'd expect. LeBron James had a couple of poster dunks. He scored 30 points. Drew Gooden grabbed nine boards. Larry Hughes scored 13. Damon Jones made a couple of three-pointers.
The Cavs also played solid defense, took adavantage of Seattle mistakes, made 28 stright free throws and had their largest win ever over the Sonics, 112-85.
Say what, you say?
Yeah. Who would've thunk it? The Cleveland Cavaliers, gurus of fundamental basketball, taking it to a Western Conference team that won a division title last year.
Next thing you'll know, they'll close off lanes to the basket and consistently grasp the concept of defensive rotations.
Seattle's Ray Allen had his requisite 28 points, but it wasn't for lack of effort on the part of Hughes, who subscribed to the Tammy Wynette theory of defense and stood by his man all night. Allen was largely walled off from the interior by Hughes, forcing him to shoot threes, which accounted for 18 of his 28.
Even though Allen is one of top three-point deadeyes in the league, most teams would probably rather have him bombing longballs than penetrating to the basket and taking much higher-percentage shots.
Drew Gooden had one of his mentally-here nights, bringing energy and aggressive defense to the low post. Donyell Marshall and Alan Henderson cleaned up what Gooden didn't get to.
It's nights like Wednesday that make me dream of getting Anderson Varejao back, adding a banger to the mix of scorers and rebounders.
The there was the free-throw shooting, a dead art throughout the NBA. How dead is it? The NBA record for consecutive free-throws made in a game dates to the Utah Jazz in 1982 (39).
The Cavs popped n 28 in a row before missing one in the fourth quarter. It's a team record.
Free throws are largely viewed as icing in the NBA, but on a lot of nights, the better free-throw shooting team wins the game. That is especially true in the case of the Cavs, a team that specializes in driving to the basket and drawing fouls.
Think free throws are less important in a blowout? The Cavs made 31 free throws Wednesday night and won by 27 points. You do the math.
Somewhere, Rick Barry, Calvin Murphy and Mark Price are smiling.