Cavs Fan Guide: Where to Watch, Eat and Drink Pregame

Photo courtesy Barley House Cleveland

Barley House Cleveland: Score four-bottle Bud Light and Budweiser buckets for $14 during games. Plus, the spot's $5 pizza specials every Thursday make tonight's game a tasty throwdown. 1261 W. Sixth St., Cleveland, 216-623-1700, barleyhousecleveland.com

Clevelander Bar & Grill: Celebrate with the $4 Kevin Love-inspired “Droppin’ Dimes” shot, made with Three Olives Cherry vodka. If you’d rather watch the Cavs make shots than drink them, the Clevelander will have $4 domestic 16-ounce cans, $3.25 short and $4.75 tall domestic drafts available for game time as well. 834 Huron Road E, Cleveland, 216-771-3723, clevelanderbar.com

Eat’n Park: Fans decked out in their best Cavs gear will score a free Smiley Cookie with their meal at Cleveland-area Eat’n Park locations, including Austintown, Boardman, Chapel Hill, Medina, Mentor, Parma, Warren and Willoughby locations. Various locations, eatnpark.com

Flat Iron Cafe: Need a lift to the game? The Flat Iron’s Cafe Valet will shuttle you and your friends for free. Plus, fans can score daily specials, which rotate every game, such as 50 cent wings during Game 3 June 8. 1114 Center St., Cleveland, 216-696-6968, flatironcafe.com

Free Cavs Fan Fests and Watch Parties: Need a pregame Cavs fan makeover or a Scream Team pump-up? Head over to these free fests outside The Q. Fans of all ages will enjoy games, live music by Northeast Ohio bands, food trucks, performances by the Cavalier Girls and giveaways for home games June 8 and 10. For away games June 2 and 5, snag a ticket to a watch party inside the arena for all of the entertainment from an actual game expect the players and the game shown on the humongotron. If it goes to more than four games, expect Fan Fests for future Finals home games and more Watch Parties for road games. Fan Fests, Outside of The Q, East Sixth Street and Gateway Plaza; Watch Parties, The Q, 1 Center Court, Cleveland,  nba.com/cavaliers/playoffs/guide

Hodge’s: One of downtown’s largest patios will play host to Cavs fans eager to catch both home and away games on the two 70-inch TVs installed specially for the NBA Finals. During the games, basketball fans can sip on $3 Coors and Great Lakes Brewing Co. Dortmunder Gold on draft. 668 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, 216-771-4000, thedriftwoodgroup.com/restaurants/hodges

The Ritz-Carlton Cleveland: Both local and overnight basketball fans can celebrate the Cavs NBA Finals appearance at the Ritz-Carlton Cleveland. Viewing parties in the Lobby Lounge will take place every game of the Finals and the special $16 All In cocktail, made with tequila, triple sec and prickly pear liqueur and garnished with a gold sugar rim and gold dust sprinkle, will be available. Guests of the hotel’s Club Level will also receive special basketball-inspired treats. 1515 W. Third St., Cleveland, 216-623-1300, ritzcarlton.com/en/hotels/cleveland 

All In cocktail

Winking Lizard: If seeing the King slam-dunk on just one screen isn’t enough, then head over to the Winking Lizard's Gateway location — just under a five-minute walk from The Q — to watch the game broadcasted on about 50 TV screens throughout the restaurant. 811 Huron Road, Cleveland, 216-589-0313, winkinglizard.com/locations/gateway

Yours Truly Restaurant: If — and when — the Cavs win the NBA championship, Yours Truly's Rockside location will serve free food the following day. There is also a Yours Truly six-item special features menu as long as the Cavs are in the NBA Finals that include bites such as the Triple Threat Notso Fries, 3 Point Swish Sliders and Brew Kettle's All For One session IPA beer. 8111 Rockside Road, Valley View, 216-524-8111, ytr.com

How to Piss Off an Entire City, In One Easy Step

On Tuesday, a Boston Globe sports columnist, having very little Boston Celtics basketball to write about, took it upon himself to do a little Cleveland bashing.

“Cleveland once was one of America’s five largest cities. Today, downtown Cleveland is a sad space with many vacant buildings and boarded-up stores,” wrote Dan Shaughnessy. “The city is quiet on weekends and empty on weeknights after the workforce goes home. It feels like the local economy runs on lottery tickets.”

He hits the usual high points — the Cleveland Indians lack of butts in seats, the perpetual circus of Browns football, the championship drought — just with the added perspective of looking down his national nose at us poor, lusty plebeians.

“At the corner of East Fourth Street and Prospect you can still get a 16-ounce can of Pabst Blue Ribbon for $3 at Flannery’s Pub,” he wrote. “Not far from the other end of Fourth Street, there’s the Horseshoe Casino, connected to the Tower City Center. This is not a high-roller crowd. It’s not Ocean’s Eleven. It’s more like Atlantic City-on-the-Cuyahoga.”

Naturally, Cleveland’s booster set was deeply insulted. At The Q last night, there was a sassy video and no confetti. The Northeast Ohio Media Group curated a few choice reactions from their readers. Twitter tossed a self-righteous fit.

Local government even waded into the fray. Armond Budish, Cuyahoga county executive, issued an email statement.

“If you took a little bit longer of a walk, you’d see that downtown boasts thousands of residents and an occupancy rate of nearly 98 percent,” he said to Shaughnessy. “It seems that we can’t build downtown apartments fast enough for all of the folks clamoring to live here! Our city is tough and, yes, we are revitalizing.”

Over in alt weekly-dom, Scene got the story behind the story. Recently, a glowing Cleveland travel piece in the Globe was removed for violating the paper’s ethics guidelines, Sam Allard found. Destination Cleveland was the culprit, financing the junket.

True, Shaughnessy’s piece reads like a piece of junket writing, with its carefully chosen locales and gently shepherded experiences.

Shock. Horror.

"I'm a little concerned for Cleveland that they're so sensitive," Shaughnessy told the Northeast Ohio Media Group late yesterday. "You don't need to be. You guys are better than that. You have a championship-caliber team this year. You should win the championship. Let yourselves enjoy it."

A swashbuckling TV reporter even went so far as to march into the poor man's hotel room and all but demanded an apology. He gave in, definitely convinced by the kind folks at CLE Clothing Co. who made the case for "new Cleveland" in the segment.

Is our skin really so paper-thin?

Conversely, are we so blind that we willfully reject our shortcomings when they are practically punching us in the face?

At the very least, Shaughnessy provides a small dose of reality in a needlessly acerbic fashion.

A quick walk from Playhouse Square to the downtown Heinen’s reveals still-vacant storefronts, waiting for developers to get their act together. Thirteen thousand residents or not, downtown is still far from a 24/7 city.

Outside pockets of shiny new stuff, the some old problems prevail. Poverty, segregation both racial and economic, and dilapidation are still facts of life in Cleveland. For every Ohio City, there seems to be three Glenvilles. Viewed holistically, Cleveland’s revival is at best imperfect, at worst inequitable.

Nonetheless the revival, the upward trajectory, is real. And it’s happening here.

If this brouhaha proves anything, it’s that we don't quite believe it's happening ourselves. We are, as Shaughnessy points out, crying out for a little validation. It's as if we think all these good things will disappear if we simply blink.

This is real, we tell ourselves while sipping our tallboys, not quite buying in as we should. It may be ugly, but doing nothing is a greater sin. There may not be consensus about where we’re going, but hell, we’ll go somewhere.

And when the next inevitable volley comes, hopefully we will process the criticism as more than groups of either blind boosters or vacuous misanthropes.

After all there’s no greater pleasure than, so many years later, looking back on the schoolyard bully and saying, “Oh yeah? What have you done?”

Cavs/Mavs T-Shirt Scores With Local Fans

George and Greg Vlosich have Clevelanders' backs. The designers of the Cleve Land That I Love and Lyin' King shirts, which expressed our vitriol at LeBron James, have come up with a new design for the NBA Finals. As the Dallas Mavericks face off against the Miami Heat, the Vlosiches have superimposed a cowboy hat and the Dallas Mavericks' "M" over a Cavs logo to create a Let's Go Mavs T-shirt.

In anticipation of Game 2 tonight, we spoke with Greg Vlosich, co-owner of GV Art & Design, about the company, the T-shirt and Dallas' chances of winning their first ring before LeBron does.

CM: What do you think LeBron [James] would think or say if he saw the Let's Go Mavs T-shirt?
GV: I think he’d get a kick out of it. Hopefully, he realizes you have to have a sense of humor about it. ... I think [the Miami Heat] know they’ve been the enemy the whole year.

CM: Have you sold many of the Let's Go Mavs T-shirts?

GV: Yes, the response has been really good. We wanted to do something that Cleveland could really rally around, and we wanted to do something because we didn’t have a whole lot to cheer for in the playoffs this year. So far it’s done really well, and everybody has really embraced it. It’s kind of funny, too, because it was in the Dallas Morning Journal today [as well as on] ESPN, ESPN's blog and CNN. Also, the woman on ESPN's SportsNation is going to be wearing it today. So it’s cool that it’s kind of putting Cleveland back in the spotlight when they’re not even in it. It’s bringing a lot of positive attention to Cleveland.

CM: What kind of feeling do you hope to promote among Cleveland fans?
GV: We started the Cleve Land That I Love T-shirt about a year and a half ago, and we wanted something that Clevelanders could wear and be proud of it. ... We’re getting pictures of people wearing [our apparel] [in places such as] the Great Wall of China and Australia. It shows that there are other people out there who are proud of Cleveland like we are, who don’t hate it.

CM: What else does GV Art & Design sell?
GV: [My brother George] does Etch A Sketch artwork, and we have sports art too. I’ve done a couple of pieces for some of the Browns players.

CM: Do you think the Mavs will win the Finals, and if so, how certain are you?
GV: [Laughs] I’m not extremely certain. If I had to bet my life on it, I don't know if I’d do it. I think Dallas has a shot. My only fear is that they’ve been hot during all the playoffs, so I figured they’d hit a cold streak at some point. But I’m hoping they don’t hit the cold streak now.

Cavs: Having Too Much Fun?

Its been a lingering question all season: Have LeBron and company been goofing off just a little too much? And with this parody of the popular Heineken commercial to promote the NBA playoffs people are buzzing with knocks on the Cavaliers again. As long as they keep winning, why not enjoy the ride and entertain fans off the court too? As soon as that game clock starts ticking, the Cavs have proven they are all business: Best record. Coach of the Year. Soon-to-be-named MVP. Enough said.

Bonus: Joe Smith (aka Joe Beast) shows off his rapping skills here with a song about what else? The Cavs.