Preseason Recap: Cleveland 122, Miami 119 (OT) (or, This is the Game that Never Ends)

The Cavs were in Rio for the last four days: bonding, seeing the sights, avoiding the Heat, and working on becoming awesome. The trip culminated in Saturday evening’s preseason match-up with Miami. The starters and rotation guys did not disappoint, pushing the lead up to 19 in the third quarter. Unfortunately, lackadaisical offense by one starter, and most of the deep bench guys let Miami back in this one, and a fourth quarter that should have been a cakewalk stretched on endlessly until Shabazz Napier and James Ennis led Miami to an improbable overtime which was highlighted by an equally improbable Cavs victory. But a win is a win is a win.

The Good

There was so much to like in this one.  LeBron came out looking to set up his teammates and to be a coach on the floor. He didn’t worry about dominating the game. James notched seven points and eight assists, and seemed particularly interested in setting up Kevin Love. Love ate up those assists like the kid on the Breakfast Stout bottle eats up oatmeal.

Love set up from the wing and the corner, and his jumper looked like butter: high elevation, perfect rotation, strong, with a quick release… I’m not even sure he hit rim on any of his 4-5 makes.  Around the rim, K-Love flashed a hook shot that looked just as silky. In 26 minutes, Love finished +19 with 25 points and seven rebounds off 9-12 shooting, and gave every Cavs fan reason to drool over this team’s regular season offensive potential.

Anderson Varejao put on a show for the Brazillians, and was unstoppable in the post. He converted a bevy of crafty moves, including righty and lefty hooks and a mid post turnaround in his highly efficient 20 minutes on the court. Wild Thing finished with 14 points on 7-10 shooting, with the Rio de Janero crowd roaring at every basket. Early in the fourth, when Andy was clearly done for the night, the crowd spontaneously started chanting “VAR-EH-JAO! VAR-EH-JAO!” Andy acknowledged them, clearly touched. This game had to be a highlight of his NBA career.

Tristan Thompson looks like a new man. Backup center agrees with him. I’m really excited to see how well he plays in the regular season. He’s showing the defensive development, energy, consistency, and polish that I thought it would take him a couple more years to develop. Canadian Dynamite flew around the court, out-hustling everyone for rebounds. He picked up six offensive boards in 18 minutes, and he scored 18 points, mostly by getting hustle baskets, running the floor, and diving to the rim on the pick-and roll. In David Blatt’s new offense, the middle of the floor is going to generate a lot of one on one opportunities at the rim for the center spot. Tristan and Andy feasted on that tonight. What about TT’s jumper you ask? Well, how does 6-7 at the line sound? His form looked flawless, and he used his energy to get himself to the line often. TT’s always been able to draw fouls. Now that he can convert them? He’s going to give other teams fits.

But the offense was not not what was most exciting about TnT’s game. His defensive energy was explosive. Tristan had a block on a Udonis Haslem bunny where TT raced from the top of the key to get back, and caught the ball at the top of its arc above the square. It was the most athletic block from a Cav I’ve seen in years. Thompson added three steals by flying around on defense too.

The Cavs defense till the late fourth looked solid if not spectacular, but Miami helped them by missing shots, too. Lots of interesting wrinkles from Blatt, tonight. I saw a match-up zone, some quick traps, and a lot of defensive movement till the late game malaise. David Blatt’s offense already looks really good, too. The Cavs ran D’Antoni style spread pick and roll a lot, which leaves four players on the perimeter and one big diving to the basket. What I really like about it, though, is the fact that on the weak side, there is almost always off the ball action. Players don’t stand around.

Often, the weak side perimeter players were involved in a down-screen which results in one player popping to the wing and one getting to the corner. Delly used this throughout the third to set up players for open shots. The pick-and-roll drew the action, defenders sucked in, and Delly hit whoever came up to the weak wing or the corner with a perfect pass. The other great thing about the spread pick-and-roll is that the home run pass doesn’t have to come from the point guard. On another play, Delly ran pick and roll from the top of the screen, hit Joe Harris on the strong side wing. Harris immediately lasered a pass to a rolling Thompson for a layup.

SuperDova might lead the Cavs in hockey assists this season. I counted three great passes this game that led to a second pass for an easy bucket. These passes won’t show up in the box score, but will keep Delly’s plus/minus high. He is really good at getting the ball out quickly and pushing it up with the pass just as much as the dribble. While he finished 1-3 with four turnovers and six fouls, he showed the kind of game he’ll need to shine with high usage players: quick passes, solid defense, ability to push the ball, and rebounding. He added four assists, and was +14 for the game. Tom Pestak talked about Delly’s rebounding last week, and I thought it was more fluke than anything, but the dude is a master of positioning for the long rebound. He had six here, just by always being in the right spot.

Dion Waiters looked amazing in transition. He leaked out and got easy baskets more than a couple times. He put a on a show toward the end of the first half when he put Norris Cole on ice skates and Dion two stepped his way into an and-1 to finish a break. Dion was very aggressive and engaged on defense, too. He regularly trapped screen-and-rolls hard, especially on the sideline, and his athleticism helped him get two blocks, including a great denial on Dwayne Wade to close the first half. Dion finished with 16 on 7-12 shooting and chipped in three dimes to go with it.

The Bad

But when Dion pounded the rock or took dumb shots it was a bit maddening. Dion looked to go one-on-one often, especially when he believed he was the best offensive player on the floor. The famous Saint Weirdo dribble-dribble-dribble, pull up 20 footer happened a couple times, as did a baffling 25 footer in the third, where Dion just decided to launch a completely out of rhythm brick with 12 seconds left on the shot clock. Oh well. Saint Weirdo is a fickle one.

Mike Miller had a rough time. He had trouble finding his shot, and he had to run with the scrubs in the late fourth, and early in overtime. Miller went scoreless, 0-4 from three, and was -13 in the game. He got beat on defense more than a couple times. Also, that high fade/almost mohawk thing he had on his head.  What was that?

Sweet Lou Amundson was -15 in eight minutes. He fumbled a pass out-of-bounds late in the game that frankly kicked off a huge Heat run to put them into overtime. Lou looked out of his depth.

As good as the Cavs bigs looked on offense, Chris Bosh chewed them up pretty bad on defense: lots of easy lay-ups and post-ups. Bosh scored 19 on 8-15 shooting, and it would have been worse if not for two three point boulders from Jurassic Bosh.

The Ugly

The officiating in this one was Tuco-esque. I’ve never seen half these guys, and they missed a lot of travels. Dion took almost four steps on his layup at the end the first half.

Chris Bosh did not look happy, and had some pretty ugly words for Kevin Love, yesterday, when he said, “Playing with LeBron is extremely frustrating.” Hopefully Bosh can channel all that bitterness into an MVP season. He’s a good value bet right now at 100-1 odds, not that I endorse that sort of thing…

Anyway, This game would not end. I told you about the Amundson fumble. Well, the Cavs blew an 18 point lead in seven minutes after that, when Shabazz Napier, James Ennis, Andre Dawkins, and Shawn Williams (but mostly Shabazz Napier), went gonzo while the scrub Cavs launched three after three and mostly failed to execute a coherent offense. Napier was scoring, getting to the line, and setting up teammates throughout the run as the Cavs had no answers for him on the high pick-and-roll. Austin Carr was screaming for them to push him to his left hand, and the Cavs ignored his advice throughout crunch time.

Shabazz had 14 points in the last five minutes and two assists. He hit seven free throws and two threes in that stretch. James Ennis added another seven points. The Cavs missed seven threes during that time. A.J. price made a free-throw to put the Cavs up two with 17 seconds left, and then Shabazz got to the line again to tie the game.

In overtime, teams just started trading threes. A.J. Price, for the Cavs, hit two “big balls” threes in the first minute to keep up with another Shabazz layup and an Andre Dawkins 27-footer.  James Ennis got yet another and-1 off a Napier feed, and then Mike Miller had one of the plays of the night (his only). Miller feathered a pass to a rolling Shane Edwards, who converted an old fashioned three-point play, by catching the ball in his left hand to ward off the defender, and then finishing a very pretty lefty lay-up.  But the game still would not end with the Cavs up one.

Khem Birch three, followed by another A.J. price three, followed by another Napier assist followed by two more James Ennis free-throws. The Cavs were down two with 55 seconds left, and looked to be running on fumes before Stephen Holt! came off the bench completely cold (hadn’t played all night) and buried a right wing three to put the Cavs up one. A Shane Edwards steal and Joe Harris free throws put the Cavs up three with 13 seconds left. “Please, God, don’t let this one go to double overtime,” I prayed.

Miraculously, Shabazz Napier missed two open threes from the top of the key to save us the pain of preseason double overtime. Still, he put Norris Cole and Mario Chalmers on notice that their jobs are in jeopardy.