Jacked up

It's not just Damon Jones now. It's the whole team.
Bad enough when Jones takes a shoot-first-ask-questions-later mentality, but now every shooter the Cavaliers have is becoming a gunslinger, with poor results.
In last night's 92-84 loss to the Knicks, the Cavs shot a dismal 6-for-28 from beyond the three-point arc. Single-digit three-point conversions while attempting nearly 30 for the night has become the norm over the past week or so, during which the Cavs are 2-2.
It might be the product of a lot of pressing with Larry Hughes and his 16 points per game inactive until around the start of March. LeBron and his teammates seem to be quite worried about how to compensate for Hughes' production while he recovers from hand surgery.
But hoisting threes like they are going out of style is out of character for the Cavs, against the grain of their coach, and will lead to more games like last night.
With LeBron James, Drew Gooden and Zydrunas Ilgauskas, the Cavs' main offensive strength is front court size and athleticism. Cleveland generally is at their best when LeBron, Gooden and Z are penetrating and pounding the ball down low, drawing fouls and getting to the free-throw line. The perimeter games of Jones and Donyell Marshall are supposed to serve as a compliment to the inside game, preventing opposing defenses from hunkering down in the lane, as they did so often last year.
But with a struggling Jones obsessed with his long-range shooting, and LeBron and Marshall trying to compensate, maybe even overcompensate, for the loss of Hughes, the Cavs are venturing out of their game, settling for outside jumpers.
In last night's loss, Cleveland coughed up a fourth-quarter lead by allowing the Knicks to go on a 13-1 run. Most of it had to do with the Cavs going nearly 10 minutes without a field goal. By the fourth quarter, even backup point guard Mike Wilks was hoisitng threes. He made one.
Knicks guard Quentin Richardson got a lot of credit this morning for stifling LeBron in the fourth quarter. Heading into the quarter, LeBron had 32 points. He had a mere four points in the fourth quarter, two of them at the tail end of the game when the winner had been decided.
Not to undermine Richardson, who is a fine second-tier player in the NBA, but it is hard to think a 6'-5" shooting guard could shut down a 6'-8", 250-pound superstar forward. I have to think some of Richardson's success had to do with the Cavs playing tense, tight basketball late in the game, and making poor shot selections.
This might be where Mike Brown needs to grow as a coach. We know his coaching philosophy is defense first. That's great. Championship teams are almost always great defensive teams. But it might be time for Brown to start developing his offensive brain a little bit more.
Having a player like LeBron makes coaching the offensive end much easier. LeBron can create so much on his own, the need for intricate paint-by-number offensive sets is diminished. But Brown might need to reel in his players a bit with the loss of Hughes.
Brown right now is coaching his offense the way former Indians manager Charile Manuel used to manage his offense. Manuel almost never took the bat out of hitter's hands, at one point allowing pitcher C.C. Sabathia to swing away during an interleague game in Pittsburgh. C.C. grounded into a double play, and the Indians lost the game, 1-0.
Brown almost never tells a player not to shoot. But, like Manuel letting a pitcher hack during his team's only real scoring opportunity of the game, Brown's offensive mindset might be a bit too lassiez-faire.
If his players are jacking up threes in rapid-fire succession, drawing only rim and backboard, killing possession after possession, maybe it's time to rein in the mad bombers and deliver a bit more law and order to the offense. Even LeBron needs some direction once in a while.
High percentage shots inside are the meat-and-potatoes of Cleveland's offense. Brown needs to drive that home the way he has tried to drive home defensive principles to his players since training camp started.
You saw last night what happens when the Cavs subscribe to the Damon Jones offensive philosophy. It looks ... well ... offensive.