Well done, lads

I felt something watching the Cavs drop by Philips Arena and take down the Hawks 100-95 on Friday night, a feeling that people don't often associate with their professional sports teams.

Pride.

I felt proud of the Cavs, my favorite basketball team. They were going into a building where the hosts had posted three solid home wins in a row against quality teams, were playing the second night of a road back-to-back where the night before they had been handled by a tough, big, healthy Rockets squad, and were missing four of their top players (Varejao, Gooden, Gibson, Pavlovic). With just a week before the All-Star game, this one would have been all to easy to mail in.

But the Cavs did no such thing, a credit to the surviving members of the roster and Coach Brown. The Wine and Gold played an all-around tough game, getting big contributions from role players (18 points for Ira Newble, 13 from Damon Jones, and 5 assists and roughly 8 steals from Eric Snow) and the usual suspects (LeBron with 26/11/7 and Z with 17/11), they worked hard for rebounds and loose balls, made big plays down the stretch, and left Atlanta with a nice W. Not just any W, but the kind of W that Cavs could really be proud of. Nice work, gentlemen.