Not a Recap: Cleveland 125, Atlanta 127
2013-12-27
Due to general holiday weariness, no one signed up for a recap last night, so this will be short. The Cavs lost a tough one to fall to 10 wins and 18 losses on the season. They led 95 to 91 with two minutes remaining in regulation. They led 108 to 105 with seven seconds remaining in the first overtime. They led by five early in the second overtime. Alas, the Wine & Gold never closed out the win though, as Jeff Teague hit a buzzer beater that rattled around the rim six times.
Kyrie finished with 40 points on 17 of 33 shooting, with 9 assists, 4 steals and 6 turnovers. There were portions of the game where he was completely unstoppable, but also portions when it would have been nice to see more ball movement. Tristan tallied 22 points on 66% true shooting, with six rebounds and two blocks. Dion scored 20 points on 67% true shooting, aside a handful of nice passes generating buckets or free throws. His five turnovers were ugly, but his plus-10 on-court / off-court was second best on the team…shockingly, the bench is better with Waiters around. The team’s defense was poor, and never got the stops needed to pull out a victory for the home-court crowd.
The team heads to Boston on Saturday, hopefully to right the ship and pull out a much needed win.
Or they could have run allay simiiliar to the one with Korver at the end of the 4th or 1st over time and had Kyrie take the double team down and had Dion get a screen from Andy
The Cavs lost the game when, with 12 seconds left, they let the Hawks have two uncontested baskets – so little or no time burning off the clock. If we had played defense – and even fouled – time would have run out.
BBQDaddy, I am with you on most or all points. I asked a similar question last week, about why AV and TT were on the floor when we needed a 3 with about 0.8 seconds. Nate (I think) replied that someone has to set the pick. For guys to set the pick, I would maybe go with Clark and Bennett (hoping AB would not screw up the pick). At least the D would worry about them making a 3 if left uncovered. Anyone have any stats or opinion about what most teams do in the “need 3 in about 1… Read more »
Man, I’m not a Mike Brown hater, but a couple decisions at the end of the game were mind numbingly bad. First, WTF is Andy doing setting the pick at the top of the key own the inbounds at the end of the first OT? He obviously bricked the 3. There’s a reason he was left open with his man doubling Kyrie…they want him to get it. Put Earl Clark out there. Hell, put Kyrie and Dion out there and make them play it straight up 1 on 1. Then, at the end of the second OT, he lets Kyrie… Read more »
Of rookies averaging 15 minutes a game* he’s 3rd in steal per 48 @2.05. 1st in 3pfg shooting 44%. 4th in assist per 48. 3rd in Assist/TO ratio. 3rd in FG%. I’m sure that some of that his percentages and low TO numbers are helped by his his low usuage but its a promising start.
There are 15 rookies who qualify.
Scratch that part about beng the 5th spur. I miss read the article. http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-05-11/sports/bal-spurs-neal-0511_1_gary-neal-towson-nba-history
10 UDFA rookies have done it. 5 were Spurs. Gary Neal and Jorge Garbajosa of the 06-07 raptors the only 2 to ever make the 1st team.
Has a UDFA ever cracked the All Rookie Teams?
If he keeps it up with the increased minutes then they’ll have to. I’m not sure if its got to be position based or not. But right now it’d be Plumlee, Hardaway, MCW, Burke, and depending if its position based Adams or Olidipo. Second team starts with one of those two then goes with the Greek Freak, Delladova, Wolters, Faverani. If he can keep his quality of play up with increased minutes he could make a run at the first team. Especially if its just the 5 best rookies and doesn’t consider positions. I have a hard time picturing them… Read more »
Every player makes mistakes, but Andy’s are exceptional. The 2 on 1 fast break where he tried giving it back to Delly at the hoop…The jump ball that he swatted out of bounce.
I want Giannis on the cavs so badly. After dion he is my new favorite youngster in the league
When Zeller made that steal right under the basket his face just read “I’m playing, I have the ball and I’m not out of bounds? What do I do? Oh hey Kyrie.”
Anybody think Delly could squeeze in on one of the All-Rookie Teams? It’s 10 guys right, 5 on first, 5 on 2nd regardless of position?
It’s probably gonna be MCW/Trey Burke/Oladipo guerenteed a spot and then THJr/Giannis/McLemore/Olynyk/Faverani/Wolters/Adams/Zeller/Datome and I haven’t really heard of any others making noise, so it’s possible…
This loss hurt a lot. I still can’t figure out (beyond bad turnovers) how the Cavs blew it. But it was a bit of a gut punch.
10-18. Yikes.
*undrafted. Not in drafted. Gee not playing yesterday was Brown’s best move to date.
Delladova’s stats are awesome by the way. I kinda figured I was over-rating him because he’s a goofy in drafted white guy coming off the bench and I’ve always had a soft spot for those guys but it goes beyond that. His 3-1 assist to TO ratio has to be historically good for a rookie. His TS% is above 60%. He’s shooting 3’s at a clip of 44%. I got to think that’s going to come back to earth in a big way based on his wariness taking them and his goofy stroke but with some work I wouldn’t be… Read more »
Zeller was active and hustling. He should have gotten more minutes. Bennett was running the floor. Get them some consistent minutes or send them to Canton already. Both are assets and they’re being terribly mismanaged. Bynum…He just doesn’t match up well with a lot of the centers in the league. Anyone who can stretch the floor makes him a liability. He’s only playing 19 minutes a game. Just don’t think that’s worth 12 million. I don’t blame them for signing him, but I can’t see him being on the roster next year. I was joking with a friend that Kyrie… Read more »
Why does Brown never play Bynum with Clark at the 4. Clark playing the 3 over Gee was a nice adjustment but I’d reall like to see an Kyrie, Dion, Delli,Clark Bynum lineup where Bynum touches the ball in the low post every time down.
Ahhh! This just came down to stupid turnovers! Really stupid like Jr High Level : standing out of bounds, traveling and just losing the ball twice Kyrie at critical moments. They really wanted this win! You could tell. Only stupid thing I didn’t like from MB was taking Varejao out at the end with Delly instead. Whaaattt? Not disagreeing about Delly just taking Varejao out didn’t make sense with the kind of hustle and rebounding power he has. I absolutely loved what Zeller contributed. Finally!! Played better defense than you know who’s and just caused turnovers for Hawks. The writing… Read more »
Paulie is right. PER is a very poor measure of performance. Dave Berri’s wins produced measure more accurately captures efficiency. There are also quite a few other much better measures of performance.
PER rewards volume scoring. Kyrie had twice as many points as Dion.
I’m just going to throw this out there; what do you think Kyrie’s trade value is?
I personally just don’t think Cleveland and Kyrie will ever work out. His win percentage is absolutely abysmal here and there is literally no winning culture.
Do you guys really think Kyrie wants to stay here and keep “rebuilding”? We are clearly still 2 years (if we’re lucky) from a legit team and if I was Kyrie, I would rather team up with another top 25 player in a bigger market than stay in Cleveland.
Just some food for thought.
Also, even though Bennett looked like he was having a seizure on his one shot of the game, he looks in good shape. He hustled back on D in transition super quick and didn’t pass out afterwards. Plus he had two nice rotations on D
I have a question about PER. How did kyries PER go up and Dions went down. At first I thought it could be the turnover, but realized kyrie had 6 as well. Is dion getting punished because he only had 4 Rebs and 2 assists in 44 min? Dion was super efficient so I thought that would be reflected by his PER going up
Based on what we’ve seen this season, should Kyrie really be taking almost 20 more shots in a game than Dion? The 1-v-5 offense didn’t work with LBJ, I don’t understand why MB allows Kyrie to do the same…
I thought the effort was there on defense.
I’m scratching my head about the 4 guard lineup. After Horford went down – instead of going small to match up with them – I would have gone big and forced them to match up with us. Bring in Bynum and tell him to kick it to open shooters when he was double teamed.