Braves
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ARE THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS THE NEW BRAVES?
Those of you who were around from Day One remember the twelve game series against our multiple berth (pun intended) siblings Cleveland and Portland, and how we thought we should win at least thirty games with 24 being played against our fellow neophytes. Wrong!
Still, having come from the same organizational womb at the same time, so to speak, and playing each other so often in the first year, does create a sort of multiple birth/berth bond with the other teams, or, in our case, team.
Original 1970 Cavs home uniforms, & the feather plume logo
Somehow it wasn't quite the same with Portland. They were very much West Coast. They didn't share our Rustbelt identity as Cleveland did, does. And they rode our coach Jack Ramsey's coat tails all the way to the Championship. So there's no real affection for the Blazers, and little sense of affinity except perhaps, their being the smallest market left in the NBA at the time, after the Braves were gone. But Cleveland?
Cleveland is another story. We can relate to Cleveland. Same Lake. Same rustbelt identity and economy. Same lunch bucket work ethic. And they watched their Browns leave town in a manner similar to the way we lost the Braves, albeit they had a lot more history with the Browns than we had with our Braves, we bonded to our team very quickly, and consider ourselves their peers in that experience. And...
While we were fortunate enough to have some great seasons and great teams in the short time the Braves were with us, the Cavs have struggled in mediocrity and worse for most of their three decade-plus existence until now. The reason for their eventual turnaround-- the same as the reason for our quick turnaround-- the arrival of one of the league's greatest superstars. LeBron James is to Cleveland what Bob McAdoo was to Buffalo in the sense of making the team a competitor. He may be one half-step above McAdoo, maybe on the Jordan level, in fact, but for comparison purposes, the Cavs with LeBron and Company are today's Braves wtih McAdoo, Smith, Ernie D and the McM's. The fact that it took them thirty years longer to arrive than the Braves, makes their trail of tears as long as ours, since while we were weeping for our loss, they were weeping for their perpetual losses. But now, history and circumstance has converged and these two bookends anchoring what WKBW's Stan Roberts used to lovingly call "Lake Dreary" and the Braves' spirit lives on in the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Agree?
See John Howell's Bleacher Report article dubbing the Cavs as heirs to the Braves legacy and loyalty.
Bob Kaufmann was the Braves first All Star Game representative.
Cleveland Plain Dealer article reporting on the first NBA game for both teams.
Cavaliers
Lose in NBA Debut
by Bill Nichols
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Cleveland and Buffalo, two of the National
Basketball Association's babies, held a coming-out party last night and
for the Cavaliers, at least, it turned out like warm pop -- very hard to
digest.
Buffalo, considered by many to
have the best of the NBA's three expansion teams, bounced the Cavaliers,
107-92, before 7,129 partisans in Memorial Auditorium.
The Cavaliers made a contest of it
momentarily in the early gong, tying the count four times before Buffalo
went ahead for good, 12-10, on a turnaround jumper by center Nate Bowman.
IT WAS ALL Buffalo from
there on. Cleveland was unable to penetrate the Braves' full court
press or stop the outside shooting of Donnie May, former University of
Dayton All-America and sub with the New York Knicks.
May, playing 35 minutes, pumped in
a game high 24 points on 10 of 14 from the field and four of five from
the foul line.
May, who injured his left hand during
a practice on Monday, was elated with his best scoring effort in his three
year pro career.
"Even when I got in a Knicks game I
didn't shoot well," recalled May. "Now I'm getting a chance
to prove to myself that I can shoot."
"Donnie has a nose for the basket,
" chipped in his coach, Dolph Schayes.
CLEVELAND COACH Bill Fitch said,
"We had a lot to do with them beating us. We passed poorly, rebounded
poorly and our floor moves were poor, but this may be our worst performance
for some time to come.
"A game like this tells me why show
people take their shows on the road before coming home.
"People may think I'm crazy after
seeing how bad we were, but I really believe that before we finish our
12 games with Buffalo we'll be playing them even," added Fitch.
Buffalo guard Dick Garrett and Herm
Gilliam forced Cleveland into 14 first half turnovers and 26 in all with
their relentless full court press, causing Fitch to remark, "Buffalo could
have the fastest guards in the league."
When the situation dictated for more
pressure, Buffalo forwards Fred Crawford or May aided in the all-out harassment.
Garrett scored 20 points, and his 10
points in the first half led the Braves to a 56-42 advantage at intermission.
THE CAVS MADE a belated effort
in the fourth quarter on the shooting of Bobby Smith, who had a team high
of 21 points, and rookie guard Joe Cooke.
Cooke, who joined the club on Tuesday
after a tryout with the Indiana Pacers, was impressive with his quickness.
He also scored nine points in seven minutes of action.
"We'll be using Cooke more as we go
along," predicted Fitch, "but I hope it isn't when we're down by 20."
"We have to get some speed in there
and Cooke should help provide some of it."
Buffalo, which had things pretty much
its own way, did have a minor problem, centered around the left shoe of
guard Emmette Bryant. The shoe came off three times and on the last
occasion he decided to play on one shoe.
"That's our lose your shoe play,"
quipped Buffalo coach Dolph Schayes.
"Seriously, I thought Crawford picked
us up in the second half and Bowman was great on the boards in the third
quarter. He was taking everything off but the paint."
Bowman and Cleveland's Luther Rackley,
who started at center, each had 10 rebounds, while the Braves had a team
edge in this department, 51-50.
BUFFALO OUTSHOT Cleveland.
The Braves hit on 41 of 84 from the floor while Cleveland made 31 of 79.
The Cavaliers, however, also missed 13 free throws, 11 in the first half.
It's now one down and 81 to go for
the Cavaliers. Improvement could come as early as tomorrow night
when Cleveland helps another expansion team, Portland, open its season
on the second leg of a seven-game trip before its debut at the Arena Oct.
28 against San Diego.
This article originally appeared in the Cleveland
Plain Dealer October 15, 1970.
Reproduced with permission.
Or... An Opposing View: A reason to stick with the Clippers?
Elton Brand of the Clippers, pictured above in a Braves throwback jersey. The tradition continues in LA, sort of. Is that reason enough to be loyal? See "Do the Clippers Deserve any Loyalty?"