Cleveland Takes Lead, Dances to Victory

In anticipation, make that anxious anticipation, of facing Cleveland High’s punishing press, El Camino Real practiced against its junior varsity for 2 days in an attempt to replicate the Cavaliers’ vise-grip defense.

Duplication, however, required a twist. Practice became a game of Crazy Eights as Coach Mike McNulty used 8 junior varsity players--all on the floor at the same time--against the 5 varsity starters as he tried to prepare his team for Cleveland’s defensive trap.

Friday night, it must have seemed as though there were as many Cavaliers on the court as Cleveland forced 33 turnovers in an 84-65 Northwest Valley Conference victory over El Camino Real at Cleveland.

Even the vanquished weren’t about to slight Cleveland’s defensive sleight of hand.

“That press is one of the best I’ve ever played against,” said El Camino Real senior forward Brent Lofton, who scored 17 points. “I don’t think it’s comparable to anyone’s. If Crenshaw’s or anybody else’s is any better, I’d like to see it.”

El Camino Real (4-6, 1-2 in league play) tried to defense the fast-paced Cleveland offense with something called a Jet defense--a half-court, match-up press. In this case, there were obvious signs of jet lag, and early.

Led by seniors Adonis Jordan and Lucious Harris, Cleveland (13-2, 3-0) raced to a 24-8 lead after a quarter. Jordan buried his first 3 shots and scored 8 of his 21 points in the quarter. Harrell, who finished with a game-high 13 rebounds, scored 9 of his game-high 24 points in the quarter and added 8 more in the second as Cleveland pushed El Camino Real around on both ends of the court.

The Conquistadores were unable to establish any kind of rhythm offensively and made only 6 of 25 field-goal attempts in the first half as Cleveland took a 46-19 lead.

El Camino Real turned the ball over 4 times in the first minute of the second quarter, and Cleveland converted its first 3 shots to start the landslide.

“I don’t know if it was so much their defense as it was us turning the ball over on our half-court offense,” McNulty said. “We practiced what we expected to see--they doubled up on us--and we just couldn’t get it going.”

El Camino Real’s first sign of offensive execution came in the opening moments of the third quarter when a Jason Steele (18 points) slam dunk with 6:34 left capped a 6-0 run and cut the deficit to 46-25. Cleveland, however, outscored the Conquistadores, 24-22, in the quarter to take a more-than-comfortable 70-41 lead.

El Camino Real scored 24 points in the fourth quarter, but most of the Cleveland starters were sitting on the bench wondering if garbage time might cause them to be late to the school’s postgame dance.

“They really got on us when we started slow,” Lofton said. “We were out of sync.”

There were no such problems for Cleveland. The artistic floor moves came early for Jordan, who even managed to try a between-the-legs pass in the final seconds of the third quarter, a trick for which he was promptly yanked by Cleveland Coach Bob Braswell.

Jordan finished with 9 assists and 6 steals.