Recap: Cavs 108, Sixers 102 (or, Many Happy Returns)

There have been many positive returns for the Cavaliers over the last 18 months. From the return of the King, to the return of the Cavs to the postseason, to the return of all of the team’s seven free agents this past off-season. Last night saw three more happy returns as the Cavs took on the Philadelphia 76ers for the second game in a week (this time at the Q): the continued return of Mo Williams’ floor general dominance; the return of Richard Jefferson to his rightful place as anchor of the Space Stars of the bench; and, most importantly, the return of LeBron James’ jumper. While it took a few games (and a couple ripped sleeves) for LBJ to begin to regain his shooting form, it’s been obvious through this early part of the season that Dan Gilbert and David Griffin are already getting a huge return on their investment into their two off-season veteran additions.

Game Overview:

The Cavs didn’t start out slowly on this night, racing out to as much as a 10 point lead in the first quarter, before some poor defense let the Sixers catch up and take a one point lead into halftime. A fiery halftime speech from The Champ sparked LeBron to throw down an 18 point quarter on Philly in the third, then the Space Stars hung on in the fourth thanks to a timely infusion of rejuvenated R.J. and Delly defense.

First Quarter:

Much Danger Ninja (Jared Cunningham) got his first ever NBA start, in place of J.R. Smith (a move that returned R.J. back to his normal place backing up LeBron). He made his presence known immediately by stealing the ball from T.J. McConnell, and then had a pass from LeBron embarrassingly ricochet off of his dome. And, that was about the last we saw of the Ninja, who seemed to disappear on the court (despite a positive +16 for the game). Ultimately, his services were mostly not required with Mo Williams hitting a barrage of vintage pull up jumpers, LBJ dishing out five assists (including two for triples from Kevin Love and R.J.), Timofey Mozgov popping out for a couple of short shots, and KLove pulling down five boards. The Cavs pushed the ball early, and pushed their lead to 10 (28-18) on a fairly wide open James F. Jones bomb with just under a minute to go.

https://vine.co/v/eLFBz6awL52

Unfortunately, the ghost of poor quarter endings returned to bite the Cavs, as the Sixers went on a seven point binge (mostly orchestrated by T.J. McConnell) that featured a “taste of your own medicine” oop/slam from McConnell to Nerlens Noel, a steal by McConnell on a bad inbounds pass from JFJ, and finally a three to beat the buzzer by T.J. Cavs still led 28-25.

Second Quarter:

The Cavs spent the first part of this quarter re-building their lead back to 10 through some stingier defense, and contributions from R.J., Andy and a three-point play the hard way by Delly. They held the Sixers to just two buckets through the first six minutes, and then LeBron punctuated the action with a massive two-hand throwdown following a missed free throw.

https://vine.co/v/eLFvibxz11u

Then, the guys in wine & gold got super sloppy with the rock, turning the ball over seven times in the quarter (they’d wind up with an ugly 17 total for the game). Kevin Love was the biggest culprit with five miscues (two in the quarter), but Delly seemed to have the most inopportune one, getting pickpocketed by Nik Stauskas to kick off an unfortunate two minute stretch for the Wombat. After the steal led to a Jerami Grant dunk, Delly’s missed a 6-footer (that led to another Grant score), badly missed a three, then had another shot destroyed by Noel (which led to a Richaun Holmes dunk). Moz had a superb move for a layup and one, and Mo canned another mid-ranger to put the Cavs up by one. However, T.J. McConnell struck again with a lob to Noel to close out the scoring. Cavs trailed 50-49 at the half.

Halftime:

The aforementioned fiery speech from The Champ. JFJ reportedly had some heated words in the locker room for his teammates…

“We weren’t playing inspired basketball and JJ got on all of us,” James said. “I respect JJ probably more than anybody in this area because of how long we’ve been together. It’s my job to respond.”

Third Quarter:

Whatever James Jones had to say in his halftime speech, it was enough to get LeBron to return to the court with a vengeance for the third quarter. LBJ went berserk, scoring 18 of the Cavs’ first 24 points of the period, and nearly outscored the Sixers all by himself during his time on the floor. With a little help from Mo, KLove and Moz, Bron hit the three-ball trifecta, returning to form to stroke the long ball better than he has all season. The third one gave the Cavs their largest lead of the game at 17. During this stretch, Mo and KLove even replicated their own version of The Kraken.

Even though LeBron missed his heat check triple, Delly was there to step up and nail one to keep the scoring margin. Alas, the Sixers again returned fire, closing the last minute and a half of the quarter on a 10-2 scoring run, capped off by an Isaiah Canaan triple as time expired. The Cavs’ lead was cut in half, but they were still up 81-73.

Fourth Quarter:

The final frame belonged to one of the oldest, yet newest Cavs, Richard Jefferson (or is it Jeff Richardson, as AC accidentally referred to him in his exuberance to call one of his threes). R.J. looked like a young man with a future, scoring 10 points in the period on a pair of triples, to restore a 15 point margin for the Cavs. LeBron assisted on most of R.J.’s shots, and had another quarter with five dimes (he had 13 for the game). On the defensive side of the ball, Delly finally turned up the intensity… maybe a little too much for Isaiah Canaan’s liking, as Delly’s antics provoked the diminutive guard to throw the basketball at him and earn a T…

https://vine.co/v/eLFFiP3Kttp

However, despite a KLove deep two and a right-handed 15-footer from TT, the Sixers (who may have actually broken AC, as he kept repeating “They just won’t go away…” all night long) refused to give up. Sparked by their angry PG, they went on a 12-4 run (with eight from Canaan) in the final two minutes to turn a comfortable 14 point lead into just a six point wine & gold winner. Cavs win 108-102.

Return of the King(‘s Shot)

After an abysmal start to the season from the perimeter, where he went just 2-18 in the first five games, LeBron finally started to heat up. He missed his first and last triple tries (though the last one was a heat check), but in between drained three straight from beyond the arc during his third quarter explosion. He also sank 12-22 shots total from the field in keeping with his early season levels of efficient scoring. In addition to feeling his jumper this game, he also dished out a game-high 13 assists, staying true to his intentions of keeping his teammates involved by keeping the ball moving. There were still a couple of Le-ISO stretches here and there, but nothing resembling last year’s stagnancy. Also, whatever The Champ said to get Bron pumped up coming out of halftime should be bottled and sold to every basketball coach in the world. JFJ would make a killing…

Return of Mo(mentum)

It didn’t take long for old friend Mo Gotti to start bringing back signposts of nostalgia to the Cavs’ family. First the goosie, then the sweet strains of the Godfather theme, and even The Kraken (not just to LeBron, but also — for the first time — to KLove tonight). In his last three games, Mo has averaged 20 ppg and five apg, while shooting a ridiculous 59% from the field. He was 8-12 tonight for 16 points, and dished out eight assists. Granted, his defense still leaves a lot to be desired, but that’s never been Mo’s true calling card. He’s here to score and to keep the offensive spigot flowing until Kyrie returns from injury (and playing the new Call of Duty). It’s great to have him back in the building, nailing mid-range jumpers with abandon.

Return of R(aining).J(umpers).

Though the starting lineup wasn’t as great of a fit for him, R.J. looked positively re-energized back in his role of leading the bench. His activity was terrific, and he knocked down crucial jump-shots whenever the Cavs seemed to require one. As I said in the 5-on-5 earlier, R.J. has been the most surprising player on this team so far this year, primarily because I never expected this kind of energy or production from this elder statesman. He was 7-11 from the field, and a perfect 3-3 from downtown, for 17 points on the night. Even though he struggled a little bit with the athletic Sixer wings, he was still able to counter the 17 points they got from Isaiah Canaan off the bench.

The Evil:

The Cavs finally allowed a team to shoot better than 45% against them, and in fact, the Sixers got it all the way up to 52%. The defensive pattern was somewhat disturbing for the good guys, locking Philly down for the early parts of quarters, but then hemorrhaging points at the end of them. The Cavs were outscored 7-0, 10-4, 10-2 and 12-4 successively in the final two minutes of each quarter. This is not a trend that you’d want to see continue.

Almost half of the Sixers’ points came in the paint, where they outscored the Cavs 50-40. This is to be somewhat suspected with both Jahlil Okafor and Nerlens Noel patrolling the paint (they scored 18 a piece, many on dunks and alley oops), but their guards were also getting to the rack with regularity.

The Sixers’ bench got off for 36 points, including 17 from Isaiah Canaan, as both Delly and Mo had a hard time stopping the Philly back court. Delly did finally turn things around in the fourth quarter, and got under Canaan’s skin, but the little PG still threw up a big number.

The Cavs were much too careless with the ball in this game, turning it over 17 times which led to 15 points for the Sixers. A better team would probably have exploited this sloppiness to a much larger degree.

Kevin Love had a fairly rough night shooting the ball. This was one of those nights where he seemed to float back towards the perimeter and wait for the catch and shoot opportunities. There was a lot less banging in the paint for turnaround hooks, which may just have been due to the matchup with a larger, athletic Philly front line. To the Sixers’ credit, they did run at KLove on his outside jumpers, frequently forcing a pass or stutter dribble to reset his shot.

The Cavs didn’t make many trips to the line this game. Considering how they’ve been collectively shooting their FTs (outside of Mo, KLove and Moz), it might not have been a bad thing. LeBron looks particularly uncomfortable in the early going at the charity stripe.

Much Danger Ninja seemed at best invisible and at worst overwhelmed with his first official NBA start. Still, David Blatt seemed to think he did well enough…

"I was happy with @J1Flight. He was +16 tonight. In my mind he did a pretty good job!" Coach Blatt #CavsSixers pic.twitter.com/ANt77OOj4o

— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) November 7, 2015

LeBron took a spill and caused more than a few breaths to catch and hearts to sink into stomachs in the third quarter. It was ultimately the result of a knee to his thigh, and fortunately not something more serious. Until he sees how it feels tomorrow, he’s keeping his status for Sunday up in the air…

LeBron sounds like he's calling himself questionable for Sunday. Took a knee to the thigh, it's sore right now. Expects it to be worse tmrw

— Jason Lloyd (@ByJasonLloyd) November 7, 2015

Tristan also took an inadvertent sharp elbow to the side of the head from Nerlens. The wound required stitches, but TT was able to return to action in the second half…

T.Thompson got 3 stitches in his R eyelid from a hit by N.Noel: "As a big man if you don't get no wounds, you're not playing hard enough"

— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) November 7, 2015

The Genius:

All the assists! Once again the Cavs shared the rock to a high degree, tying their season high with 29 dimes. They’re now averaging more than 26 per game.

LeBron was terrific, not only with his third quarter explosion, but also in leading the team on a night when they needed him to both score and distribute.

Kevin Love, even though his shot was off, still was a monster on the boards, pulling down 14 of them on the night.

Moz is slowly rounding into shape. He’s still a step slow, especially on D, but he had some great moves and cuts to the basket, and displayed a soft touch hitting 6-7 for 13 points in 19 minutes. He also played some solid defense on Okafor early on in the game.

Mo paced the offense early with his mid-rangers, and still knows how to throw up unselfish gifts like this one to a trailing King…

https://vine.co/v/eLFAmzw7Ui0

TT is still a rebounding machine. Even with the boxers cut over his eye, he still managed to come back and snag 11 off the glass… and hit another right-handed 15-footer for good measure.

The bench matched Philly’s bench with 36 points of their own, paced by R.J.’s 17. Delly had a rough night, but still hit some shots in the second half and improved his defense. And James Jones, though he went just 1-6 from the floor, had some obviously powerful words for the guys at halftime.

Parting Shot:

Just because the Sixers are winless, doesn’t mean they are talentless. If it seems like they always play the Cavs tough, it’s because they actually do. They are a young, long and athletic team that is well coached and desperate for their first win of the season. Sure, there are things for the Cavs to clean up from this game, but they still won going away, and still avoided any major injury scares (TT’s wound and LBJ’s thigh notwithstanding).

Cavs host an improving Indiana Pacers team on Sunday. Until then… GO CAVS!