Recap: Cavs 97, Hornets 88 (Or, Feeding on the Weaklings)

Big night for this trio

The Cavs exploded out of the gate to a 21-0 lead, the largest such start in the NBA since…well LeBron was a rookie…uh, Facebook didn’t exist, Anderson Varejao avoided mid-range jumpers like the plague (or, the stomach bug that caused Delly to lose 7 lbs!)…  It was a historic start to a game.  The Hornets woke up and outplayed the Cavs for about 24 minutes, but the Cavs put them back to bed with a late 3rd quarter run that re-established the proper predator/prey relationship in the Eastern Conference food chain.

1st Half: Kevin Love, Anderson Varejao, and Kyrie Irving were striking gold everywhere they prospected – transition 3s, back-door layups, mid-range Js, the free throw line.  Love stuck a transition 3 like he was Ryan Anderson playing the Cavs – scary stuff.  LeBron found Andy twice for 16-footers from the left wing.  And twice Varejao starting running the other way while the ball was still in the air.  (Andy is 7th in the NBA in FG% this season). The Cavs shot 10 free throws in the 1st quarter.  Everything was clicking.  The crowd let out a demonstrative groan when Al Jefferson finally stopped the bleeding nuclear disembowlment.  It looked like a nice Cleveland revenge game on the heels of that Browns travesty.  Don’t believe the hype, MoneyManziel is a fraud, the real moneymaker, the Oracle from Omaha, was at the Q tonight.  Dan Gilbert, feeling feisty with his iPhone, tweeted this, and probably showed it to Warren Buffet (who I hope said something snarky about Twitter’s business model).

At this rate, guess we should bring @warrenbuffett to every @cavs game…

— Dan Gilbert (@cavsdan) December 16, 2014

Bulletin board material right there.  I’m sure Steve Clifford was scrolling through his feed, came across this, and just set his Blackberry on top of his clipboard while Lance Stephenson stared off into the distance wondering how Vaseline tastes.  (It’s OVAH!  CUT DA CHECK!)  Clifford subbed Gary Neal for the lifeless Stephenson and with their hive trampled on, the Hornets started to swarm.  They made 10 of the next 12 shots, playing fast and aggressive at both ends.  Bismack Biyombo made his presence felt as the Cavs tried to attack the basket to generate easy buckets.  But it was isolation ball, and the stagnant offense seemed to sap the energy right out of the Cavs (like Captain Planet getting sludge poured over his continent-less Robinson Map projection of Gaia on his breast plate).

That won’t work – try spraying him with your refined crude oil gun. Would today’s Captain Planet be weakened by GMOs?

Brian Roberts (UD FLYERS!) looked spry as a bench distributor, and after Biyombo blocked LeBron at the rim (and LeBron very, uh, characteristically stopped playing to argue) Roberts found Gerald Henderson for a thunderous dunk as Shawn Marion just sorta never got back to cover LeBron’s guy.

BIYOMBO SIGHTING – click on this image if you forgot you reading glasses / prescription Rec Specs

I feel empowered to say that David Blatt let the Hornets back into the game by trotting out a lineup without Kyrie, LeBron, or Love at the end of the 1st quarter.

Delly, Waiters, Harris, Marion, Thompson. David Blatt heat check

— FearTheSword (@FearTheSword) December 16, 2014

And when LeBron came back in Biyombo was already in a feeding frenzy.  Delly got a bit abused by Kemba Walker.  I might be a Delly homer, but I’m giving him a pass after hearing he’s lost 7 lbs from his stomach virus in the last few days.  I imagine there are probably liquids coming out of both ends of the Aussie.  I can’t even blog with a stomach bug – so the idea of running around frantically, back and forth, stop and go, accelerate and decelerate – there are some sports you can play with an upset stomach – basketball is not the one you want to be playing.  After the drought caused by Anthropologic Biyombo Warming Climate Shot Change, the Cavs actually ran some basic but effective offense – culminating in a nice, easy drive-n-kick from LeBron to Joe Harris. But then Marvin Williams and Brian Roberts stuck back to back triples (Roberts stuck it in transition like he’s supposed to sprint to the line and bomb away – the Gary Neal effect?) before Biyombo blocked Varejao, throwing off his inner-ear functionality for at least the next 5 minutes.  Varejao flailed about on the next few possessions like a drunk Mr. Bucket, slowly twisting and firing shots not necessarily even in the basket vicinity.

Kemba Walker drained a J to bring the Hornets within three.  Then, after another Varejao dud at the offensive end, Lance Stephenson drove and Andy was badly out of position.  His only recourse was to foul Lance.  He picked the right guy to foul – ol’ ear whistler missed both freebies and the Cavs scored 11 points in under two minutes (after needing nine minutes to amass a measly nine points to that point in the quarter).  The Cavs went into halftime up nine.  The complexion of the game changed drastically after the first quarter.  Varejao, after starting 2-2, missed eight of his next 10.  The Cavs, after shooting 10 first quarter free throws, shot just seven the rest of the night.  The Hornets, after starting 0-10, shot 52% the rest of the night.  The Cavs, after starting 4-4 from beyond the arc, made just five of their next 20.

Second Half: One thing that remained from the first quarter was Kevin Love’s effectiveness.  He started the half off with two jumpers and it looked like the Cavs might re-assert their dominance.  But Charlotte scored on their next 4 possessions, bringing them back to within two.  Tristan Thompson subbed in for the struggling Varejao, and promptly sucked in everything thrown near the basket, either finishing with authority or drawing free throws.  I’ve been complete flabbergasted by TT this season.  I’ve asked for help, I really don’t understand what I’m seeing.  Some people have suggested he is in a contract year.  Nah, he’s always been trying out there.  For as often this season as I’ve thought “this is just a different LeBron – ordinary athleticism among his peers” I’ve thought “LOOK AT TT GET ABOVE THE CYLINDER!*”  Check out TT’s shooting effectiveness just last season:

Almost 20% of TT’s shots at the rim getting sent back in his face last season.

Now look at our lovable Canadian Dynamite – BLOWIN IT UP!

By far and away a career high FG% at the rack, with less than 10% getting stuffed

The Cavs held the Hornets to three points over the final three minutes of the third quarter.  Kevin Love drained his fourth and final three of the night with just under two minutes left in the third – giving the Cavs an 11-point lead that felt bigger.

Unfortunately, the 21-zip run didn’t keep K-L-L from each playing 40 minutes.  But it did force the Cavs to play a 48-minute game, and take care of business at home against an inferior team.  The Hornets were dangerous last season, and much like the Nuggets a few weeks ago, struggling teams can snap out of funks in an instant (the Nuggets victory over the Cavs, a day after ESPN’s NBA section featured a bunch of, “What’s Wrong with the Nuggets” stories, was the first of six wins in seven games).

The Cavs starters played most of the 4th quarter (no “Heat Check” lineups for Blatt).  You never got the sense the Cavs were in danger of blowing the game.  They kept Charlotte at arms length and LeBron hit two sweet “dagger” Js to end the game.

Things I Didn’t Like:

The Cavs remain an uneven team – They can snowball or be caught in the avalanche.  After jumping out to a 21-0 run, you could see them looking disoriented and small when the Hornets started stinging.  They limped into halftime, struggled to start the 3rd, and finally settled down in the 4th quarter – controlling the tempo and making the Hornets pay for any mistakes.  The good news is that this will often be enough to overcome their Eastern Conference brethren.  The bad news is that they need to be able to plant their foot on the proverbial gas pedal for 40+ minutes if they want to be the last team standing this season.

Forced LeBron to Andy bounce passes in the paint – You can see this pet play coming a mile away.  Teams are timing it and getting their mitts on it more often than they should be.  LeBron seems to revert to this play to quell the opponents momentum – it rarely works.  I’d rather see LeBron or K Love post up, or a clear out for Kyrie.  Andy looked gassed after the 1st quarter tonight.  He was visibly battling with Big Al early and often.  David Blatt gave Varejao a shout out when Fear The Sword’s David Zavac (one of my favorite Cavs fans in existence) touted TT’s defense and energy as a major factor in tonight’s win.  Blatt was all like #wellActually David, I thought Andy’s D on Jefferson really set the tone, not whatever you just said.  At any rate, Andy was at one point a step slow and throwing all sorts of garbage at the hoop.  He’ll be alright, but he looked pretty bad at times tonight.

The Heat Check Lineups! – If there is one thing that every Cavs fan seems to agree on, it is it the #lolwut lineups that David Blatt frequently tries – you know, the ones without Kevn Love, Kyrie Irving, or LeBron James.  Each guy played 40 minutes tonight, yet Blatt found time to play none of them at the same time.  There are bound to be too many offensively-limited players on the court during those stretches, making half-court execution a challenge.

Marion’s Rage against the Backboard – he threw one in off the glass that shouldn’t made me wonder if the ball was slightly flat – when he shot it I thought it was going to carom from the top of the square to the halfcourt circle.  He doesn’t seem able to pivot and gently use the glass after protecting the ball with his body on those drives from the right wing.  He just drives left and spikes it at the glass.  It’s ugly.

Delly whenever I watch him – I know, he’s been sick.  And hurt.  But in the games I’ve watched, Delly looks pretty awkward on offense and pretty blow-by prone on defense.  I checked in on the live thread during the OKC game and apparently he was an exploding SuperDOVA – even checking Durant successfully at one point.  And he had some impressive defensive sequences against Lowry that again, I missed live.  Maybe I should just turn away when Delly checks in?

Cody Zeller got his bell rung – I hope he’s alright.  Good family, the Zellers.

Things I liked:

LeBron’s shooting stroke looks pure – He was 11-19 tonight and seven of those shots were jump shots beyond 15 feet.  He hit three Js in the 4th quarter that put the game away.  Feels like Kyrie went in his shooting slump right as LeBron found his legs.

Kevin Love was the full package tonight – He was stepping out and hitting 3s, grabbing every defensive rebound (he finished with 17), getting his hands on passes, throwing touchdowns, and just generally looking like the guy that led my fantasy team to the ‘ship last season and not a Spencer Hawes (AMERICAN PATRIOT!) redux.

Finding ways to win – The Cavs didn’t shoot better than the Hornets.  The stat that sticks out to me is that they had 10 steals (to Charlotte’s four).  They shared the ball on offense (28 assists on 38 made baskets), never let their defensive energy down, and were carried by their star players.  It’s a good formula, especially on nights of uneven offensive output.

Things I neither like nor dislike but want to comment on:

I really want Michael Kidd-Gilchrist to succeed.  Mostly because I want to believe that a player with an unlimited motor and supremely high character (as he was sold to us) will be successful.  It’s like the plot of most sports movies and Japanese Fighting Cartoons.  Take your hits, get mad, power up, “it takes guts!”, and outlast your opponent.  But save one or two defensive sequences tonight, he was invisible.  Completely invisible.  0-4, zero steals, zero blocks, zero assists-invisible.

Don’t tell Chad Ford.

Things I’m lusting after (is lust an irrational vice?): BISMACK BIYOMBO.  I don’t care if he shots  negative 40% from the free throw line.  The dude was guarding that basket like Walter Day guards Retro Video Game Records.

Commentariat – your thoughts?

*Colin’s no longer an editor here so I can speak in all-caps during periods of heightened emotion without losing my journalistic integrity.