Rembrandt? No, LeBron just being LeBron

His was an unremarkable performance for three quarters. For nothing LeBron James had done last night during those 31 minutes he spent on the floor against the Utah Jazz looked like much.

The Cavs, though, didn't need remarkable from LeBron -- not at that point.

But without Shaquille O'Neal (he was sidelined with a bad shoulder, or so the Cavs told the media), all eyes inside The Q focused on King James, because three quarters don't decide a basketball game. And to think the Jazz, a team crippled with injuries, wouldn't make a late run would be to confuse the Jazz with the Knicks and not understand its brilliant mastermind, Jerry Sloan.

Few teams in the NBA are as well coached as Sloan's Jazz. Even without Kyle Korver, Ronnie Price and Deron Williams, perhaps the best point guard in the universe, the Jazz remained a team the Cavs would have to reckon with. The reckoning began with 1:56 left on Carlos Boozer's two free throws.

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Cavs look like a team that's 'clicking'

The Cavaliers return Saturday night to The Q. They're returning to town to face the Utah Jazz with a cockiness and the tough guy's swagger that seemed to be missing in the first five or six games of their season.

Winning has a way of putting the strut back into pro athlete's step, and to perform in victory the way the LeBron James, Shaquille O'Neal, Mo Williams and the rest of their gang have done lately is reason enough to predict their early-season troubles were behind them.

In a display that looked like midseason form, they showed offensive versatility during their two-game road trip.

Coach Mike Brown figured out how to use Shaq, and Brown's decision to start J.J. Hickson over Anderson Varejao was coaching brilliance. It was risky business to bring Varejao off the bench as a sixth man, but Hickson's athleticism complemented Shaq's powerful inside game better than Varejao's does.

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