Recap: Portland 101, Cleveland 82 (or “Continuity Trumps All.”)
2014-11-05
If only this were the main problem.
The Cavaliers traveled to Rip City for the first of a three game West Coast trip. Facing a Portland Trail Blazer team that relies heavily on their dominant starting lineup, the Cavs hoped to build on their overtime win against the Bulls. Instead, the Blazers offensive cohesion and strong play in the paint proved too much to handle. Early in the season, Cleveland will likely have trouble against teams with great continuity. After getting throttled by the Blazers at every position, the Cavaliers have nowhere to go but up.
1st Quarter: Both teams began the game with little to no effort on the defensive end. The Cavaliers got off to a hot shooting start with a inconspicuous 10 for 10 from the field. The final make came on an absurdly long three ball from LeBron as the shot clock expired. Love and Kyrie also drilled from distance in the lightly contested first five minutes. Despite the Cavaliers’ shooting start, the Blazers remained in the game. Against what looked more like preseason defense than a regular season West Coast trip, the Blazers shredded the Cavs with simple Pick and Roll action that led to weakside buckets. Robin Lopez routinely flashed to the middle for easy looks to the tune of 4-7 shooting. With about seven minutes remaining in the quarter, Blatt went to a 2-3 Zone to stop the bleeding. It didn’t help that much. Delly made a nice runner to close out the quarter. 34-31 Cavs.
2nd Quarter: David Blatt is clearly experimenting with his lineups. He started the frame with Delly, Miller, Matrix, TT, and Andy. It did not go well. In what looked like a totally different game, the bench units for both teams struggled to complete offensive tasks. There was a concerted effort to get Tristan going in the post. Unfortunately, his normally reliable right-handed jump hook missed the mark. The goofy lineup only lasted a couple minutes before Dion subbed for Miller. At the seven minute mark with the score tied at 37, LeBron and Love returned. LeBron was again slotted at the 2 guard. Though it led to a patient post up against Mathews on the first possession, LeBron at the 2 is easier to defend. The Cavs defense continued to struggle against PnR. Kevin Love isn’t big enough to challenge Robin Lopez’s shot if he catches with great depth. On the bright side, Marion finally shot and made a corner three! At the half it was 55-50 Blazers.
Guide hand, baby!!!
3rd Quarter: The Blazers came out after halftime with far more energy. They continued to run their sets as LaMarcus Aldridge heated up. (It was nice to see LA finally get called in the 4th quarter for one of his numerous pushoffs. He blatantly clears with his left hand on every drive to the middle.) Offensively, the Cavs were hesitant to give up the ball. Kyrie wanted to shoot his way back into the game, but settled for deep twos. The Cavs had supreme trouble converting around the rim. A 12-4 run from the Blazers pushed the lead to 67-54 with 7:12 remaining. A couple timely threes from Love stemmed the tide. Tristan seemed to relocate his limbs after the sloppy second quarter. After three, 76-69 Rip City.
4th Quarter: Delly and Dion started the quarter with Miller, Marion and Tristan in the frontcourt. The Blazers methodically ran their offense. Defensively, they increased their intensity. They were far more physical than the Cavs for most of the evening, but the first four minutes of the fourth really highlighted the disparity. Dellavedova and Thompson tried to run PnR, but Chris Kaman correctly played Delly to pass. Kaman also had a nasty block on a Tristan flush attempt. Both Kyrie and Dion tried to “Nash it” too frequently while teammates stood in space. LeBron checked back in at the 9:12 mark with the score 91-81. After a slight push ahead by the Blazers, Love hit a three with 6:47 left that cut the lead down to nine. I hoped that that was the start of a comeback. Instead, Damian Lillard flew for an alley-oop that forced Love to foul. Lillard sunk the first foul shot and the game wouldn’t be in single digits again. The final dagger came when a near steal by LeBron led to an open three that pushed the lead to 18 with four minutes remaining. Blatt waved the white flag soon after.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy006PKDcT0
LeBron James: LeBron has yet to look very much like himself in this young season. It was pleasant to see him make some deep threes during the hot shooting first quarter. He also had a nice spin move in the post for a baseline jam. Other than that, James was rather terrible. Blatt continues to use him more at the 2 guard than I would like. He isn’t able to collapse a defense simply from having the ball in his hands from a guard spot. It was disturbing to see Wesley Mathews contain him so well. King James looked positively sluggish. He had no first step, was slow in transition, and was startlingly poor as a defender. With 6:40 left in the third, a Batum/Lopez PnR saw LeBron make one weak wave at the ball before he incomprehensibly released to the three point line. I have no idea what he was thinking. The Cavs were down 10 at the time. I expect a player at his age with his mileage to take a slight dip athletically, but this is jarring to see. It is ridiculously early and he will likely turn it around. Let us hope so.
Kyrie Irving: Kyrie didn’t seem particularly eager to get to the rack. Portland did a nice job of packing the paint in this game, but it still is strange to check the boxscore and see only three free throw attempts from LeBron and Kyrie. Combined. Lillard did a great job on Irving throughout the game. Maybe he had something to prove against the FIBA World Cup MVP. Whatever it was, the normally sieve-ish Lillard locked Uncle Drew up. Kyrie settled for deep jumpers and they didn’t drop. Defensively, we saw more of the same. That isn’t a good thing.
Kevin Love: Love giveth and taketh away. He hit some huge momentum killing threes in the second half that had the potential to be game changing. He drained five triples in all and led the starters in plus/minus. Still, it pains me to see how easily Lopez can score over him. He was decent defending the post in one-on-one situations, but his reputation as a rim-protector is proving accurate. He doesn’t seem to deter anyone at the rim off of rotation. I fear this will be written all season.
Dion Waiters: Dion didn’t record an assist in this game and only has three on the season. He isn’t getting very many PnR opportunities. He is playing into his narrative at the moment. Not cool. Even worse, he got beat by a simple C cut from Wesley Mathews for an “and 1”. Dion must do his best to keep his head up and earn his playing time on the defensive end. Otherwise, he will continue to watch Delly take his minutes.
Anderson Varejao: I’m not sure how Andy should really handle the situation defensively. He hasn’t been phenomenal by any stretch of the imagination, but he has been mostly solid. His teammates have not. He had some trouble with his ball handling in this game. Four TOs, regardless of how they come, are too many from your starting center. Still, he knocked down his available elbow jumper and had some good big to big action with Love in the first half.
Mike Miller: Miller was the first man off the Cavalier bench for the first time this season. His only shot attempt in 14 minutes came on a putback. Go figure. If Miller and Dion fail to attempt a three pointer in a combined 42 minutes of shooting guard play, there is clearly a lack of ball movement.
Mathew Dellavedova: Delly really struggled as a PnR player in this one. He was very slow with his decision making. He must make himself a threat to score if he is on ball in the PnR. I would much rather give those PnR opportunities to Dion to maximize that unit.
Shawn Marion: The Matrix played his best game as a Cav. He hit a three, guarded Lillard a few times, blocked two shots, and almost resembled himself. He was hardly the impact player from years past, but he was at least serviceable in a game that needed service.
Kirk/Harris: Congrats on your first points, rooks! Hopefully, the next ones come in a blowout win for the Cavs instead of against.
Notes:
1. In what is quickly becoming very unsettling, the Blazers abused the Cavs in Pick and Roll play. Robin Lopez(and his attempt at Andy’s hair) was the primary beneficiary as the Cavs simply refused to defend his flash to the middle. Though most of his buckets did not come immediately from this action, it set up a chain reaction from which Cleveland couldn’t recover. It was clear the Cavs wanted to prevent LaMarcus Aldridge from getting off to a hot start, but the defensive breakdowns were more a result of poor effort and gameplan than the necessity to “give something up”.
Thus far, David Blatt has asked his bigs to show and recover. Unfortunately, the recovery process is taking far too long. Even the normally reliable Anderson Varejao seems to be a step slow. Kevin Love and “insert guard name here” are absolutely disastrous. I think the Cavs should “ice” the PnR more than we have seen.
The average PnR in this game began with Lillard on the left wing extended with Aldridge coming over to set the pick. Lillard would accept the pick going middle. LA would then pop to the open spot on the left block. Andy and Kyrie are not in sinc with the help and recover timing. Andy comes up to “touch” the ball handler, but Kyrie is still not in proper position. If Andy is not back to LA in time, it forces a slow-footed Kevin Love to rotate all the way to the popping Aldridge which leaves Lopez wide open in the paint. There is still confusion as to whether Andy should find Lopez after getting hung up with Kyrie on ball. There should be an off ball player like LeBron who should chuck the flashing Lopez. This needs to be sorted out very soon. It is disappointing that the long layoff between the second and third games didn’t help to clarify the rotation. Of course, the lack of effort is still more disappointing.
2. As previously mentioned, the Cavaliers started the game a perfect 10 for 10 from the field. They shot a miserable 28% the rest of the way. Ugh.
3. The Blazers have a nice balance between a flow offense based off PnR and some straight post play. Aldridge, Mathews, Kaman and Batum, are each solid to great post players. The ability to use action to establish good post position is essential. When that good post position is accompanied by good spacing and off ball movement, it becomes lethal. The Cavs need to find that balance.
4. The Cavaliers can point to Xs and Ox to explain away some of their early season struggles. However, until they stop getting beat individually, it won’t make much of a difference.
kevin I didn’t want to bring it up ( but thankfully you did about LeBron and roids—–does make you wonder )—-most teams that would start the game a perfect 10 / 10 would/ should be up by double digits—that is if the defense WOULD GET STOPS —-also what would be wrong with matching their 7′ ( lopez ) with ours ( haywood )—let them bang around—-if we can’t stop[ dribble penetration we are in for along season ( it shouldn’t take a chewing out every other game to provide this ) maybe Cherry’s arrival will help—-our lack of ball movements/… Read more »
Ok, time to trade Dion, Tristan and Haywood for Kobe, or at least that’s what Stephen A. probably thinks.
Stephen A Smith said today that he heard as soon as LeBro signed that he wants out if Cleveland and will screw the team over again.
Last night seemed to me to be a glimpse of the Cavs, five years into the future, after they bring back Mike Brown to coach one more time.
This project is going to take some time.
Lebron is too ball dominant. Nobody else can get into their game or the game. When I watched the Finals last year I thought that Lebron was having to carry the team on his shoulders and got no help from Wade, Bosh, et al. but I was wrong. They all had to stand around so much and watch Lebron do his thing that when called upon their mindset was, “ok, what do you want me to do?” Of course, next game Lebron will take ten shots and declare he wants to get others involved. Hey Lebron – Love, Kyrie, and… Read more »
I have a fair amount of reactions from that game, but many of them are rehashes of old issues, so I’ll start off with some newer observations: 1) I’m seeing a consistent trend over three games: the first unit comes out in a wonderful display of what we all envisioned a David Blatt offense would look like. And then, after the starters start going to the bench, it disappears entirely. The second unit doesn’t continue it, and the first unit, upon return, doesn’t go back to it. I’m chalking it up to guys going back to old habits in the… Read more »
Or he stopped taking roids and lost his power.
2d) there were pull-ups. Lots of pull-ups.
3) Yeah, those lineups with LeBron at the two have been a disaster.
On your first point, here’s the recently deceased tennis guru Vic Braden talking about changing your backhand (but really talking about change in general, as James Fallows noted).
Bottom line: Give it about 8 weeks for the new way to really start to take over from the old way as your brain finally starts to adapt and stick with the new way even in times of stress or fatigue. In that timetable, the offense should start looking much more consistent around the holidays.
And Braden’s famous last words: “Be patient.”
Some thoughts: 1. What was Blatt doing with that lineup at the start of the 2nd quarter? He takes out Miller to put in Dion — aka he takes out the shooter and brings in the slasher, leaving neither on the court at the same time. One of LeBron, Kyrie or Dion should ALWAYS be in the game and primarily handling the ball. 2. In regards to Kevin Love’s ineptitude as a rim protector, his main problem may be something I’ve been afraid of: worrying about the rebound more than D-ing up his man. Otherwise, I can’t tell if his… Read more »
You can tell Kevin Love is worried about grabbing a rebound more than preventing a shot. I didn’t get to see this game but against Chicago he refused to put his hands in the air to even attempt to alter shots. He runs at his man with his hands down and when the shoot, he stops and boxes out. Blatt is clearly still tinkering with his lineups. Its going to take us 15 games or so before we see any kind of consistency with the rotations. The lack of offense is a little disturbing seeing as how we were supposed… Read more »
Cols must be inconsolable right now…
He’s pretty resilient.
Another mess of a game, similar to New York in terms of effort, gameplan and execution. Watching Kyrie dribble all over the court before settling for a long mid-range just brings back bad memories.
I’m sure they will get this sorted eventually though. For as bad and aimlessly as they played against NY and Portland they were in both games until late. Portland and NY are good teams. When things start to click this team will be scary.
NY is not a good team
ya, idk something is going on with LeBron right now. not sure what. some people were talking about possible back issues? even if that’s true, it also seems more than that. hopefully he gets back to his old self soon.
Nice recap, Ben. That game was awful from a defensive effort standpoint, and they let it effect their offense. That being said, Blatt’s substitution patterns are baffling. On Andy: two of those turnovers were off of very dodgy passes from Delly and Love. But also, he’s not getting touches in good spots. Where was the hi-lo action we saw last couple games? Get Andy the ball in the high post! TT: Stop shooting early in the shot clock. There was absolutely no secondary option offense. Everything was first option: fire! No one swung the ball to the weak side, passed… Read more »
I’d rather this kind of game happen now. Figure out who you are and then address the remaining problems. That said, they had 3 off days to prepare and this was the result.
I know there is lots of blame floating around, but I think the team will be fine. Blatt is tinkering with combinations, the vets are all out of shape, and the team is thrown into tough road games immediately. Once Blatt settles on his rotations and the vets find their legs, we will look much better. A few other thoughts: * I love Dion, but man he looks immature right now. He is NOT embracing the role he needs to. * But I still think the biggest issue is with LeBron. For all of his self-congratulatory sound bites about what… Read more »
Can I add 12 “likes” to your last comment?
Thanks Nate. I’ll take it!
BTW, Windhorst just posted another piece on LBJ and leadership. The new narrative is that LBJ is doing this on purpose to teach the young guys how to win. WTF!?!??!? That makes no sense. He needs to teach them through atcion, not inaction.
It’s also weird that Windhorst has such a detailed story on this issue. LBJ’s camp has to be leaking this narrative.
Yeah after reading that I am left with,”there is a better way to teach” but….
It was so disturbing to watch on gamecast the shot selection of Irving and waiters. They shot more than Lebron and Love and they were lousy choices. The second half was the worst but it began early on and maybe Jamees just said ok do it your way and let’s see how it goes. Don’t like it but it is possible.
Yeah clearly this would not work as a long term strategy. But, with flashes of Kyrie (and especially Dion) hero ball in the first 2 games perhaps with it happening this game too LeBron just snapped and was like “Screw it! Lets see what happens if we do it your way”. We never know what happened behind doors. Maybe he’s been telling them to move the ball but the message still hasn’t got through.
Or it’s just a classic Windhorst article. “Well I have a SOURCE so it’s a fact. What? Who’s the source? Errr…..”
As Riggs and Murtaugh would say, “That’s pretty effin’ thin.” I have a very difficult time buying this theory. I can’t imagine LeBron was trying to miss those two driving left-handed layups or the other close range shots that he drills with regularity. The simple answer is that he isn’t in sync with his teammates yet, and he just doesn’t have the energy to bust his tail for 82 games. Nor should we want him to. But there is no way that he thinks waving his hands on defense is a way to inspire long term defensive principles. At least… Read more »
No he didn’t deliberately miss. But when Kyrie and Dion started ruining the offense he may well have just thought “screw it” to send a message.
And yeah, agree with you on Love!
On the offensive end I could maybe understand this lesson narrative, but your point on his defense is spot on and amazing. No excuse to not lead by example on D. What does the commercial say? Do it for Cleveland. Work Hard, together. Not seeing any of that right now from LeBron. Watching last night, I was convinced his back issues were worse than previously reported. He moved like his back was killing him – I know how this looks all too well. Let’s hope these are growing pains and attempts to teach lessons. Otherwise, let’s hope the Browns keep… Read more »
What are you talking about? LeBron is saying the same thing and has said since before the season that the team would need to meet adversity before the playoffs. It’s not a coincidence he had one of his worst games ever. Yes he should be leading by example, but he isn’t and it doesn’t take leaks from LBJ’s camp to see it.