If you're looking for some deeper meaning or significance from the Cleveland Cavaliers' 89-70 win over the three-time defending champion Los Angeles Lakers last week, don't.

Cavaliers coach John Lucas certainly isn't, at least not for his club.

"We're young, we're going to struggle, we'll look organized some and look disorganized," Lucas said before Cleveland's game Wednesday with the Washington Wizards.

"But one game isn't going to tell me something different. One game is going to tell me that we played well for one night against half the Lakers. We didn't beat the whole Lakers. Let's not lose perspective here."

Lucas' reference is to the fact that the Lakers played without center Shaquille O'Neal, and it's a valid one. But while the long-suffering Cleveland franchise may not have turned a corner, the Los Angeles win may mean that the proverbial corner is a little closer than you think.

"With Shaq missing, it's a whole different ballgame," said guard Ricky Davis. "But we played so hard and with so much energy that if Shaq was there, we would have given them a hard time. I just think we need to come out and play like that every night, and it would take us to a whole other level."

This was considered to be a year when the Cavaliers would grow and mature, while waiting to join the LeBron James sweepstakes in next June's draft, when the Ohio high school phenom is expected to skip college and head straight to the NBA.

Getting older is a wise thought considering that only two players on the roster, guard Bimbo Coles and forward Tyrone Hill, are over 30. Consequently, Hill and Coles are the only players on the roster with more than five years experience in the NBA.

The Cavaliers are waiting for their most promising young player, guard Dajuan Wagner, the sixth overall pick in June's draft after a year at Memphis, to come off the injured list, where he was placed just before last week's opener with a bladder infection.

In Wagner's absence, Davis and newly acquired Darius Miles, who came to Cleveland in an offseason deal with the Los Angeles Clippers for point guard Andre Miller, have helped pick up the scoring slack.

Meanwhile, Hill has helped stabilize the inside game along with the return of center Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who missed two full seasons and 20 games last year with recurring foot ailments.

"Having Z [last year] probably means we don't turn our team over, if we have him," Lucas said. "The key component for us, besides Z, is Tyrone Hill, a healthy Tyrone Hill. At no other time in his career has his role been like this role."

OK, so it's only November, and the Cavaliers have a rugged first-half schedule, including a wicked stretch in late December and early January when they play eight of nine games on the road -- six of them on the West Coast.

But a team can always dream, can't it?

"We're a young club and it [win over the Lakers] helps the confidence of a young team," Davis said. "It lets us know where we are on the court, in terms of fundamentals. It lets us know that we're capable of competing in the East."

Quiz

No hints for this one. Of the five players who top the NBA's all-time scoring list, only one has managed to avoid a scoreless game in his career. Name him.

Webber's trials

Listen carefully and you'll hear the sounds of breaths being held in Sacramento, as the Kings anxiously await the outcome of charges that Chris Webber lied to a federal grand jury about accepting money from a booster while he was enrolled at Michigan in the early 1990s.

Webber has repeatedly denied that he accepted significant amounts of money from Ed Martin, who said he gave Webber $280,000. In throwing itself on the mercy of the NCAA court Thursday, Michigan officials made it clear that they believe Webber did in fact get the money, dealing a potentially crippling blow to Webber's defense. Some of Webber's former teammates have admitted to taking cash from Martin.

Webber, one of the 10 best players in the league and the key to any hopes Sacramento has of overtaking the Lakers for the title, faces up to 10 years in prison on perjury and obstruction of justice charges. A trial on those charges may begin early next year, and the distraction of Webber preparing for the trial, not to mention attending it, could knock the Kings for a loop.

'Golden Arm' award

Starting today, we'll check each week on the player who takes the most field-goal attempts in a game and award the "Man With The Golden Arm" designation to the player who averages the most shots in a game for the season at the end of the year.

This week's winner, hands down, is the Lakers' Kobe Bryant, who threw up 47 shots in Thursday's loss to Boston. Though Bryant's attempts were the most since Webber took 47 shots in a January 2001 game against Indiana, his game doesn't even crack the top 10 list for most shots taken in a game, headed by the 63 attempts from Wilt Chamberlain in his 100-point game in 1962.

Bryant has the early lead for the season, averaging 24 attempts a game, just ahead of the 22.6 attempts by Allan Houston of the Knicks.

Quiz answer

Michael Jordan is the only player among the five all-time leading scorers (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Chamberlain, Karl Malone and Moses Malone) never to go scoreless in a game. Karl Malone joined the club last Sunday when he failed to score in a game against Seattle. Jordan does, however, have a two-point game, notched last April against the Lakers.

Quote of the week

"We've been doing dumb stuff." -- Sacramento guard Bobby Jackson on why the Kings have been slow out of the gate.

Compiled from interviews, wire services and reports from other newspapers.