Recap: Cavs 101, Knicks 83 (Or, What Happens if You Have to Start Your Bench)

The Cavs picked up an easy win against the Knicks. The Wine & Gold led by as many as 30 points and held New York to 37% from the field. J.R. Smith stuffed the stat sheet this afternoon getting 17 points on 7-11 shots to go with four assists, two blocks, and a steal. The Knicks received their best play from Lou Amundson and Quincy Acy. Amundson had ten points on ten shots to go with three offensive and three defensive boards. Acy had 11 points hitting 4-10 heaves and pulling down three offensive and two defensive rebounds. Those two guys played fine games, and if they were featured behind a premier scorer, they might have helped the Knicks to remain competitive today. That was not the case as they both played over ten minutes a piece. Let’s see what happens when a team starts five guys that wouldn’t see the floor for the Cavs.

First Quarter

On the first play of the night, J.R. Smith tossed a lob to Timofey Mozgov, which was batted away by Amundson. The Knicks couldn’t capitalize though, and LeBron stole a pass from Jose Calderon to get the first break away dunk of the night. Smith then blocked Langston Galloway’s jumper the next play. Big Lou responded with a backdoor layup. Love the did the same. The Cavs gave up a lot of offensive boards early on, and Lou was the handful he never could be for the Wine & Gold. He fought for two offensive boards and scored four early points for the Knicks. The other Knicks also secured four more offensive boards to stay within two points for nearly three minutes.

The Wine & Gold then turned on the NOS for their offense and defense. They showed how really athletic guys can move fast enough to cover up for a lot of gambling. The Cavs gambling outcomes didn’t matter, because each time the Knicks didn’t turn it over the Cavs were still there to contest the shot. This led to the Cavs going on a 22-6 run. LeBron had a gorgeous post-up turnaround jumper over Galloway. He missed his second post up attempt, but he was in back to the basket mode and executing as if he were showing a class of youngsters how to humiliate a smaller man. Mozgov also had a manly offensive board and dunk with two Knicks trying to stop him.

Quincy Acy was the lone bright spot for the Knicks during the Cavs run. He scored a two pointer after a two offensive board possession. LeBron finished the quarter strong finding Love on a back door move down low, getting a breakaway dunk, and nailing a final possession 3-pointer. Cavs went into the second quarter up, 36-17.

Second Quarter

The Cavs took efficient shots today. 15 corner 3s, yes please!

The Knicks continued their onslaught of pointless offensive rebounding by getting an extra possession chance on their first shot and blowing it. Matthew Dellavedova scored the first points of the quarter with a 3-ball off a LeBron James drive into the paint. Big Lou tried some post maneuvers in the paint that failed. Tristan Thompson was a little jeaoulous of his former teammate, so he bashed his left shoulder into the paint and got fouled. Jason Smith promptly faked out Tristan and scored a two.

The Knicks then unleashed Travis Wear on LeBron. Wear forced LeBron to miss two long jumpers with his length, and even poked the ball away for Galloway to dunk it on the break. To quote my games notes, “Wear is sorta covering LeBron. Bravo.” Love countered that throw down by executing a perfect jab step from the high elbow to make a banked jumper off a Smith pass.

Smith continued his influential play. After being a called for a phantom foul on Travis Wear, Smith came from behind, on the same play, and wrapped his body in front of Wear to swat away a gimme offensive put-back.

During the final three minutes, LeBron over dribbled. He tried a behind the back pass, and Amundson stole it to dunk in transition. The King then showboated on a layup putting the ball out a little too much for Knicks to grab at before trying to drop it in without success. Lou, again, scored an easy bucket. All was redeemed by Mozgov. After Hardaway lost J.R. on a pick, he thought he was getting a layup. Mozgov disagreed, and he committed aggravated assault on the ball. LeBron caught the abused rock. He launched it to J.R. down the floor who threw it down. The Knicks highlight man during this stetch was Andrea Bargnani. He had five quick points on Love including a three point layup. Cavs went into the half safely ahead, 62-38. The Knicks shot just 35% for the half and made no 3s.

Third Quarter

Kyrie scored the first points for the Cavs with a double spin move where Jose seemed to be chasing him like a kitten chases a flopping shoelace. He finished the play with a finger roll in the low paint. This would turn out to be Kyrie’s quarter. And, it had to be considering the Knicks knocked the ball away from Mozgov three times in the first six minutes. Paint play wasn’t happening.

Kyrie then destroyed Jason Smith’s concept of dribbling. Irving lightly held his right hand a millimeter above a bouncing ball and appeared ready to take a shot. Jason Smith thought both hands touched at once, but Kyrie moved his right hand faster than a bullet to tap the ball towards the paint/ his left hand to get into the paint. He then passed the ball to Mozgov for an easy dunk.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgjOhpPgIt0&feature=youtu.be

J.R. Smith continued changing the idea of what’s possible in basketball by banking in a corner trey. The Knicks countered with six points of their own.

Kyrie, however, would go on to nail two 3s immediately after to stop the mini-run.  With 3:11 left, Jose Calderon aggravted LeBron enough that the King laid him down with his shoulder to earn an inarguable offensive foul call. Don’t mess with LeBron. After that call, LeBron ran down the court in transition and completed a cross court pass to Shump who immediately found Love for an open trey. The next play LeBron leaked out in transition and caught a Shump bomb for an easy dunk with 2:22 left in the quarter. The Cavs would not score again in the quarter, missing two long balls and having a layup blocked. Cavs entered the fourth quarter up enough to let LeBron, Love, and Kyrie rest, 81-55.

Fourth Quarter

J.R. Smith started the quarter hitting a 3-pointer, and then James Jones nailed one without touching the net. The Knicks could only counter with two jumpers. J.R Smith then earned his rest by slamming the ball down reverse sexy style off an Iman pass.

The ex-Knicks connected on a superior alley-oop. The Cavs bench acted as if Smith gave them all their first beer. They hugged him and smiled like little boys. Up by thirty and all momentum going Cleveland’s way, garbage time officially started with nine minutes to go. Bargnani had six points off two dunks and a layup during the remaning time, and Acy had 11 points including a triple. The Cavs worked their offensive sets passing the ball well, even if it didn’t always result in a make. Brendan Haywood took possibly his last shot while in the NBA, and it was a wide airball. Cavs, 101-83.

Gripes

1. This was an overall fantastic game by the Cavs, but they could improve on their fifteen turnovers. LeBron had four of them and Timofey had four. Timmy’s four were not really his fault, as the Cavs kept feeding him the ball in the paint, when he was often surrounded by two or more Knicks. LeBron’s most egregious turnover came off a behind the back pass in the second quarter. It resulted in a dunk for Amundson and should have resulted in a benching for LeBron. No showboating!

2. Tristan had an off night. Bargnani had two full on dunks on him in the fourth quarter. I know that it shouldn’t be a big deal, since it was garbage time, but Tristan should be owning Andrea 100% of time. However, Tristan’s lone steal of the night came in the third quarter when Bargnani tried to back him down in the post, and Tristan acted like a brick wall with grabby hands.

3. The Cavs didn’t box out as well as they could have. They gave up 19 offensive boards. My counter point though, is that to have that many offensive boards, you have to have a lot of misses.

Hypes

1. J.R Dunk. J.R. Swish. J.R. Steal. J.R Assist. J.R was a man for all basketball seasons today and was efficient. He was 7-11 from the field and 3-5 from the 3-point line for 17 points. Plus, come on, that dunk in the fourth is what makes people watch the NBA.

2. Kyrie was 6-10 for 18 points because he played off the ball most of the game. Kyrie is willing to move off the ball, and I think he might like it. Whether Iman, Delly, or LeBron was on the floor with him, he let them bring the ball up the floor and was willing to use his dribbling to get into the paint only if needed. He seemed very effective because the Knicks weren’t constantly focused on stopping his penetration. I wish I could find dribbling time stats to back this up, but you have to take my word for now.

3. Iman might be more capable at point guard than I previously thought. He had seven assists and zero turnovers.  Shump is a master of reading the floor without the ball in his hands. On all of his assists, aside from one to Joe Harris for a triple where he brought the ball up court, he took less than three dribbles before the pass (three assists were simply touch passes to an open 3-point shooter). He has an uncanny ability to receive a pass from someone who was dribbling and use their effect on the defense to find the open person.

Happy for JR Smith and Iman Shumpert. A lot of Knicks fans were fronting like they weren’t good basketball players.

— Jonathan Tjarks (@JonathanTjarks) February 22, 2015

4. The Cavs second unit knows how to move the ball: for example, the make at the 7:02 mark in the fourth quarter. Delly brings the ball up the right side of the court. When he crosses mid-court, James Jones comes from the weak side to receive a pass. Joe Harris runs towards Jones to receive the ball, and Jones rubs his man off. Meanwhile, Matty has now circled around the baseline to come receive the ball again running towards the right side of the floor. The ball is then whipped back to the left and around the perimeter/ baseline area to work all the way back to Delly for an open 3-pointer. The ball is passed seven times in just 19 seconds. No player stood still the entire time forcing the Knicks defense to react constantly. That’s a motion offense if there was ever one.

5. The Cavs guards did a really good job of stopping the Knicks guards from driving into the paint. Jose Calderon, Langton Galloway, and Tim Hardaway combined for just six shots at the rim and made only three.

6. Travis Wear might be the LeBron stopper/ slower downer. He consistently contested LeBron’s open jumpers without letting the King blow by him and ripped it from James one time.

7. Kevin had 16 points on 7-14 shots to go with 16 rebounds. He worked his butt off against the Knicks bigs who were intent on crashing the boards every single play.

8. The Knicks made 3-19 3-pointers.

9.

Congrats to @KingJames (24,383) for passing Allen Iverson (24,368) for 22nd on the NBA’s all-time scoring list; Next Up: Ray Allen (24,505)

— NBA History (@NBAHistory) February 23, 2015