Looks like Christmas came a little early for Cleveland Cavaliers general manager Danny Ferry. And he can thank the Charlotte Bobcats for playing the part of Santa Claus. The Bobcats signed restricted free agent Anderson Varejao, the Cavs disgruntled big man who had been holding out, to an offer sheet worth $17.4 million over three years. Today, Ferry matched that offer, ending the stalemate between the two sides.

Varejao, who’s agent Dan Fegan had been reportedly demanding a six-year, $52 million dollar deal, had turned down previous Cleveland offers. He rejected a one-year, $1.2 million qualifying offer that would have made him an unrestricted free agent after this season. He also shot down a three-year, $20 million deal

Although he will be making less money than the Cavs initially offered, Varejao, 25, can opt out of the third year and become an unrestricted, where he will likely find once again that no one is willing to pay him the nearly $10 million a year that he covets.

The Grizzlies were briefly interested in Varejao this summer, but opted to go with the Darko Milicic. Grizzlies general manager Chris Wallace said the Grizzlies were not interested in making a second run at Varejao, citing the team must save money in order to re-sign Juan Carlos Navarro this summer, and Rudy Gay and Kyle Lowry the following year.

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That’s about as stressful as it gets. Not for Memphis. For me. Games that start at 8:30 p.m. aren’t very good for writers. Especially overtime games. It wasn’t fun, but we make it happen at the CA. Please, enjoy reading your game story and Geoff Calkins column tomorrow. We worked hard to get it in the paper.

I’ll be honest. Six minutes into the second half, I had buried the Tigers. My game story was already written. It was a merciless rip job. Sure, the triangle-and-two defense that Tim Floyd claimed to have put in at 7 p.m. Tuesday night — and I don’t believe that for a second by the way — caused problems. But the bigger issue, from my vantage point, was the Tigers body language. They seemed disinterested. Shoulders were sagging. They didn’t look very enthused about being there. But I’ll give them a lot of credit for really locking down in the second half and finding a way to beat USC. Memphis’ defense had been pretty poor the last two games, but the Tigers did what they had to do.

Two guys who really stood out were Shawn Taggart and Robert Dozier. Both made really high-impact plays defensively late in the game. Antonio Anderson looked lost out there for most of the game, but he made a couple big-time layups down the stretch. I’ll have more thoughts in the morning before I head back home to Memphis.