Recap: Cleveland 109, Los Angeles Lakers 102 (Or, Spasming to Victory)

This exhausting game didn’t end until around 1:15 in the morning, and it was an ugly slugfest that saw the Cavs outlast the Lakers. The Cavs didn’t look particularly better as a team, but some things got tightened up and they put up a victory against a bad team. Winning is better than losing.

First Half

Cleveland started the game with a completely bizarre gameplan on defense: double teaming Kobe Bryant, who’d been shooting 16%  from the floor in his previous two games. Kobe took the invitation to dish and finished with a career high 10 assists for the half. No defense was played by either team. At one point in the first quarter, the teams combined to drain an astonishing sixteen straight shots, including three free throws and combined to score 30 points in less than four minutes. Then Cleveland didn’t hit a shot for four minutes, and then made five straight shots. Mozgov got in on the action early and missed some looks, but also looked more comfortable in the offense. The Lakers found their bigs for open mid-rangers and Jordan Hill, Carlos Boozer, and Tarick Black hit them. Lakers shot 65% in the first.

Delly dropped in a rare bucket inside the paint to start the second, and then the “big three” scored 24 more points. Cleveland kept pace with the Lakers, but the defensive effort was, at times, laughable. In the worst possession of the game, Ryan Kelly drove from the right corner and ten seconds later was at the basket for a layup. Kevin Love’s jumper looked solid, Kyrie’s handle was tight, and LeIso-ball was effective. The Cavs looked like a team playing pickup, but the offense was at least watchable (as opposed to when they’re playing pick-up and missing everything). Throw in some nice J.R. Smith jumpers in the first quarter, and the 57-61 deficit didn’t seem so bad.

Second Half

The Cavs canned two straight of some nice quick-hitters to retake the lead. They held L.A. to one field goal in the first four minutes of the period. Timofey Mozgov looked especially imposing on defense and on the boards. He had seven rebounds in the first six minutes of the half. When he’s not worrying about foul trouble, he can be incredibly effective. Kyrie continued his hyper-efficient offensive play and kept scoring with sick dribble moves and mid range parabolas that hit nothing but twine. Check out this indescribable highlight. It might be the best dribble move I’ve ever seen from Kyrie. The ball phased into an alternate dimension for a half a second. It literally disappeared, reappeared, and then Kyrie hit a lefty layup.

J.R. Smith is funny. He missed wide open shots, then canned fadeaway jumpers with guys in his face. Jordan Hill, on the other hand, could not miss open mid-range jump shots. The lead see-sawed.

Kevin Love was suffering from back spasms, and the Twitterverse was openly wondering why he was even out there, as it seemed he could barely walk, let alone extend for a rebound or shot.

Trainer Steve Spiro basically working on Kevin Love’s back at every chance. Has a wrap on it again during TO. Love really hurting tonight

— Jason Lloyd (@JasonLloydABJ) January 16, 2015

@DavidZavac He probably needs some time off and rushed back because Lebron needed time off too

— Jackson (@WayneEmbrysKids) January 16, 2015

CtB commenter, Mac, noted, “”Blatt’s substitution patterns are going from questionable to criminally negligent. Why is Love playing?” Love mercifully went to the bench at the 4:33 mark.  We all thought he wouldn’t be back. The Good Guys fought off a four minute scoreless stretch when LeBron and Marion got to the line. And then suddenly, barely able to walk earlier, Kevin Love was back at the scorer’s table.

“Daniel LaRusso is going to fight? Daniel LaRusso is going to fight!” — Jason Lloyd (@JasonLloydABJ) January 16, 2015

That took guts by Kevin Love, and my respect for him was suddenly at a two month high. (As a side note, I tried to get my daughter to watch The Karate Kid on Netflix the other night. She read the synopsis and said, “Why would anyone want to watch that?”  I’m officially old). Anyway, in the middle of Kevin Love’s Willis Reed moment, LBJ swished two straight triples, and pushed the Cavs to a four point lead. Cleveland’s swarming defense forced a bad Jeremy Lin pass , and LeBron brought the ball up with 10 seconds left. He took a mind-numbing 27-foot heat check against two defenders to close the quarter. I wish LeBron was as smart as he is confident.

Still, the Cavs held the Lakers to a 14 point third quarter, and as the fourth opened, KLove swished a triple, bad back and all. Then LeBron iso-ball happened. The Lakers had no one to guard him, and he kept getting into the teeth of the defense and drawing fouls or kicking it out. Then a Delly Trey! to force a Byron Scott rage timeout with the Cavs up nine.

LeChuck kept throwing up shots, and a good percentage of them were going in. Then, Kevin Love made the play of the game on defense. He took a charge on a Jeremy Lin drive from just outside the circle that just looked like it hurt. Kevin crumpled like a sack of potatoes. He was noticeably shaken, and it took four Cavs to help him up. It was Cleveland’s grittiest defensive stop of the year. If this season has a turning point, that was it. It was positively inspirational.

Crunch Time

At 6:13, Kyrie made a patented 17-footer off the dribble to put Cleveland up by 11, and then set up Marion for a layup a minute later. The crowd clamored for Kobe to come back. He was on a minutes restriction and had been held out till the six minute mark. After Kobe set the table for four Laker points and two more Kyrie freebies, Cleveland was up nine with four minutes left. Then LeBron started trying to give the game away.

Irving had a nice o-board and then slung a fastball to Marion under the bucket who drew a foul, keeping the lead at nine. Two Irving freebies, and then Kobe took ‘Bron to the hole as the King halfheartedly swatted at the ball. When Wesley Johnson nailed  “Oh yeah, he’s on the floor, too”  left corner triple, the lead dropped to six.

LeBron re-entered at the four minute mark and tried to engage Kobe into this dopey mano-a-mano battle. Fortunately, he had Canadian Dynamite around to clean up all his messes. On a crucial play, Kobe was hounding ‘Bron from 28 feet, and TT ran up and set a pick that completely blindsided Bryant. LBJ got to the rack but missed. Thompson threw in a putback dunk, though!

The Lakeshow would not go away. Kobe fired a gunslinger’s triple over Marion while LeBron guarded… Ryan Kelly?! Hee hee. Either David Blatt loves him some ‘Bron as a help defender, or he didn’t have much faith in the King. And after LeBron, Swaggy-P, LeBron hero-ball brick sandwich (or as I called it, the not-so-Yumbo), Kobe drew touch foul on a three from Marion. You never see called in the last minute of an NBA game unless super duper stars are involved. Kobe hit two of three freebies while the crowd comically chanted “M-V-P!”, and the Cavs lead was only four with 47 seconds left.

Coach Blatt drew up my favorite timeout play of the season (below). With Kyrie up top, Love tried to free-up LeBron on the right baseline with a pindown, and then LeBron came to set a screen for Irving. Kyrie eschewed the open drive, gave the ball up to ‘Bron who had a one-on-one situation with Kobe at the top left. Kobe was too close, ‘Bron drove, and finished with a George Gervin-esque finger roll high off the glass.  Ballgame. (Though Swaggy-P did hit a 28-foot garbage three).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTBQtbQNNA4

The Good

Apparently David Blatt took the team bowling instead of practicing, Wednesday. Looks like it worked.

Mike Miller and James Jones: DNP – CD.

In the early third, Timofey was dominant on the boards. I can see how the guy had a 29 rebound game. He gets a hand on almost every carom: back taps, knocking rebounds out of opponents’ hands, etc.. He didn’t play much in the fourth, but there will come a game where they’ll need him. When Cleveland’s ballhandlers stop throwing him passes below his waist, Timmy’s going to be really good. Still, given all the trades we saw this week, the Cavs massively overpaid for him. Would Brandan Wright be just as good or better for half the price? Probably.

Kyrie went 0-4 from three and still had 22 points on 9-16 shooting.  He added a few dimes and steals, and an ugly five turnovers. But most of the Cavs offense was ugly tonight. Kyrie’s off-the dribble offensive game was tight. When his shot comes back, he’s going to drop a 40-burger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aC7HW38Xbg

The toughness of Kevin Love: he played through pain, competed, and added 17 and 7. Yes, he went 1-6 from behind the arc, but the Cavs made him a concerted effort to get him some touches around the elbow, and wouldn’t you know it, good things resulted, like nine free-throw attempts.

J.R. Smith was 3-10 from three, but just his presence is opening up the floor. You have to guard him, because he can hit it at any time. He missed his open looks and made his contested ones. Not a great shooting night for him, but no turnovers and 14 points? I’ll take it.

Delly! Six points, no turnovers, one dime, 11 minutes? He’s back to where he’s best right now: third guard.

11 rebounds (five offensive) for sir T.T. and two blocks. He’s also officially the best perimeter big in the league on D. He was switching onto guards and shutting them down all night. It’s a sea change from last year, where T.T. would just collapse on everything. Kudos to Tristan and the coaching staff for turning this into a strength.

Jordan Hill was 10-14 for 20 points, almost all on open jumpers. Cleveland dared him to make them and he did.

Only nine turnovers by the Cavs: a benefit of iso-ball.

I like the way Blatt managed LeBron’s minutes this game and last with short rests in the middle of the first and fourth quarters. He led the team in minutes at 38, tonight. That’s acceptable. I’m retracting my judgment on the Love’s back spasms, as it was obviously Kevin and the trainer’s call.

19 points, 7-14 shooting, 17 assists, six boards, and a very nice national T.V. swan song against LBJ for Kobe Byrant, the most overrated player in NBA history.

The Bad

The first half defense was abysmal, both in scheme and effort, and the Cavs frontcourt defense was kind of a joke the whole game. Every Laker big not named Ryan Kelly combined to go 20-29 from the field. Just a note, Cavs, Wide open 15 footer are kind of Jordan Hill and Carlos Boozer’s thing.

LeBron’s bizarre commercial to start the fourth quarter. We spent thirty seconds watching a grainy video of LeBron get into a hotel hot tub talking about how sore he was. For a minute, I thought Anonymous had hacked the feed, and we were going to get “dear god, no!” sex tape. I may have been spending too much time on the internet lately.

The Lakers are awful. The loss seemed inevitable. Jeremy Lin looks like he has no confidence, and Ryan Kelly went 1-6 in 23 minutes. Something tells me Tarik Black will be getting his minutes soon. You can’t put your fingers on any one thing, but they just play like losers. Oh well. One more year of Kobe and Byron Scott after this. I’m enjoying every minute.

The Ugly

Ugly: the joshing pick-up-game mentality of the fourth quarter between LeBron and Kobe. The game has clearly moved beyond this player vs. player mentality. No one sent these two the memo. They might be the most narcissistic guys on the planet.

@WayneEmbrysKids and close to a dozen teams would destroy the Cavs and Lakers right now. The game has has evolved.

— Nate Smith (@oldseaminer) January 16, 2015

This game. The Cavs offense devolved into that 90s era iso-ball and it worked against a bad team. But I thought Kenny Smith had the quote of the night when he said (paraphrasing), “LeBron is good enough to get away with that. The problem is that the Cavs have three other guys that think they can too.” LeBron finished with the ugliest 36 point, five rebound, five assist night in recent history, and only had one turnover to go with it. Glad he looked healthy.

Me. I’m a curmudgeon. I put the below average shooters in “the good,” and LeBron’s dominant performance in “the ugly.” What’s wrong with me?

I’m not sure this game means anything. We’ll find out against the Clips.