The Point Four-ward: Much Danger… Averted

For points I’m thinking about the Cleveland Cavaliers…

1.) Hopefully, the Cavs coaching staff used Tuesday’s 105-100 win over the Portland Trailblazers to drive home one very important point to their most important player: Please, LeBron James, please, stop dominating the ball.

James is still one of the best players in the world, if not the best, but the Cavs are a worse team when the ball hits his hands and sticks there. In his weekly podcast, Terry Pluto talked about how LeISO affects the rest of the Cavs. Perfectly capable offensive players like Mo Williams and Kevin Love suddenly become less assertive and watch as James takes over the show. On offense, these players get taken out of their rhythm when one missed shot on their part could cause James (or, even worse, could cause that player to think it might cause James) to feel like he has to take the next four. On defense, the players are disengaged from standing around on the other end and play with less urgency when it comes to keeping the other team from scoring.

The Cavs need the LeBron James who makes the other players around him better, not the one who makes the players around him tentative or second guess themselves.

That first kind of LeBron made a welcome reappearance after 18 minutes of sluggish, uninspired basketball by both him and his teammates. That’s when the team ratcheted up their defensive effort and (shockingly) found that the ball could have a little more life in it.

In the second quarter alone, as the Cavs began to claw their way back toward respectability, James fed Kevin Love on a pick-and-roll for an easy score, he posted up on an isolation play and he moved without the ball, receiving a pass under the basket from Love for a slam.

James should — and will certainly continue to be — a major facilitator on this team. He’s the most gifted passer at his position(s) that the game has ever seen. However, the team suffers when James plays point guard, either walking the ball up the court or surveys the floor from the top of the three point arc for 20 seconds before initiating the action. Even if he makes the contested three he likes to shoot in that situation or passes the ball to an open teammate who cans an open look, the Cavs lose what can make them a special team when they take their foot off the gas… when the ball loses its zip… when they are no longer trusting each other.

Hopefully, Tuesday night’s comeback can help remind the Cavs of how hard they have to play — and how varied their star needs to play — for them to get back on a roll.

2.) After starting the year red hot, Williams has hit a rough patch. Over the last two weeks, the Cavs’ biggest free agent signing has seen his scoring dip, his liability as a defender constantly exposed, and his starting spot lost to the steadier Matthew Dellavedova.

Those recent struggles made a bit more sense when news broke that Williams had an MRI on his left knee earlier this week. The MRI was negative and Williams was active for Tuesday’s game against the Blazers, but the knee had reportedly been bothering Williams for a while now. Then, he said he “tweaked it” in Saturday’s Meltdown in Miami.

It’s encouraging that Williams isn’t expected to miss time to get his knee right and that he, along with the coaching staff, seem content to play through the injury… albeit with a diminished work load. After routinely playing big minutes earlier in the season, Williams hasn’t cracked the 30 minute mark since the team’s loss in Toronto and is routinely playing closer to 20 minutes, clearly in an attempt to rejuvenate his ailing legs.

Against the Blazers, Williams came off the bench and played well, scoring 13 points and dishing out two assists in 21 minutes of action.

3.) Through all of the questions that the Cavs’ recent play has raised, there has been the tiniest glimmer of silver lining in the form of Jared Cunningham. Head coach David Blatt has turned to Cunningham in both of the last two games when the Cavs needed a spark and the 6-4 guard who grabbed the team’s final roster spot out of training camp has delivered.

Cunningham deployed some truly nasty defense (like this) —

— and injected some much needed life into the Cavs’ saggy perimeter D.

Later, Cunningham made the most important shot you can make when you’re a teammate of LeBron James, canning a corner three after James squeezed just about all the water out of the shot clock.

So, yes, Cunningham has shown the type of complimentary ability that the team needs from the end of its bench, much more so than Canton Charge stand-out Joe Harris. He is hitting over 40% of his corner threes and his defensive focus has raised his stock as a legitimate “Three and D” guy. It will cost Dan Gilbert millions in additional luxury tax if, in January, he decides to guarantee Cunningham’s contract for the year, but Cunningham might add enough versatility to the end of this bench to make the millions (relatively) worth it.

4.) While Cunningham, a former first round draft pick of the Cavs, enjoyed his extra time under the lights, a former Cavs second rounder now playing for the other side was busy benefiting from getting more run this season, as well.

Allen Crabbe, the Blazers’ 6-6 shooting guard, was the 31st overall pick of the Cavaliers in the 2013 NBA Draft. Crabbe, now playing in his third pro season, has seen his minutes climb to almost 24 per game for the young, guard-oriented Blazers and the University of California product is making the most of it. The athletic swingman with the bleached blonde mohawk is averaging 9.5 points per game with a True Shooting percentage of 59.6. After hitting his career high of 18 points in back-to-back games against Dallas and Indiana last week, Crabbe was quietly efficient against the Cavs, scoring 14 points on 6-11 shooting (1-3 from three).

Crabbe clearly benefits from all of the attention drawn by Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum, but he’s carved out a nice place for himself in the rebuilding Blazers’ rotation.

Crabbe was traded to the Blazers on draft night for a pair of second round picks. In fact, none of the Cavs picks in that draft — number one overall pick Anthony Bennett, Russian shooting guard Sergey Karasev, and Arizona State small forward Carrick Felix — remain on the team’s roster.