Coincidence?

Cleveland earns its bones by being a power team focused on defense, rebounds and scoring in the paint. Ilgauskas is the lynchpin of Cleveland's defensive and rebounding identity, and the best post-up player the Cavs have. With him in street clothes, the Cavs had a lot of problems keeping the Wizards from finishing in traffic, or running an efficient offense.

The Cavs shot 39.4 percent, but most of that was due to LeBron shooting 11-22 from the field.

Cleveland has to hope that Ben Wallace and Anderson Varejao — neither anywhere near as accomplished offensively as Ilgauskas, and neither anywhere near as massive — can hold down the fort while getting contributions from rookie J.J. Hickson (four points, four rebounds). If not, the Cavs may have to look outside the organization for some size.

And by the way, yes, LeBron did travel.

Bosh Fuels Victory

In Toronto's 108-102 victory over Orlando, Chris Bosh played the way he was supposed to play this season. He only shot 5-12 from the floor, and only scored 23 points, but he was relentless in attacking the rim and putting Dwight Howard in early foul trouble.

And late in the game, Bosh sank seven of eight free throws to give the Raptors the lead and preserve the victory.

Toronto doesn't have the strength to handle any of the league's upper-echelon teams, so they need Bosh to be active and physical while putting opposing bigs in foul trouble.

That's the only reason they beat Orlando.

The Raptors still had nobody to stop Howard, who went for 39 points and eight rebounds. But that foul trouble kept him on the bench in the first quarter and allowed the Raptors to take a 16-point lead early in the second. The Magic stormed back, but they spent so much energy that they couldn't pull through in the fourth.

Anthony Parker had a huge game, shooting 13-16 for 26 points, and picking up a key fourth-quarter steal.

Mavs Suffer Bad Loss

Keeping on the disappointing losses track, the Mavericks fell to the Grizzlies by 20, 102-82.

The Grizzlies played an outstanding game as their offense generated 44 points in the paint. Their balanced attack was led by O.J. Mayo with 21 points, but Rudy Gay, Hakim Warrick and Marc Gasol scored 18, 18 and 19 points, respectively.

For Dallas, Dirk Nowitzki scored 28, and Jason Terry had 18, but the rest of the team shot 13-40 from the field.

In the cutthroat Western Conference, the Mavericks simply can't take days off defensively like they did against Memphis, and they must get production from players other than Dirk and Terry.

As for Memphis, progress is being made, albeit slightly. They're now the best of all of the Western Conference teams that have no chance in making the playoffs. That isn't much, but at the end of the season, after several barren seasons at the bottom of the league, a 10th-place finish would look like a nice stepping stone into 2009-2010.

Notes