Recap: Cavs 113, Heat 93 (Or, the last Eastern Conference Foe to Fall)
2015-02-12
The Cavs played outstanding team basketball tonight; 72% of their shots were assisted. They played stellar defense too, holding the Heat to 40% shooting from the field, even after giving the ball away 15 times and letting the Heat sprint on a 21-7 run in the second quarter. The Good Guys just could not be contained and had a sixteen point lead at the end of the third quarter. With the win over the Heat, the Cavs have defeated every team in the East at least once. This was the first win against Miami in a long time. (Miami was missing D. Wade) There’s something special going on at the Q these days, and sloppy segments of basketball can’t stop it. Let’s check it out.
First Quarter
On the first Heat possession, Chris Bosh tossed up a miss, but Hassan Whiteside grabbed it and put the shot in. I feared that he might have another breakout quarter. LeBron forced a bad shot the next play, but that wasn’t going to stop the team from going off quickly. On the next Cavs possession, which Luol Deng gifted to them with a poor pass, J.R. Smith ran around a Kevin Love pick, then tossed it back out to him. Love missed the shot from beyond the arc, but Timofey Mozgov volleyball-tapped the rock to Kyrie who drained the three effortlessly. The Moz stayed active. He put the ball on the floor and scored on Whiteside. The next possession, Kevin stole the ball out of Deng’s hands under the rim. He whipped the ball to LeBron and LeBron tossed it to a running Moz. Moz said, “oh no, oh no, the pleasure will be yours, King James,” and tossed a mile-high oop around the rim for LeBron to smash to the ground.
The Cavs fired on all cylinders this quarter. Kevin acted like NOS, shooting 4-5 for nine points. He even secured a contested rebound leaping an astonishing seven inches off the ground before he placed his two hands on the rock to soar a full-court highlight pass to J.R. Smith for the dunk. This, of course, was on top of a pass to Tristan Thompson for an And-1, and a dribble-drive, then kick sequence with Iman Shumpert for a 3-pointer in the corner. LeBron was wonderful in his own way dishing the ball out five times. He kept rising above double teams and found the open man nearly every single time. He had just one turnover. The real winner of the quarter though was ball movement. Fourteen of the Cavs’ 16 made shots were assisted on. The Heat couldn’t buy a shot, and the Cavs went on a 20-7 run the final five minutes of the quarter. Cavs lead 38-23 after one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U63GAQ8dTxI
Second Quarter
LeBron threw a bad pass on his first touch of the quarter, but found Thompson under the hoop a play later to make up for it. The King then decided he was going to score for better or for worse. So after Matthew Dellevadova found Iman for a three-pointer the next play, LeBron drove into the paint. Chris Bosh tried to hug him like an old friend, but it ended up being an And-1 play. The Heat played flustered and scored just three points in the first four minutes, as Iman and Delly played full-court defense just because they can.
After Delly missed a three on a play that had five passes to get the ball around the outside of the entire court, inside the paint, and then back out, the Cavs got Whitesided. Mr. Whiteside scored six straight points. He had a monster oop from Mario Chalmers, but Kyrie countered the next play by tossing Tristan a hammer to throw down. The Cavs then fell victim to their iso ball ways as the Heat went on a 14-5 run the final five minutes of the quarter. Miami capitalized off of two LeBron turnovers, and Cleveland’s inability to work the ball around for a quality shot. The Cavs might have passed the ball less than five times this entire span settling for rhythm-less 3-pointers. LeBron took two of those 3s. The Cavs also forgot to close out on two Luol Deng long balls and forgot to box out Whiteside. The Cavs’ 26-point lead was trimmed to 11 by the time the half-time buzzer sounded: 59-48.
Third Quarter
The Cavs made a commitment to defense coming out of the locker room. They didn’t allow a Miami shot to drop for four minutes. During that time, they ran-off nine points. Love had a nice offensive board on his own missed three that resulted in him getting two freebies when Whiteside whacked him. However, this would be the last Love play of the night. He left the game after getting hit in the eye by Mario Chalmers a minute later.
Blog: Kevin Love suffers eye injury in Cavs win, will be reevaluated Thursday in Chicago. http://t.co/CHO2sGsiwV
— Sam Amico (@SamAmicoFSO) February 12, 2015
Deng finally drilled a 3 for the Heat with seven minutes left, and the rest of the Heat followed his lead nailing three of their final four 3s in the quarter. The Cavs struggled in the middle of the action coughing up the ball four times and taking two long 3s for the Heat to get nine straight easy points including two assisted 3s (closing out was not fashionable during this run). Shump stopped the onslaught driving hard to the hoop from the right side for an And-1. He missed the freebie though. The Moz further calmed the Heat fit. He corralled a Kyrie handoff under the basket for a layup and scored from the weak side with a dunk. The dunk came off a Smith-Thompson pick and roll that distracted Miami’s back line from his jog to the rim.The Moz then got two freebies when he sealed his man early in a possession deep in the paint and caught the ball. The Cavs ended the quarter up by 16, 85-69.
Fourth Quarter
The Cavs finally closed out on a three causing Deng to miss a shot on the first possession. However, that didn’t lead to immediate success. The King dribbled into a long shot that skied and was a shot clock violation. Then Tristan traveled. James stopped the nonsense by flying into the paint, getting fouled, and nailing his free throws. LeBron seemed intent to keep bricking outside shots off iso action. Delly, however, was not content with iso play. After securing LeBron’s miss, he drove to his right, and instead of doing his patented floater/lob, he bounce passed to Marion at the foul line. Marion banked the shot in (that also rolled around the rim twice) and got fouled. After making the free throw, the Cavs were up 90-73. Marion then let Norris Cole drain a long two him over him, and LeBron was forced to find Shumpert a 3-pointer in retaliation. With seven minutes left, James checked out, and the Cavs were up twenty. Quasi garbage time ensued, as both teams refused to chuck long shots and still kept hunting for quality looks.
Tristan stared Bosh in the eyes at the three line and did a spin move to get past him for a score. Bosh, mind obviously blown to oblivion, smacked him to make it a three point play. Kyrie and J.R. Smith played a game of “you shoot, no you shoot, no you shoot,” on the right wing with around five minutes left. Of course, J.R. shot the open 3 and made it. Joe Harris scored a 3 at the end of time and the entire Cavs benched cheered him like he had tied the game. Cavs won this one, 113-93.
Gripes
1. Both Heat runs in the game were the result of the Cavs not passing the ball well and taking poor shots. Each time Miami went on a run, the Cavs decided to run iso plays, even though they didn’t work. As I mentioned above, during the final five minutes of the second quarter, the Cavs took nine shots and four of those were 3s, which didn’t drop. The run in the third quarter didn’t feature as many 3s, just two. It did have four turnovers though. LeBron took three of these six total ill-advised 3-pointers.
2. LeBron should have been trying to drive to the hoop during these Heat runs. He was 5-6 there. And, well, 1-8 from outside the paint, including 0-4 from the 3-line. The King also needs to clean up his turnovers. He had five tonight. LeBron just forces the ball to people sometimes, and you can almost tell when it’s going to happen. Whenever he gets two guys covering him, he looks for the cutter or roll man. This is the smart thing to do; however, the Kings doesn’t take into account where the guys covering him are located. Are they between him and the cutter? If they are, their arms are probably going to touch the ball considering it has to go between them to find the man going to the hoop. It’s as if LeBron is assisting just to do it. There’s no discretion in it. In the first quarter, LeBron used a pick from Mozgov to go towards the right baseline. Whiteside cut him off and Luol Deng stayed on him too. He tried to pass between their legs, and the ball was picked off. Why not abort the play?
LeShot Chart
3.) The Cavs did way too much double-teaming in the post for a team that was up 26. And as I mentioned they weren’t crisp at rotating back. The Heat got back in the game with inside-outside passing to spotted-up corner 3-point shooters. Hopefully they’ll watch tape of that and clean it up. The Atlantas of the world will exploit those defensive breakdowns.
Hypes
1. Timofey and Tristan were animals tonight. They combined to shoot 16-19 for 37 points and 16 rebounds. Re-reading my recap I noticed I didn’t really mention them a lot, and that’s the true beauty of them. They don’t stand out no matter what they do because they’re consistently making correct basketball moves. Almost all of Mozzy’s points were alley-oops. Who would have thought he’d morph into our own Tyson Chandler? Their points are the least forced points in any game. Even Boobie knows how important Moz has been.
The Cavs are legit.. Mozgov was key
— Teddy B (@BooBysWorld1) February 12, 2015
2. Iman and Delly are my favorite Cavs backcourt right now. They are both on their man all the way up the court and won’t sag below the 3-point line on any guard. It’s so exciting to watch those two move with anyone they guard. They’re portable human mirrors.
Iman had a great scoring game shooting 5-7 from the floor and 3-4 from the 3-point line for 13 points. He had the highest plus-minus on the Cavs with +21 (in just 23 minutes!). All of his shots were assisted.
3. The offense is taking all of the right shots now. Look at this shoot chart:
I’ll take six corner threes any day. And, 39 shots in the paint, yes please. The Cavs had 52 points down low, while the Heat had only 32 points there. The Heat took 31 shots in the paint and 29 mid-range shots. That formula doesn’t work — as we witnessed tonight.
4. It’s interesting to watch the Heat use Whiteside. He had 17 points on 8-15 shots to go with 14 rebounds. He had no plays run for him specifically and got seven offensive boards. Defensively, he gets to drop back to guard against pick and rolls instead of trapping. Are the Heat going to start letting the other bigs do that? Their defense could benefit from that considering Whiteside was -6 in plus-minus, while Bosh was -26 and trapping like a mad man. The Heat don’t have the same ability to trap anymore without LeBron.
5. J.R. Smith is passing more than I remember. That explains why he had 7 assists, which ties his high for the year.
nate thank you for those interesting facts / stats on TIMOZ—I believe his athleticism is vastly underrated for a guy that size to run as graceful / fast and have the endurance to go with it –we are talking an athletic specimen—I also coach high school track and a 4;30 mile is pretty darn good—-anybody who doesn’t think he isn’t worth 2 low end draft picks ( you fill in the blanks )—agree with evil– believe the bulls possibly win a close game tonight they are going to bring all the fire power out / cavs playing a back/ back… Read more »
Only a goofball would criticize iso plays from great rim finishers in playoff late game situations. Michael Jordan was a great playoff iso player. At the end of a close game he would say screw the ball movement of the triangle, and grab the inbounds pass directly from the hands of Paxon or Kerr. He would get a layup, dunk, foul, short turnaround jumper, or pass out of the double team to an open three shooter. But since Michael would run those iso plays, Im assuming you guys would say he can’t be coached, or was having a i gotta… Read more »
criticizing a portion of Lebron’s game is not “veiled hate”. no one is saying Lebron sucks. But Lebron dribbling at the top of the 3 point arc for 20 seconds and hoisting an off balance 3 has never been and will never be the best option for this team or for any team. If you disagree with that, then you have reached the level in your mind that a player is too good to make a mistake or to be criticized. Criticizing the Le-iso portion of his game is not to take away from his overall greatness; clearly he is… Read more »
But you are forgetting that the NBA had a hard and fast rule in that era: MJ goes to the line if he misses, and no fouls are called on MJ under any circumstances. That was a smart move in the sense that it made MJ the face of the game and greatly increased the leagues popularity. For this reason, MJ going iso at the end of a game was smart, because he would score, or at least to go the line. But those days are over, and LeBron has never gotten any love from the Refs. If he got… Read more »
Mom, you’re drunk again. Go sleep it off.
“Don’t be fake, bro.” The rallying cry of Goofballs everywhere…
#veiledhatehighfive
Did someone seriously compare Delly to Mike Miller and Shane Battier (one of Jeff Van Gundy’s favorite players) -I am sorry, but that is delusional. I am totally with Col on this one. I agree he tries very hard. But he is so limited and any quick guard can get right by him. I cringe when he plays more than 8 minutes. But really, he doesn’t matter. What matters is how great Kyrie has been, how great a fit Moz has been and how he has made more of a difference then anyone could have imagined on the defensive end,… Read more »
Definition of “conundrum”
“Funny thing is that the person who harps on it the most is LeBron and yet he is often the reason the ball sticks or a rotation isn’t made on defense. But without LBJ, none of the rest matters.”
Also, I wish they’d bring back the navy uniforms from opening night. I thought they’d be a theme this year. I loved those, they were my favorite jerseys of the design they’ve been running for the past 5 years.
Maybe it’s a bad luck/superstition thing?
Good recap DW. i agree with most of the supporting info you present. the only quibbles are mainly my worry that an injury to love, Mozgov or TT could derail what looks to be a real juggernaut built for playoff domination. you know the kind that cols envisioned in september. the smith, shumpert and mozgov acquisitions clearly make griffin the front runner for executive of the year.
Great recap, thanks again for putting in the work, highly appreciated. I think what the Cavs need to show now is a string strong performances against other contenders on the road. That would be the next challenge that they’ll face as a team and will be coming late-February to late-March. Also, on the criticisms of Lebron, I think they were all on point. As fans some might feel uncomfortable every time Lebron is criticized because he is so great, he brings to the team so much, and without him the team is once again nothing. But we try to create… Read more »
I’m super glad the Cavs didn’t ever consider Thibs as a head coach. He cannot possibly be considered a good head coach anymore. The Bulls should really be looking to trade him if they could get a first round pick.
Today sucks, the last Cavs game for a while.
Rumors out of Chicago for weeks have been speculating that this will be Thibs last year as coach of the Bulls… Hello Mark Jackson…
Good recap DW! It was a terrific team win with balanced scoring and solid D for most of the game. All three of the big three showed up in a great way (until KLove got injured… which looked really painful) and the deadly shooting troika of Moz, TT and Shump looked like they just couldn’t miss for most of the game… I recognize that when the team is rolling like this that there’s precious little to critique or complain about, which is why brief stretches of LeISO ball dominance or his occasional sloppiness with the rock gets magnified, dissected and… Read more »
I saw a brief interview of Chris Bosh after the game. After 11 or so consecutive wins against the Cavs, the look on his face was a full realization that, “There’s a new sheriff in town. Fo’ Shore.” So, although a 20 point win may not have been a complete and utter destruction in points. I think it was in terms of the Heat players’ psyche.
This is fascinating:
http://stats.nba.com/game/#!/0021400796/playertracking/
One thing that stands out: Timofey Mozgov runs like a deer. He ran 2.41 miles last night, at an average of 4.32 mph, faster than any other Cav, and farther than every Cav save Irving, who ran 2.55 miles, and played 4.5 more minutes.
Only player with a higher average speed was Danny Granger who only played six minutes.
LeBron loafed a lot, his average speed was like a slow big man.
Trying to get stats about LeBron’s ball domination, but there’s so much noise. Bottom line, he threw away nine possessions last night.
I love Mozgov. Just a great center for this team.
Early in the season I looked at possession time with the ball for guys in relationships to assists. LeBron is not too efficient for how much he has the ball in his Hands when compared to to guards like CP3. Those stats are on nba.com are really fun to look at.
That is really interesting. Love the Mozzy hustle
Awesome job finding that Nate.
I don’t know about the rest of you but Mozzy has blown away my thoughts and expectations as a player. He is playing so well on both ends of court.
Me too. He’s been way better than I thought. He’s great on defense. He’s great on offense. He’s fast, he’s not a lane clogger and he’s not a headcase.
He’s much better than Roy Hibbert for a fraction of the cost and none of the headcaseyness.
He’s a great center and fits this team perfectly.
Love Mozgov! Dude is all over the place on both ends. Contesting shots, hitting high percentage shots in the paint. The 15 footer is nice. The alley oop to Lebron last night was just sick.
And… I think they are just scratching the surface of what Moz is capable of… right now, he’s only really being asked to guard the lane/rim, grab rebounds and oop the alleys. When he runs the floor, throws touch passes and hits shots from range like he did last night, you realize just how much more he’s able to do… Aside from the rapidly approaching devastation level weak side curl in alley oops from Kyrie… they don’t really seem to call plays for him. Think about it… he LED THE TEAM IN SCORING last night by just grabbing garbage dunks,… Read more »
Good and well deserved call outs of Lebron’s iso garbage. That just completely kills this team for stretches. Against mediocre teams in the regular season, it doesn’t hurt us much. Against a cranked up team in the playoffs, those isolation plays could be the reason we lose a 7 game series. Problem is, nobody can tell him otherwise. If Blatt calls him out, Blatt risks getting fired. That’s the problem when you let a star player run your team. The Spurs are the Spurs for many reasons, but one big one is they have given Pop full authority to coach… Read more »
Um what? The Spurs won because they were the most talented team in the NBA. The Heat had the very best player in that series in LeBron, but the Spurs had the next 4. They won because Parker and Ginobili and Leonard are constantly able to beat their man off the dribble and either shoot or find a wide open shooter. They didn’t win because Duncan allows himself to be coached or whatever. LeBron ISO plays are winning plays, especially in the playoffs when teams tighten up their defensive rotations. The Hawks aren’t going to be able to win in… Read more »
Yep, Lebron iso plays are winning plays, that’s why he brought so many championships to Cleveland those first 7 years. Oh wait, it didn’t work that way. But keep thinking that.
And to think that iso ball works BETTER when teams tighten up defensive rotations is so incredibly backwards that I have a hard time thinking that someone can really think that.
It’s tough to win a championship when the 2nd best player on your team is Mo Williams. Remember after LeBron left, the Cavs won 20 games the next year. 20. He’s the best and most valuable player in the NBA, but even he couldn’t carry that team of garbage to the title.
Too bad Mo couldn’t get us a 50 point game against the Magic when we really needed it :(
Great point, Jeff.
I actually think he coasts for stretches in the the regular season. When we have big leads against teams that can’t really score efficiently, he has my permission to do whatever he wants. However, I seriously doubt he’s going to employ low percentage plays in the playoffs. It’s not his style to play sloppy ball in the post season.
I agree and hope you are right. I just wish this team had the balls to criticize all their players, instead of all but one player. We may end up winning it all anyway, but how much better could this team be if they could be coached as a whole unit? Nobody knows.
I don’t understand where you are getting this “LeBron can’t be coached garbage”.
At least from what I’ve heard, it seems like most people in and close to the organization share the same sentiment that nobody can stand up to or call out Lebron, which includes a coach being critical (a vital part of “coaching”)
I don’t know if it’s the “balls to criticize all their players” since it doesn’t seem like they publicly criticize any of their players… at least it doesn’t seem like Blatt does.
I agree that Lebron and the rest of the team will be much smarter in the playoffs or closer games down the stretch. Meanwhile, are their stats on there on his ISO %. Even though it has moments of failing I am thinking it is still fairly efficient over the long haul.
This team is so good. LeBron is probably going to get to 5 straight Finals. And really, there’s almost no way they don’t get there next year too. 6 Straight Finals!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
hey cols how about a ” little love/ shout ” for your man delly being invited to all start contest / rising stars—- CMON COLS —” SHOCK THE WORLD ” AND GIVE DELLY A SHOUT ——-I think love is really trying to rethink the fans impression of him for being a ” wuss ” and no toughness in his game —also he is the one stabilizier out there to be able to refocus/ redirect the offense when we get to ” iso ” oriented ——a question for all you bloggers/ would appreciate ( as I always do ) —IS THIS… Read more »
Shout out. Delly is really good at one thing and one thing only. He’s good at help defense. He sucks at staying in front of his man.
No. This isn’t a must win for the Cavs. For the Bulls it is. No evaluation from any one game. If the Cavs win they keep on rolling. If they lose they keep on rolling. 15 out of 16 or 14 out of 16. Either way that’s an amazing stretch of basketball.
Delly is good at several things on the basketball court. He’s a solid backup.
.411 from three this year and a 3:1 assist to turnover ratio. So, three things.
OK. Shooting wide wide wide wide open threes, and not turning the ball over when he passes. Shout out. He’s developed into an OK player that we should be trying to upgrade on if we can.
Like Ray Allen. Only a few more days!!!
Betting he stays retired.
That’s what I would bet on as well. I hope not though.
God, I hope so. The Cavs are rolling- why mess with the mojo? Who are you going to take minutes away from- JR and Shump? No thanks. Allen is really, really good at one thing- and substandard at everything else. We don’t need more points- we need sizable wings that play D. I like Ray, but I like what we have right now better.
No coach in the world would play RA ahead of MD. This is the 2015 RA, not the 2005 RA.
agreed. also the intangible things that are not stats. Like pushing the pace, quick passes, and hustle. Granted athletically he is sometimes out-matched, but you can’t knock his effort. Which he brings just about 100% of the time. The stats Nate listed + effort/hustle = solid backup (IMHO).
Saying Delly is good at one thing and one thing only really just proves your ignorance when it comes to the sport. He does a lot of little things throughout the game that won’t be replayed on sportscenter but are absolutely important to getting a W.
Right. Cols – do you watch the games? The plastering over of Lebrons warts and the blind eye that is turned to the positive impact Delly can have on the game is baffling. And for the record I am not comparing the 2. Lebron is a legit MVP candidate. Delly is a career bench player. My expectations of each differ greatly – like what I expect out of my 8 yr. old versus what I expect from my 3 year old.
It’s like this. Without LeBron this team is back in the lottery. With LeBron they’ve had a winning streak of 8 games and now 14 out of 15.
Without Delly, they would still have won 14 out of 15 and had that 8 game winning streak.
He just doesn’t move the needle at all. He’s fine. He soaks up some minutes without making much of a negative impact. But if he wasn’t there we’d find someone else to do the same.
That is a pretty simple take, Heavy on assumption and conjecture. It’s like this. Blatt has settled into an 8 man rotation. To your chagrin – Delly is one of those 8. Now disregarding the fact Basketball is a team game – I guess you could look at the stats and make assumptions like, well Delly doesn’t do anything – we could replace him with any “X” and have no impact. Maybe your right – maybe not, it’s conjecture. I do know that Miami had 2 similar bit players that you could make the same argument about. (just replace them… Read more »
I love how the Delly fans never discuss advanced stats when talking Delly. They focus on a couple random stats. I think Delly as a reliable backup, but the dude is an offensive liability on this team and his D is overrated.
His TS% is second worst on the team, just above Miller, who the Delly fans repeatedly bash.
His DefRating is 4th worse on the team.
http://stats.nba.com/league/player/#!/advanced/?CF=TEAM_ABBREVIATION*E*CLE%7CGP*G*25&sort=DEF_RATING&dir=1
The only thing I enjoy about the whole Delly argument is how it takes the bright light off of the whole Kevin Love argument… Give me Delly-gate over Tweet-gate any day… ;)
Agree must win for the Bulls if they want the 2 seed. Not a must win for the Cavs. The cavs will probably get the 2 seed regardless of what happens tonight.
The cavs would get important tiebreaker considerations if we beat the bulls tonight. But if we lose, we can blame it on losing the second game of a back to back on the road.
The bulls need this for the tiebreaker stuff and to restore confidence in the people that picked them to be finals contenders. But if they lose, they can blame it on Jimmy Butler’s injury.
So to answer your question. nomad, yes and no.
No, not a must for the Cavs, but the Bulls sure must be concerned with how close the Cavs are to them right now. I think the only advantage the Bulls have on the Cavs is their depth–which is not one right now, with Butler out and Dunleavy just getting back to playing shape. The Cavs, to a man, seem to have the long view of a champion–no one win or loss more important than any other.
I agree that it’s more of an important game for the Bulls to win… After all, they haven’t beaten the Cavs in either of their previous meetings. Granted the first was without Butler and the second was without Noah and Dunleavy… but Cavs have definitely shown they can handle the Bulls and the Bulls have not yet proven the converse… I could see the Cavs losing a tough one tonight (with the Bulls going all out and willing a victory like they did in Golden State). But I would chalk even a close loss up to Chicago being desperate for… Read more »
Nice recap, David. Got to watch the game via Espn. I cannot help but think that many of LeBron’s turnovers are the result of double-digit leads and a desire to wow the crowd. My excitement over this team stems from the ball movement and defense–Kyrie is going Minnefield/Dixon on his man, isn’t he? As long as LeBron is passing and not walking on D–which he still is doing at various moments of any particular game–I will suffer his turnovers. CRSN, you are right to be a little concerned about the love of the J, but I also feel the grind… Read more »
Cavs don’t have the assets to get Enis Kanter. Going to take a lottery first rounder, or a first rounder and a rotation player. Also, the Cavs can’t deal with having THREE unrestricted free agents by adding Kanter to go along with Shumpert and Tristan Thompson. The only leverage Kanter has to force a trade is by saying he’ll go back to Europe next year rather than being a Jazz RFA. The other problem Kanter’s having is that reportedly no one is interested. Hard to see Kanter going anywhere, but he might go to a team looking to build. Another… Read more »
Kanter also seems more like a big man with offensive ability than defensive… part of what it seems like I’ve heard coming out of Utah is that he doesn’t really protect the rim well or defend well so they’ve tried to make him more of a stretch 4 than a 5. We already have a lot of guys who can score and rebound and it seems like we’d want more of a true banger/defensive presence out of a backup big man…
Awesome. This team is awesome. 14 out of 15. Just wow. I really don’t know what to say. I’m looking forward to tonights beat down of the overrated Bulls.
LeBron was awesome. Mozzy was awesome. Kyrie was awesome. Love was awesome until he got injured. JR was awesome.
Easily the best starting 5 in basketball. The bench looked good too with TT and Shump playing very well. A few more days and we can hopefully add Allen to that group.
Great recap once again. One gripe though: It seems amazing to me how much you guys(not just you David) nitpick on Lebron’s play. I know it comes with the territory of being the greatest player in basketball and the expectations are enormous, but you totally take him for granted. You shouldn’t. I mean, not only has he made us relevant again, but he, despite all the bad habits he has shown this year and noone can denie, is the biggest reason this team is special. Take him away and you are maybe the Wizards. And i don’t know if I… Read more »
Yep. I try to ignore it. They have the best basketball player in the world yet he’s not perfect. There are going to be times where he screws up. There are way way way way way way way way way way way way way more times when he does something completely awesome.
He’s the best. Around.
He should win the MVP. Look what happened to the Cavs when he left. Look what’s happening to the Heat when he left. Look what he’s done for the Cavs.
@GreekCavsFan – I don’t think it’s nitpicking on Lebron. There is a lot of analysis that goes on here at CtB. Most of the analysis is objective. Yes, Lebron is a 4 time MVP, all time great, and we LOVE having him back in a Cavs uniform. That being said he had a 6 minute stretch last night in the back half of the second qtr that was just very, very bad basketball. Sloppy turnovers and long difficult shots in ISO after running the clock down with little movement. His “pocket-pass” bounce passes to bigs are working about 5% of… Read more »
LeBron ISO is one of the most effecient plays in basketball. Sometimes he screws up, but most of the time he makes an amazing play.
“LeBron ISO is one of the most effecient plays in basketball.”
I disagree 100%
It’s a fact. He’s really good at this basketball stuff.
“LeBron ISO is one of the most effecient plays in basketball.”
put down the pom-poms
I’m only going to post once more:
I remember LeBron’s ISO very well during the 2008 Celtics series. It served us well.
No one denies LeBron’s greatness. His ISO play can get any team into the playoffs and winning a series. For this team to win everything Lebron has got to fit into the offense (which he actually did quite well last night). He has to FIT-IN and he has to trust. This team will win a lot hitting on one cylinder. It can win it all hitting on all cylinders.
Lebron Iso is a great play its just not as great when he makes it obvious that he’s going Iso then settle for a 3 after making all the offensive rebounders leave the paint. Its still not terrible though. Lebron Iso’s when he penetrates with plenty of time left on the shot clock and there is a big on the weakside are probably the best play in basketball though.
Depends on what he’s doing. If he takes it to the hole hard i’m guessing it’s pretty efficient. If he dribbles out the shot clock and launches a lazy 3 i’m guessing it’s not efficient.
I’m surely not saying to suck up to Lebron and I understand he makes many mistakes and sometimes for long stretches of the game does not help the team. And I myself have grown tired of his off the court antics- not backing up Blatt(who coached in Greece as well for my team and have great admiration for, you Americans don’t know the legend he is in Europe by the way) and everything else he has done and said at times. But on the court he is undeniebly our best player and he does things every game, which if Kyrie… Read more »
Lebron has his moments. His 2 hand slam last night down the lane – in traffic, would easily make a top 10 highlight of the month reel. Amazing.
RE: Blatt. I really like his “big picture” approach to running the team. He knows what the expectations are.
Most everyone is on board with LeBron being the best player in the game. I think be is arguably already the best ever. But that doesn’t mean he cannot play better. On one hand, you cannot expect anyone to be perfect all the time, but on the other, much of the LBJ nitpicking in CtB are valid points, and we hope LeBron gets better.
From about age 20 on, an athletes natural ability declines, so you have to continue to play smarter to make up for it.
And he doesn’t?
Not only does he play smart, his basketball IQ is one of the best in the league, he has worked over the years in his shortcomings a lot.
The real knock on him this year for me is that he is lazy, both offensively and defensively. Also, he is just starting to trust this team(he should earlier but it’s not too late).
First thought: I’m a little concerned (only a little) with the Cavs absolute and unshakeable reliance on the long jump shot. Over this run, its been consistently falling more than not, so I understand that my concern might more fear-mongering than an observation of reality. But they do go through spurts where they shoot poorly. And when they do it leads to poor performance on the defensive end (almost uniformly). I’d like to see a little more of a mixed inside out, iso-driving from LBJ and Kyrie, elbow game from Love offense. I think they are most multiple in their… Read more »
They’ve won 14 out of 15 and when the Big Three have been healthy they are destroying all opponents. No need to worry about the offense.
More inside touches to Moz/TT can lead to foul trouble for the opposing team. Great way to loosen up the paint against teams with aggressive rim protectors.
I thought the same thing about Love tonight. He was playing really well. They weren’t “force feeding” him as they have often done in the past. All of his shorts looked like a natural function of the offense. He is such a good passer. When he got hurt, I thought someone broke his nose at first but then it looked like he just poked in the eye. Scratched corneas are weird injuries and recovery time varies. We definitely need him tonight to move Noah and Gasol out of the lane but I’d be surprised if he played if the injury… Read more »
Interesting game. I loved the halftime interview with Mozgov. When Ally asked him how Miami made a run in the second, I Timofeyed, “Because LeBron keep taking stupid shot, and give ball to Heat.” ‘Bron’s no look passes to two defenders are maddening sometimes (as David noted), and his dribbling out the shotclock from the left wing is really infuriating. His “I gotta get mine” moments led to both big Miami runs. But he also had two of his best dunks of the year. Thought Love was playing great. Hopefully he’ll be on antibiotic eye drops to help his eye… Read more »