Brandon Jennings took the court Saturday night looking like Simon Phoenix from Demolition Man, and not only went for 25 and the win, but he also felt it necessary to go 'goosey' - as evidenced below at the 29 second mark. 

Now, for me, if you're gonna try to show the Cavs up with a dose of their own shimmy's and shenanigans, you should probably do it when LeBron James isn't in street clothes.  That said, even without LBJ active, there's no way this could have gone over well in the Cavaliers locker room.  Especially not if you're Mo Williams.

Mo looked like someone shot his dog last night in the post game interview, and maybe its more like someone shot his 'goose.'  He did nothing to slow Jennings - the guy who's subsequently replaced him in Milwaukee - all night, and he didn't make the rookie work on the defensive end either.  And by the time he saw the guy he was guarding flash that goosey signal right past him over towards his bench, there wasn't much he could do about that either.

In response to his performance on Saturday night, Mo Williams posted the following three tweets on his twitter account...

via @mogotti2:

"I apologize to all my fans and Cavs fans for a shitty performance to say the least. I will get past this a get better, stay with me pls"

"Woke up this morning, and I feel great. Mentally I'm strong. It's hard for things to effect me. Thx to all my Twitter fam for all the love"

"On to the next one, all black everythin"

Besides being a catchy twitter handle, I see no other reason for Mo Williams to refer to himself as a guy that once headed the organized crime underworld of New York City.  Meaning, he seems to me more like that nice friendly neighbor you have down the street than he does in any way resemble John Gotti.  That said, I think he's a genuine guy who wouldn't have tweeted that apology if he didn't mean it.  I'm sure he's sorry, and I'm sure he cares about the fans in Cleveland.  However, I do think its possible he might care a little too much.  I think he wants to be a guy that LeBron wants to play alongside of, and help bring a title to this town soo bad, that I think it sometimes rattles him.  Like it did last year in the ECF.  If I could post a tweet in response to Mo's, that he would read, it would simply say this:

"You have game for days...just relax, and do your thing.  If you play your game, your tough to stop, and so are your Cavaliers." 

And ps, I counted, its less than 140 characters, so it would work...just hope he hears me.

Earlier this evening, Mary Schmitt Boyer of the Plain Dearler reported that "Former teammates Anderson Varejao and Anthony Parker were in a group, along with strength and conditioning coach Stan Kellers, that visited with Ilgauskas after the team arrived here [New Jeresey] Tuesday night.  Ilgauskas has a place in New York City and has been spending time there since his release by the Wizards." 

And according to a couple follow-up reports I've also stumbled across, it appears the Cavs found a group of guys who referred to themselves as the 'Nets' to work out with at the IZOD center on Wednesday night while in town visiting Z.  I didn't get a chance to talk to any of the Cavaliers players about that work-out, but I heard it went well, and most of the players were pleased with the opportunity to both break a sweat, and work through some offensive sets without the interruption of defense.

Which is basically all Wednesday night's game against the worst NBA team I've ever seen was.  While I was hoping for a 29-point win - to give the Cavaliers a combined margin in back-to-back nights against the Knicks and the Nets of 60 - I was forced to settle for a 50 point margin in those last two games by way of a 111-92 win tonight.  The game was over after the first quarter as the Cavs jumped out to a 35-15 lead, even though the Nets did outscore them by 1 the rest of the way to finish with a 19 point loss.

LeBron had 26-14 and 7 but my favorite two plays were his 'lay-in style' dunks, the second of which drew boos from the Nets fans who at this point just want something to get excited about.  And LeBron refused to give it to them, even though he did add a thunderous slam that looked more like a Josh Cribbs kick-off return later in the game.  But if you're a team that needs a three-game winning streak to get to nine total wins, you only get so many highlights from the King on a given night.  He needs to save those for respectable teams...like the Clippers.

Besides LeBron, J.J. Hickson turned in a game of noteworthy achievement.  He seems to have a new confidence about him these days after being tagged 'the guy nobody wanted to trade.'  He followed up a stellar outing against the Knicks with a line that read 20 points and 13 rebounds over 26 minutes, and he also played good defense against Brook Lopez in his time against him tonight.  For as bad as the Nets are, Lopez is at worst decent, and Hickson did a better than decent job against him inside.  Decent also describes the way Mo played tonight going for 16 and 6 on 5 of 12 shooting.  Not horrible, but he definitely needs to take a couple steps forward to be the guy the Cavs need him to be, and hopefully he can over the next couple weeks.  Decent thirdly describes Antawn Jamison's output tonight.  23 shot attempts is quite a few, especially if you're only going to score 19.  Hickson took 14 to get to 20 as a comparison.  But nevertheless, tonight was just a work-out, and there's not all that many takeaways from game like this.  On to the next one I guess, as a certain owner of that team says, its Snuggie time Friday.

With six minutes left in the fourth quarter Bill Walker hit a three to give the Knicks their 74th point of the night.  That basket cut the lead to 36, and matched the total (74) the Cavaliers scored in the first half.  Part of me wants to stop right there.  There's no real point in belaboring the fact that the Knicks are a god-awful team.  We all know by now that they're allergic to defense, and continue to insist on shooting jumpers every 7 seconds despite the fact that they don't have all that many jump-shooters on the roster.  They're an embarrasing group that has to come back in the fourth quarter (down by upwards of 40 points) to lose by 31 (124-93), and I can't see how anybody would make the choice to join them next season.   With that said, I will stop there, and speak on the Cavs moving forward.

As much as I was discouraged to hear the reports that Shaq will be out for 6-8 weeks earlier in the day, I was that much encouraged by the electricity with which the Cavaliers took the court tonight en-route to their 4th straight win overall and 8th straight against the Knicks.  J.J stepped into that starting center role for the first time since high school - which sounds like a long time but its only about 3 years ago - and had his best game of the season totalling 17 points and 9 rebounds as an active presence in the paint throughout his 23 minutes of work.  Likewise, Delonte (15-3-3) came out and played probably his best minutes of the season as well - punishing Eddie House, dunking on T-Mac's face, and assisting the likes of LBJ (though it didn't count) and Anderson up at the rim.  The Cavs are going to need those two guys, and now more than ever they are also going to need some quality minutes from Leon Powe who looked good himself going for 8 points 4 rebounds. Antawn Jamison continued to impress with 17-12, and LeBron was his usual self after being named player of the month again earlier in the day, tallying 22-7-7 basically all in the first half before sitting for the majority of the second.  In summation all was well tonight as the Cavs had two guys with double-doubles (Andy 14-10 along with Jamison) as well as those aforementioned five with double figure points.  

All that said, if the Shaq injury doesn't still concern you a bit I think it should.  I would love to say that Shaq being sidelined will allow him some adequate rest, and in the meantime allow some other guys additional minutes to improve their play and confidence for when called upon in the playoffs.  In fact I did say that yesterday afternoon...when I thought Shaq would be out for a few weeks.  With him not coming back for possibly two months however, I do worry a bit about the Cavaliers style of play moving forward in the meantime.  To be clear, the Cavaliers are at their best when Shaq is in the line-up, especially when he's in the line-up playing the way he was just prior to his injury.  But when he's in the line-up, they don't play the style of play they did tonight - baseball style outlet passes down the court, run-outs on everything - they run situationally and focus on beating you in the half-court.  Now a lot of that fast break stuff was due to the Knicks tonight to be sure.  You can't help but run when the Knicks are coming down and sending 15 foot jumpers off the rim 5 seconds into the shot-clock, I get that.  But one things that's true - no matter how you look at it - is the Cavaliers are a different team without Shaq, and they'll be that different team for the two months leading up to the playoffs - without Shaq.  And then, just as the playoffs start, Shaq will come back, and they'll be forced to adjust to being a different team again.  And that adjustment - just as the second round gets under way - is what worries me about the whole thing...not that there's anything you can do about it now.

The Cavaliers came out atop the latest Bloguin BlogPoll Power Rankings for the second straight time, and if you missed the complete rankings and commentary from the esteemed bloggers of this network, go here.

The primary reason the Cavs were able to maintain their top spot is due to the fact that LeBron is no longer forced to hang out with these guys pictured below...

The legend behind the microphone had an interesting comment prior to Thursday night’s Cavs vs. Celtics tilt in Beantown.  Tait rarely gets into the analytical side of the broadcast, and wasn’t prompted,  so it was a bit surprising to hear his take:  The Cavaliers need to focus less on the pre game handshakes between themselves and their opponent, and instead turn their attention to working hard on the basketball court.

Tait has seen his share of basketball games, and knows when a team needs to turn things up on the defensive end.  Personally I could care less about the pre game hugs, handshakes, and rituals, but I’ve heard Tait speak out against this multiple times this season.  I think Joe’s a good 40 years older than I am, so that may explain our difference of opinion.  However, we are on the same page when it comes to bringing the hard hats and lunch pails more consistently. While the first half was disappointing on the defensive end, the 2nd half was played extremely well.  Rondo got trapped, Allen got smothered, and KG, Big Baby and Rasheed got neutralized.

That’s what Joe Tait’s talking about.

Have a GOOD NIGHT, everybody!

Editor's Note: In addition to contributing here at StepienRules, Kyle was also co-MVP of his college football team. To follow Kyle on twitter go here, and for all your tailgating needs go here. 

If LBJ stays over 50% FG he will be the 3rd person in NBA history to finish the season with 25+ PPG, .500+ FG% and 8+ APG.

That group would then include:

LeBron James (2009-10): 29.8 PPG, .502 FG%, 8.5 APG

Michael Jordan (1988-89): 32.5 PPG, .538 FG%, 8.0 APG

and the guy who did it twice...

Oscar Robertson (1969-70): 25.3 PPG, .511 FG%, 8.1 APG

Oscar Robertson (1962-63): 28.5 PPG, .518 FG%, 9.5 APG

Editor's note: Dave Wooley is a statistical guru who's works include a detailed history of CWRU football stats, both team and individual.  Look for more from Dave in the future as the 'Cavs Stat of the Day' series continues.