The Cavs opened up a first-quarter lead over the Brooklyn Nets (only sort of pictured above), but then Anderson Varejao and Kyrie Irving went to the bench, and, well, you can sort of anticipate what happened. Let us recap:
–The bench and defense sunk the Cavs in this one. The defense was poor from nearly everyone involved, but the Cavalier substitutes scored just six points despite 61 combined minutes of floor-time. We C:TB staffers were emailing each other a bit after the game, and Kevin’s correct in asserting that this all-starters and all-subs thing isn’t working. Dion Waiters got a little bit of work with the second unit tonight (though he had an bad game; it wasn’t so much shot selection as the fact his jumper and finishing around the rim were off), but for the most part the subs were on the floor without someone who could either create his own shot or get a teammate the ball in a scoring position. I don’t want to beat a dead horse, so I won’t continue, but I don’t think Scott can continue to throw this bench out there without Kyrie or Dion on the floor.
–I’m sure once Dwight Howard and Steve Nash get fully healthy and properly acquainted with one another in Los Angeles, that’ll be the best pick-and-roll tandem in the league, but right now no one runs it better than Varejao and Irving. It’s like the highly effective Andy-LeBron pick-and-roll of old, except Kyrie’s an even better ball handler. Irving also varies the way he uses Andy’s screen so that defenses can’t key on any one move. When the pick works, he gets into the paint; when the defender goes under it, he shoots the three; and once in awhile he’ll catch his man by surprise and reject the screen altogether. He even does that Chris Paul-ish thing where, when the defender’s scrambling to catch up, he’ll stop for a second and let his man run into him for a foul. It’s astounding how many variations on the pick-and-roll Kyrie and Andy run because they understand the multitude of possibilities it opens up.
–One more Andy and Kyrie bullet. They both set career highs in points (35 and 34, respectively) and Varejao pulled down 18 boards. They are both utter treasures and we should thank them for making this game watchable. It would’ve been a complete slaughter if they hadn’t both performed as well as they did. I think fans and players are pretty sold on the idea that Kyrie is on his way to becoming one of the very best point guards in the league, but Varejao has been playing out his skull for the last 15 months or so. (Massive injury layoff excepted, obviously.) In my estimation, he’s gone from upper-echelon hustle guy to fringe all-star selection.
–I really like what the coaches have done re: putting Tristan Thompson on the baseline when Irving or Waiters penetrate. He caught—by my perhaps inaccurate count—four passes on the baseline that led to dunks or free throws. They should have all been dunks, but TT still takes way too long to get off the ground. Regardless, he does a good job of moving out of the way to give the guards a lane to the basket, and if a big man steps in front of them, he’s ready for the pass. Thompson had 14 points on 6-for-11 shooting and was 2-for-5 from the line, which means that Byron’s magical free throw realignment technique apparently will not transform TT into an 80% shooter from the stripe.
–Jon Leuer’s going to start making open jumpers at some point, right? He clanked a few more tonight, and he’s pretty useless if he’s not knocking down fifteen-footers. I’m all for playing him over Luke Walton or Samardo Samuels, but he needs to find his shooting touch.
The Cavs finally return home to face Detroit on Saturday. Until tomorrow, friends.
“but for the most part the subs were on the floor without someone who could either create his own shot or get a teammate the ball in a scoring position.”
No. Either Dion or Kyrie were in the entire second half. Bench is the worst in basketball and that’s pretty much that. At least SIX players on this team don’t belong on an NBA roster. Can’t win with that.
I was at this game – even the Nets fans completely understood how amazing the Kyrie/Andy tandem is. Tons of people in the crowd screaming for Andy to hit 40-20, pretty much everyone saying “OOOOOooo! AHHH!!!” when Kyrie did his fancy footwork. As awful as the loss was (and as terrible as the drunk dude behind me was screaming stupid things every few seconds was) being able to watch those two work together was incredibly rewarding.
Also, I think we saw Waiters’ shot selection finally catch up with him. He missed some wide open shots, but also took a bunch of stupid ones (runners in the lane? Really dude???) I’ll say this, though, when he goes strong to the rim to dunk, he flies. Awesome.
What’s been so frustrating for me about watching Tristan is that he has so much trouble finishing after contact. Granted, it’s not an easy skill to master, but he generally has good opportunities around the rim. But he can’t seem to convert, and instead goes to the line for free throws, and you’re just hoping he makes one. Until he can start either making his free throws or finishing after contact, he’s going to be an inefficient player.
@Mallory you are continuing this “Dion takes bad shots” fallacy. I saw ONE bad shot attempt today. Please point out the others you think were “bad.”
It’s funny how a player’s rep, even when he hasn’t played an official game, is so powerful that people cling to it despite the evidence. Thorpe at ESPN has been just as guilty as Mallory has been. Dion was a better outside shooter (3 point pct.) than Beal in college and has shown himself so far, despite tonight’s struggles, that he is a good outside shooter. Drop this false rep and just let the player play and judge him on that. Sheesh.
Oh and yes, this bench is historically awful…
TT needs to learn a better baseline move to the rim other than the straight 2-handed flush, he seriously only actually makes the dunk like 10% of the time…usually gets blocked or makes no FTs. Can’t somebody show him how to double-clutch and/or use the glass? Kyrie would have 2-3 more assists per game if he ever learns to finish at a reasonable rate.
@kj, Mallory’s point (about tonight’s game at least) is that Dion did not take bad shots.
“it wasn’t so much shot selection as the fact his jumper and finishing around the rim were off”
Rich,
You omitted the first part of Colin’s sentence that “Dion Waiters got a little bit of work with the second unit tonight”. One problem with Dion’s time with the second unit is that he played the whole third quarter. He always sits at the end of the 1st / 3rd quarters, and then the time that he finally starts the 2nd / 4th quarter, he doesn’t get a rest? I don’t think Coach Scott made a substitution the entire third quarter. I do not recall seeing anything like it before. Very curious game. The starters / subs need staggered.
Also, yesterday, personally I noted that Dion AND Andy should be on the court when Kyrie is off (not just Dion). I would still like to see that, and a reasonable rotation can be set up where Kyrie plays 35 min, Andy 35 min and Dion 30 minutes while keeping 2 of 3 three on the court at most times.
Finally, just a random thought, but perhaps Cleveland is only playing Andy with Kyrie in order to drive up Andy’s trade value? I hope that is not a motivation, but who knows.
Was at this game as well. As Mallory said, everyone was impressed by the Kyrie-Andy chemistry and of course Kyrie’s otherworldly handle.
The rest of the team…Waiters had a bad game but at least he was aggressive. He and Irving both ballhogged a lot, but there isn’t really anyone for them to pass to, other than Varejao, who moves without the ball as well as anyone in the league.
The good ends there. They do not look like a well-coached team – offensive execution is bad and defensive execution is nonexistent. Yes, the team is wanting for talent, but if I were B. Scott I would be embarrassed of that defensive performance. The Nets didn’t start making (or even shooting) jumpshots til the second half, after they were already up 20. They were getting easy looks in the paint for the entire second quarter and no adjustments were made. Lopez and Humphries made Johnson and Williams getting hot later a moot point.
If you can’t defend the paint, you cannot win any games.
Considering our lack of SF/bench play don’t you wish we had kept Danny Green: http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/11/14/video-spurs-danny-greens-game-winner-to-beat-lakers/
Once again an outstanding game for the Cavs. I love how Irving, Andy, and Dion have been playing. As for Dion, it didn’t look like bad shot selection so much as he was missing his shots. It happens.
This team is going to be pretty good once they find some other pieces.
“One problem with Dion’s time with the second unit is that he played the whole third quarter. He always sits at the end of the 1st / 3rd quarters, and then the time that he finally starts the 2nd / 4th quarter, he doesn’t get a rest? I don’t think Coach Scott made a substitution the entire third quarter. I do not recall seeing anything like it before. Very curious game. The starters / subs need staggered.”
Yes, he left them in the entire 3rd quarter because the bench is that hilariously bad. And I must disagree. Kyrie and Varejao should be playing almost exclusively together. You stagger their minutes and you take away what is currently our best offense as noted in the OP. And I didn’t leave anything out by Colin. He said that, for the most part, the second unit played w/o Dion or Kyrie and that just isn’t true. For about a total of 5 minutes they did. For the vast majority of the game, however, Kyrie or Dion were on the floor at all times.
@Kj:
I agree. Dion’s shot selection last night was fine. His shot just wasn’t falling. I liked that he was attacking the rim with some actual frequency last night, and I’m fairly confident that, much like Kyrie last year, he’ll figure out how to convert his shots there given time.
In fact, the only game where his shot selection was borderline terrible was the Clippers game, and he was hitting everything he took like he was playing NBA Jam.
No doubt Kyrie and Andy were beastly last night, and I feel bad for dogging on Kyrie, but for as talented he is on the offensive end, his otherworldly handle, sick crossovers and behind the back dribbles, spin moves, and the way he slithers through defenders to get to the basket, he should at least have some modicum of ability on the defensive end. His defensive effort is embarrassing. I’m happy to hear Coach Scott call him out on this last night (well the whole team besides Andy, ‘Zo, and Boobie). With all his moves he should be able to fight through screens and stay with other PGs in this league, I just see very little effort on defense. If he wants to be an elite player, he needs to start working on his defense NOW, otherwise he’s gonna turn into Mike Bibby II. This is his team, he needs to lead by example and start hustling on the defensive end, the others will follow.
Also, why is Scott still trotting Luke Walton out there? The trade deadline cannot get here fast enough, then we won’t have to see Walton pretending to be an NBA player anymore. Your dad was awesome dude, but you have gravy-trained off his name long enough, go away and take your money with you.
I can’t get over how blind people are. We punted on Ramon Sessions (and maybe he indicated that he wouldn’t resign but I doubt it) and our bench went from being one of the best in the NBA to easily the worst bench any of us has ever seen. We have no backup point guard so we are sitting here debating how to stagger Kyrie and Dion, Sessions has a 20 PER right now, The bobcats are 3-3 we are 2-6. And our reward for “trading” the best backup PG in the NBA was to take on Luke Walton’s contract and get a late first round pick. And guess what – people RIGHT NOW on TWITTER want us to do the same thing with Andy. “he’s not part of the future, just trade him. He’s too injury prone just trade him.” You don’t “just trade people” because there’s a chance they aren’t a part of the future – especially when they fill a void. Anderson Varejao has 1.2 of the Cavs 2.4 total Win Shares right now. And people are saying “trade him and I want at least a 1st round pick”. I hope Chris Grant is laughing when he sees these posts/tweets.
Rich, our bench looks so horrendously bad because they rarely get the benefit of any creativity from Andy or Kyrie. From 1:23 left in the first until just under nine minutes left in the second, Kyrie, Dion, and Anderson were all on the bench (you know, that 4 and a half minute, 11-2 run the Nets made to take the lead for good). CJ Miles has been a decent player in the league for the last 6 years and is 25 years old! Jon Leuer had a 15 per last year! Even Smardo and Casspi looked better last year.
Sure, its not a good bench, but 6 points? really? That is never going to get it done, and it would never be that bad if they ever got to play with Kyrie or Andy or more than a couple minutes with Dion. If all three of them play 35ish minutes like last night, there is no reason you can’t stagger them liberally and keep 2 of the 3 on the court for most all of the game (and never, NEVER take all three off) and get the bench guys going, give them confidence, and avoid 12 point quarters. And as fun as Kyrie and Andy are to watch on offense, it looked like last night Kyrie was overusing Andy on that end and it hurt our post D, as our only plus post defender was concentrating on the other side of the ball (and it showed drastically as we were torched in the paint). Maybe there is a coaching reason Andy has never broken 30 points.
Tsunami, while I agree we shouldn’t trade Andy, the sessions trade made complete sense. Session clearly wanted playing time (hello normal money signing to start on the BOBCATS) and wasn’t getting it here. We would have had to pay much more than we should for a backup PG, a move that would compromise our cap situation down the road. Instead, we have Dion Waiters with the 4th pick we likely wouldn’t have had if session carried us through kyrie’s injury to a couple more wins, and we have Zeller who we definitely wouldn’t have had without the lakers pick, and we still desperately need a back-up pg, which would have been the case anyways barring overpaying a backup pg who wouldn’t get more than 15 minutes a night during contention, if that.
Really, we are going to mourn losing Ramon freking Sessions? This team is not going to win a lot of games this year. Get used to that fact and you will learn to enjoy the season much more. The key is the development of Waiters and Irving. Both have looked fantastic. This is the key to the team. Backup pg and bench are all things that will be filled in later.
SwIrving – we have the most cap space of any team in the league. We currently pay Boobie Gibson 4.4 Million a year to be a backup guard. Sessions is backing up Kemba Walker for 5 million a year. Also, a couple more wins, like 2 more, would have netted us Anthony davis (remember the tie with NO). So it’s silly to say things like that. Also, even if we had the 6th pick, I’ll bet Waiters was still there since he was considered such a reach at 4. Also, Zeller looks like a decent backup center. Woo-hoo. No reason to believe he wouldn’t have been hanging around a few picks later.
The Sessions trade allowed us to get Tyler Zeller, Tsunami. I’d make that that trade 100 times out of 100. You can find another point guard, but 7 footers that can shoot don’t grow on trees. And he would not have been there in the second round, which is where we’d have been drafting again if we hadn’t made that trade. The Cavs are designed to lose. It’s as simple as that.
You mean like Jonas?
Nate – regardless of the contract situation or whatever – losing sessions and replacing him with zeller was a net negative for at least 2-3 years. In fact, Zeller might never produce as much as Sessions. With Andy, multiply this whole ordeal by 10. You don’t replace him with a late first round pick. It will set the organization back another 3 years.
Tsunami,
I disagree with you on the Sessions thing, as I don’t think he was returning, and I like Zeller.
I agree with you on Varejao.
Tsunami hits on something I’ve been arguing for a while – namely this idea that the draft holds all sorts of magic. In reality I’d much rather have a known entity than an unknown, which is exactly what you get from the draft. At this point we’re not in need of young guys with potential – we have Kyrie, Waiters, Tristan, and Zeller. That’s a lot of high drafted youth. What we need are guys who can do the dirty work, scores once and a while, and play D.
Think of it this way – if we lost for another year just to get a top 5 pick, and ended up drafted a slightly worse Kirk Heinrich, would you guys be happy? I wouldn’t. That’s probably the most common outcome of a top pick and something I’m not too psyched about.
Those guys exist on the open market for a reasonable price, and coincidentally enough, they’re exactly what we need now. Anything we get from the draft at this point is gravy
Wrong, Tsunami. You make it sound as if Dan Glibert was going to shell out 5 million a year for Sessions. He wasn’t. The Cavs certainly could have gotten someone suitable for much less than that. Nate Robinson was a veteran minimum, 16 PER. Kirk Hinrich 4 million per year, 12 PER. Yes, Sessions is good value for his contract, and he probably cost himself at least $10million with a bad postseason last year, but the Cavs weren’t going to pay him, and who knows if he’d have stayed… If you’re not going to pay the guy, you get something for him. You can argue with us all you want, but we’re just interpreting Chris Grant and Dan Gilbert: Sessions was never a part of the long term plan.
I think as Cavs fans we are in the best possible position for this season right now. We get to watch a young exciting team knowing that we have two stars in Irving and Waiters for quite a while. Add in that Andy seems to have taken a huge step forward offensively and it’s a super fun team to watch while at the same time they won’t win many games which will help us get a good pick in the draft.
It’s perfect and sets us up so well for next year while still making this year quite enjoyable.
Sessions was leaving anyway. Zeller is tied in to a rookie contract for at least the next 3 years at great value.
No brainer.
on the draft vs known commodity debate – both have their risks. Miles was supposed to be a known commodity, reliable off the bench and maybe start, but that hasn’t worked out so well.
No one is mentioning what I thought was the key to the game – the size of Brooklyns front Court. The Cavs were undersized everywhere and were blocked 10 times. It was so easy for Andy offensively because the Nets bigs are lengthy but more stationary, Andy just ran around them. But on defense we struggled with the size and that led to easy bucket after easy bucket. Lopez, Humphries, and Blanche combined to shoot 18-26 for 48 points. To top it all off we continuously gave Johnson and Williams open looks and they shot over 50%. Game Over.
Tsunami, just because Boobie is overpaid doesn’t mean it would be right to overpay sessions. A Session-Kyrie backcourt would be absolutely atrocious defensively, so I’d presume he’d get less burn here (when competitive) than charlotte where kemba walker can at least pretend to play D. You want to spend 5 million on a guy who will ideally get 10 minutes a game?
And if we had 2 more wins, we would have had less balls in the hopper than NO (since we would be 4th alone, not tied at 3rd), so even if we wanted to play time machine, there is still no way to say we would have davis, and certainly we would have had a worse percentage. Zeller wasn’t falling from 17 to the 2nd round. And again, if we wanted to sign ramon for 5 million, and he wanted to sign here for 5 million, IT COULD HAVE HAPPENED ANYWAYS! Since he didn’t resign with the lakers, we literally lost 35 games of Ramon for better draft odds, some unwatchable games, and Tyler Zeller, and the same exact contract situation we would have had with Ramon anyways.
in other words, trading sessions was unarguably the smart thing to do, unless you believe that the Cavs really needed to look more competitive in a clear lottery bound season, future prospects be damned. Please stop bringing it up, it has very little to no relation to the Anderson Verajoa situation.
Kevin – let me make sure I’m being clear. I’m not advocating that it was bad that the Cavs traded Sessions. I am trying to get people to realize what a difference he made. Even the people that think they are disagreeing with me aren’t when they say things like “if we wouldn’t have traded him we would have had a lot more wins.” Why would have had a lot more wins? Because Sessions was a good player. Right? So we are all sitting here lamenting how God-awful our bench is – and no one was saying that last year. In fact, by most accounts, the Cavs BENCH was the reason they won as many games as they did early in the season. So, I get that the Cavs sacrificed short term winning (which we are seeing right now) for the build up of this long term “core”. Really, you can break that down to: Subtract Sessions (in his prime) add Zeller (we’ll see how productive he becomes as a backup C), and take on a bunch of dead weight salary. My point is simply this, and it’s getting lost because people think I’m advocating that we should have done everything to keep Sessions. I am saying “LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENED.” REALIZE that the reason we are so incredibly bad right now is because shifting player personnel made our bench (formerly an asset) into a HUGE liability. Don’t go “wow we only have 2 and half people that look like they belong in the NBA” when we had as I’ve said the best backup PG in the NBA last year. Losing Sessions HURT the WINNING. Right, so you can justify it to yourself if you say “yeah, but we KNEW this would happen, and we’re taking our lumps now for FUTURE ZELLER”. OK. Run through this whole ordeal again only this time, replace Sessions for Varejao and Zeller for some other late round pick and now you have easily the worst team in the league and no hope to compete until after Kyrie’s rookie contract is up.
Swirving – I’m GLAD we got something for Sessions. OK? I’m GLAD we turned losing someone to free agency for Tyler Zeller (although it wasn’t that simple but whatever). I don’t care that we took on dead weight contracts except that I feel like we got pennies on the dollar. What I DO care about, is this perception, that it’s OK to have a mandate or directive to “just trade” someone with zero regard for any of the facts about actual basketball production. You following? No one is saying “well our bench was great last year because of Sessions and now he’s gone so it’s awful”. Everyone’s like “WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THE BENCH!” The Cavs ORCHESTRATED a horrible bench. If you subtract Anderson Varejao (and yes, it’s a completely different situation) because “he’s too old (false), or “too injury prone” (too reductive), or “sell high” (these aren’t penny stocks) instead of looking at what affect it will actually have on your team’s ability to win, then you are basically going to live in rebuild mode forever and never be any good. And after 3-5 years your rookies will move on to other places because they are tired of not making the playoffs. You can rebuild for 2-3 years, not 4-6 which is what the Cavs rebuild will be if they decided to trade Varejao “just because”. Not, mind you, because they got an offer they couldn’t refuse, but “just because”. It’s ridiculous. And this is what I’m railing against. This, “just trade him” and hope you can net a 1st rounder. That would literally DESTROY this whole rebuild project.
Trading a Sessions, who had an expiring contract and gave no indication he would re-sign with us AND made clear he was not happy being a bench player vs. trading Andy is obviously very different. Andy is not an expiring contract. Andy starts and has shown a desire to be here.
Furthermore, one can clearly and with some justification advocate for the trading of Sessions and not be for trading Varejao, right? I think many of us on here would be in that camp…
Tsunami,
I see what you’re saying. We traded sessions because he was leaving anyway and it netted us a future 1st round pick. Sure, we sacrificed approximately 30 games last season because we didn’t have Sessions off the bench any more. However, the trade actually improved our bench for this season (this is assuming Byron Scott decides to stop giving any sort of playing time whatsoever to Luke Walton) because the Sessions trade netted us Tyler Zeller. Sessions trade or not, our backup PG situation this season and into the future would be the same. What the trade did give us is Zeller, a quality backup C, and Luke Walton, who, if nothing else, can serve as an expiring contract in a potential deadline tra
Sorry accidentally hit submit before I finished on the last comment lol.
Anyway, I was saying Walton could be a good expiring deal in a trade that could net us another first round pick, or at least a second. So, sacrificed production for 30 games for 2 picks? Sign me up. No one is disagreeing that the Sessions trade hurt our overall production last season.
With Varejao, you don’t trade him because we know he is in the future plans for the cavs and not only does it hurt our production for 30 games, but for seasons ahead. A mid first round pick is not equal value for losing Varejao permanently. However, if in his contract season, he said he refused to resign here (which I don’t see happening, this is just hypothetical) then you trade him because you can get something in return for him leaving. Though it hurts production the rest of that season, it ultimately comes down to having another first round pick, or not.
You clear?
Fair enough Tsunami, but trading Sessions for the sake of getting anything for him clearly made sense for an expiring player after it was clear we were out of the playoff’s and he wasn’t likely to return. Comparing it to trading Varejoa, our BEST player (Kyrie needs to have some semblance of a two way game before I’ll give him that title), who is locked up under contract for 2 more years at below market value and will be 32 when it expires is Apples and Oranges. I didn’t get the comparison, and still don’t, so I just didn’t understand why you would bring it up unless it was to say you were against both trades.
As far as pennies on the dollar go, I don’t think the vast majority of the rights to Tyler Zeller for 4+ years is pennies compared to 30 games of Sessions Dollar. Nor do I think getting absolutely talent-wise fair value in trade is a necessity when trading a player who has no shot at contributing to your team having a winning season, especially when the market value for him is limiting your options.
But I think I get you now, saying we can’t keep trading good players for prospects. Very true. But we can’t overpay backups who don’t fit our long term plans either just to be more competitive in the short term, and the Sessions move was very smart overall so I thought it was a bad example. If people are still clamoring to take whatever we can get for Andy, they are idiots, and I’m hopeful and confidant that Chris Grant will treat such opinions appropriately.
My point with Sessions is that at the time, everybody loved the move because it was just assumed that a.) Sessions wasn’t part of the future b.) if you aren’t part of the future, your current production is meaningless see: Parker, Jamison. So people looked at the Cavs in 2011-2012 – saw a bright future and ignored that a lot of the actual winning was because Parker, Jamison, and Sessions are legitimate NBA basketball players. So subtracting them, was being treated like addition just because they weren’t part of the future. In other words, if that thought creeps in again with Andy, that he’s not part of the long term future (which he SHOULD be) then everyone is going to just assume this young Cavs team has all this promise ahead of them and is going to forget that like right now, Varejao accounts for 50% of the teams winshares. (And honestly, Varejao has always been more of a Battier/Collison-like player that is MORE valuable than his stats argue). I just can’t believe people think we should trade him now and hope for a 1st round draft pick. That would be just total Cavmageddon.
The Varejao question is a tough one. Before the season I was down with trading him if they got offered a lot of goodies. But seeing that he looks like he’s improved a ton this year, I’m not so sure anymore. I team of Kyrie, Dion, and Andy should be pretty good once you fill in around them.
I can be convinced either way right now. It’s certainly going to be a tough call by management.
You’re really sayin that Jamison and Parker lead to more wins than their current replacements? And yes, current production IN THE CASE OF SESSIONS, was meaningless! What is hard to understand here? That does not mean the current production andbsituation of Varejao is ANYTHING like the Sessions situation. This s a terrible apples-to-oranges comparison…
Tsunami, if you think Parker was a legitimate NBA player, you’re nuts. He was the worst starting 2-Guard in the league the last two years of his career. Also, you’re completely overlooking the most important fact of the Sessions trade: we could have signed up this summer. We could have made that trade, got the draft pick, and then still signed him. I’m sure he’d have much rather played here than Charlotte, and if not, we could’ve kicked in a little more, but we didn’t want to. So you seem to be tilting at windmills.