Recap: Cavs 106, Bulls 95 (or, this is fun!!)
2016-02-19
The Cleveland Cavaliers kicked off the second half of the NBA season last night with a nationally televised game against the Chicago Bulls. While the Bulls had been struggling before the break and are without Jimmy Butler for the next few weeks, they were also 2-0 against the Cavs this season, and many were looking for the Cavaliers to improve their focus and effort as they begin to prepare for the playoffs. If tonight is any indication, then we’ll see plenty of effort and energy from the Cavaliers over these next few months.
First Quarter
The Cavaliers wore their sleeved jerseys tonight, which you know LeBron loves more than anything. He didn’t let it affect him though, as he accounted for the Cavaliers’ first eight points while making four of his first five shots. Kyrie Irving also was attacking—possibly to a fault—but made just one of his first four shots, and wasn’t looking to pass at all. Kyrie having the blinders on was part of the reason the Bulls were able to keep it close despite starting cold from the field. The Bulls’ struggles on offense were much more the result of missed bunnies than the Cavaliers’ defensive effort, at least in the first quarter. The Cavaliers were allowing far too much dribble penetration, and Chicago seemed to get to the rim at will. Kevin Love had eight boards, Timofey Mozgov added a pair of dunks and the Cavaliers led 26-19 after one.
Second Quarter
Both teams started off the quarter cold, and continued to force poor shots. The Cavaliers began to really lock in defensively, and LeBron returned and continued to get up the floor aggressively and attack the basket. This opened things up for his teammates, and the Cavs had their first double-digit lead after a Richard Jefferson three. Back-to-back steals by Tristan Thompson that he took coast-to-coast for a dunk and layup pushed the lead to seventeen, but then the Cavs took their foot of the pedal a bit, and the Bulls closed the gap. Kyrie continued to attack in isolation and miss, while Derrick Rose scored a game-high 18 points in the first half as the Bulls used a 16-5 run to trim the Cavaliers lead to 48-42.
Third Quarter
James continued to alternate between establishing post position and attack the basket, either scoring himself or passing out to get his teammates easy buckets. The Cavaliers quickly built the lead back to twelve before J.R. Smith and Taj Gibson earned double technical due to a shoving match after a Tristan Thompson dunk. The Cavaliers kept their composure, and an alley-oop from Smith to LeBron put the lead back up to seventeen. Rose, Pau Gasol, and Bobby Portis were able to get going to keep the Bulls in it, but the Cavaliers led 78-64 heading into the final frame.
Fourth Quarter
James and Irving started the fourth quarter on the bench, but the rest of the team didn’t let that slow them down, pushing the lead to nineteen. This seemed to take most of the wind out of the Bulls’ sails. LeBron continued to attack and wound up with 25 points, but finished just short of a triple-double with nine points and nine rebounds, though it was not for lack of trying on the King’s part. The Bulls went on a bit of a run during garbage time to make the game appear somewhat closer than it was, but the Cavaliers still prevailed 106-95. This was a nice way to start the second half of the season and was one of the better team efforts we’ve seen from the Cavs recently.
Some Other Observations.
The Cavaliers did a great job of pushing the ball up the court and getting into their offensive sets quickly. They were able to get a lot of open shots and kept the Bulls’ defense from getting set, even if they did miss a decent amount of those open shots. On the defensive end, they were physical with the Bulls all night, something we haven’t seen very much this season.
Tristan Thompson was clean-shaven tonight. He looked like a tween, but if he’s going to shoot eight of ten from the field for 16 points and 10 rebounds he can look like a lawn gnome for all I care. The two blocks and three steals were icing on the cake.
Timofey Mozgov had a really nice game with 11 points on 5-of-8 shooting to go along with seven rebounds and four blocks. Perhaps the rest over the All-Star break and knowing he won’t be traded will help Timo regain the health and confidence he had last season. If so, a big man rotation of Thompson, Mozgov, Kevin Love, and Channing Frye could be as good as any in the league.
Bobby Portis made his fair share of rookie mistakes tonight, but his motor and skill level were impressive. He could be something special down the line.
Not a great game for Kyrie Irving. He ran too much isolation offense despite the fact that his shot wasn’t falling, and was torched by Derrick Rose on the defensive end.
Someday Rose will let go of Irving taking his starting spot at the 2014 FIBA World Cup, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen any time soon.
Contrary to popular belief, this Kevin Love guy is pretty good at basketball. Not a lot of guys can make a 15 point, 15 rebound night look easy.
The Cavaliers have a truly maddening ability to take the foot off the gas and let their opponents back into games. That was evident once again tonight as the Bulls came back from a 17 points deficit in the second quarter to get within six at the half. It was good to see them rebuild that lead in the third quarter and keep it through most of the rest of the game. That seeming lack of killer instinct has been one of the big differences between the Cavs and the Warriors most of the season, and it’s something the Cavaliers need to correct.
I’d like to leave you with my thoughts on today’s trade. When Anderson Varejao joined the Cavaliers in 2004, I was renting half of a duplex, living the single life, and a much more casual Cavs fan than I am now. Now I’m married with two kids, eight years into a 20-year mortgage, and am a passionate follower of this team. I didn’t grow up watching Anderson Varejao, but in many ways I became a man during this time. Through all of this change, one of the constants in my life has been watching the Cavaliers and seeing Andy throw himself around with reckless abandon, doing whatever he could to help the Cavaliers in every game he was able to play. In the hundreds of Cavs games I watched over the past twelve years, I never once saw Anderson Varejao give anything less than all he could. His effort and professionalism are everything you could want in an athlete on your favorite team. I understand why David Griffin made today’s trade, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt a bit. Goodbye Andy. Thanks for the memories.
Thanks for the kind words guys. It’s totally possible to think this was the right move and still feel terrible about it. The two are not mutually exclusive.
THINK UNFORTUNATELY THIS ( INJURIES ) IS SOMETHING WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO LIVE WITH SHUMP —–MET ANDY ONCE IN A LOCAL RESTAURANT ( RIGHT NEXT TO A BEAUTIFUL TROUT STREAM WHERE ANDY HAD BEEN FISHING ALL DAY ) SAT DOWN WITH US AND DRANK SOME MARGARITAS WITH THE GANG JUST LIKE A COMMON FELLOW —–GOING TO MISS YOU —GOOD LUCK —WE WILL HAVE MORE ” MARGARITAS AND FISH STORIES TOGETHER ” DOWN THE ROAD
In last evening’s game, there seemed to be an actual rotation, with Kevin Love on court with the second unit throughout the game and the same groups of players on court together. Of course, adding Channing Frye will destabilize things once again, but establishing a consistent rotation would be on my to do list if I were the coach.
#Cavs G Iman Shumpert hurt his left shoulder in last night’s win over Bulls. He did not practice today. Tyronn Lue says he’s day-to-day. — Chris Haynes
He probably was too busy thinking about his brand.
Sounds like Shump has a shoulder sprain. Also, I don’t think Delly has completely healed from his hamstring injury either.
Buyout names: Joe Johnson, Kevin Martin, David Lee, J.J. Hickson, Anderson Varejao
Who else?
Out of those, my list for Cav’s stops after JJ. And he’s no savior by any means.
Only one I like is Johnson. But seems unlikely that he’s bought out. So Quinn Cook. Or maybe Martin. Can he still shoot?
Age catching up to him. He’s 32 and his defense, which has never been good, is bad. He’s shooting a decent 36% from 3 but terrible on 2 point shots 38% for an awful efg% of 43%. By comparison, the worst Cav’s efg is Shump at 46.3%.
Btw, today’s Hey Windy is fantastic.
http://espn.go.com/espnradio/podcast/archive?id=14055600
So no thanks then…… They are required to pick up another player soon.
I too miss Andy, and think the deal was emotionally tough for the fans. But I am trying to reconcile the general pre-treadline consensus at CTB that “the Cavs have no chance against the Warriors” with the new consensus at CTB that trading for a floor-stretching big man who should help against Ws is somehow a terrible decision.
It’s OK to miss Andy AND recognize that the deal makes the team better.
I’m not sure this is the consensus. I’ve read a lot of C:tB’ers say they don’t really think this moves the needle. And that’s what makes losing Andy so hard. It’s not that we moved him but that we don’t really feel moving him resulted in that big of a jump.
You are probably right, but how do they know? We will see if he moves the needle. I hope so.
Assuming the Cavs had no interest in actually playing Varejao, which I found puzzling, then adding a guy like Frye isn’t a bad move. I think JoeyB has a good point that this wasn’t an Andy for Frye trade. They were almost two separate deals that required a little finagling. But the Andy trade was really about paying (with a first round draft pick) to get Andy off the books. That’s a bummer – it calls into question a lot of the moves the Cavs have made if we’re not operating under the framework where Dan Gilbert spares no expense.… Read more »
I think paying some 170 odd million dollars sort of qualifies as ‘sparing no expense’ though. Trading a non-rotation player to save 40 million seems rather prudent to me. I agree, I think this basically was 2 separate deals. Which makes me wonder, if we didn’t trade for Frye, would the Cav’s still have dumped AV’s contract to Portland. He was their 5th big man, which is pretty important depth wise, but then again they could’ve tried to pick up someone from China or someone who took a buy-out to be the 5th big. It was reported that the Cav’s… Read more »
Here is my thing – I think you have to hold gilbert to his spare no expense mantra unless and until he wins a ring. In fact, it was my full expectation since last year that, should we win the title last year or this year, that trading Varejao would make sense. In fact, the way the deal was structured with the final year being nonguaranteed, I figured it was intentional to have a tradeable contract at the end of the deal. What stinks is that (1) we don’t have a title yet, so any tiny bit of help we… Read more »
What bugs me is that Gilbert made some comment yesterday, not sure what media outlet it was to, that it was a sad day for himself and Cavs fans everywhere, or something like that. Uh, Dan, this was YOUR decision made to save you millions of $$$… Save the tears for a non-fan who actually cares about your wallet. We still only have a roster of 13.
In addition to the Cavs, I am also addicted to watching Survivor. You know, where people are intensely loyal and form emotional bonds and make promises prior to making a calculated decision to knife their associate in the back. Both are also television shows and everyone is getting paid, something I have to keep reminding myself.
But I will really miss Andy, for all of the reasons that others have written here. I really liked Mike’s recap today. Here’s another farewell (with counterpointing comments):
Thanks for the recap Mike. Favorite play was Love blocking Portis and then taking charge. Gets a lot of crap for poor defense but he has definately been improving. Watched on the TNT overtime and it has the baseline angle and watching him shadow Portis all the way was something out of the norm for him. Seemed to be more intentional all night, like Lebron as well. Warriors are making watching basketball less fun because when Cavs don’t crush an opponent or play the way they do, the thoughts tend to be, they are not playing well etc. Cavs are… Read more »
According to Windy, OKC is really interested in AV. He also thinks Chicago, and Clippers could be interested.
All teams who have no remaining games left in Cleveland this year. Would have to wait until next year to receive fan’s appreciation.
http://www.cleveland.com/cavs/index.ssf/2016/02/the_cleveland_cavaliers_better.html#incart_big-photo
Here’s a downer for you. I still don’t get why they had to trade him and a first round pick to save money. Even with the luxury taxes, this team is making a profit right now.
How do you know they are making profit?
I’m basing that off my memory of reports from last year regarding both the worth of the franchise and the money they were making including playoffs, was north of 250 million. So I don’t know for sure. I should have noted that in my comment that it was my belief.
That moving final paragraph makes this one of my favorite recaps of the year. We all have unique relationships with the players we’ve watched grow up alongside us. Winning and time will heal all wounds, and now that Andy is waived we can hopefully bring him back in some capacity one day to share the experience… One thing I was hoping someone could answer about the Varejao deal: was it necessary to move Andy to acquire Frye on a technical level, i.e salary cap restrictions in the CBA would have prevented such a deal? Or was it necessary to balance… Read more »
I think more than anything it was financial. They could’ve had Frye without moving Andy. Griff messed up by handing Andy that contract last year.
Pretty much agree. I think MDN and AV could play a big role in the playoffs. I can cut Lue some slack because he is just getting started, and he wants to get his main crew up and running with the plan, but putting MDN at the end of the bench might prove to have been a big mistake. I do admit to always having big expectations for walk-on’s. I really thought they were saving AV for the playoffs. Maybe they were, but think this move will really help. I basically have pretty good faith in DG+DG. I hope this… Read more »
If MDN has so much potential, why did Orlando instantly cut him, even though he’s making the minimum? I mean come on, he wasn’t getting any meaningful playoff minutes unless at least two players suffered injuries. As for Andy, yea it would’ve been nice to keep him around for sentiments sake, but once Frye arrived, he wasn’t going to receive any meaningful playoff minutes either. And it would’ve cost the team around 35 million dollars to keep him for the rest of the year! That’s 35 MILLION dollars. About 5 mill in remaining salary this year, and another 30 million… Read more »
According to Cleveland.com, it is $9.3M, not $35.M.
Did Orlando cut MDN? If true, so what. Orlando has no need for a fast guy to pester Curry. The Cavs do. Also, what about when you need a non essential player for a hack-a-shaq? They can’t use Kuan, because he would never catch up with anyone to foul them.
That last part was surely in jest.
We could’ve gotten Frye without trading Andy by fitting him into the Brendan Haywood trade exception but I think that would’ve cost the cavs like 40 mil in additional luxury tax this year. We ended up trading Andy to save some money but we also created another trade exception worth AV’s contract. Giving up that first rd pick seems a like an overpay to move AV’s contract off the books, but Griffen might have felt that since this team is going to be capped out until the end of time, why hold onto a guaranteed salary of a low draft… Read more »
Didn’t see your post before I replied above, but yea I looked it up and he’s owed about 3.5 million for the rest of this year, and the luxury tax hit would’ve been at least 36 million. So 40 million it would’ve cost the Cav’s to keep him, and that’s just for the rest of this year. They still would’ve had the same problem with his contract next year as well. Hindsight is 20/20 but yea this was Griffin’s screw up, signing AV to that extension. I see his thinking, AV was a starter in the last year of his… Read more »
Do you have any stats showing the Cavs have a bigger “maddening ability to take the foot off the gas and let their opponents back into games” than any other team?
News flash: The other team is also trying to win! Have you heard the expression “Everyone makes a run in the NBA”? As long as anyone has played basketball, most games are a series of back and forth runs. When the other team makes a run, that does always mean someone took their foot off the gas. That is the way basketball goes.
Agree theres a strange rhythm to most non-gsw games. This game was never in doubt in my mind, cavs played well
Again, we have higher expectations for this team. When they have lapses where they let teams back in the game, it’s not progression. You may not like that we nitpick this team, but it doesn’t mean it won’t stop.
Christ, we know you won’t stop nitpicking! Haha
Is this your monthly pop-in to complain about C:tb? See you in March!
Good win even without Butler. The Cavs are still growing with Lue so the foot off the gas issue may be related. Remember they have only been playing this way for a few weeks and they subbed themselves out that first game.
As to Andy, he was a likable guy. Its too bad the Cavs werent very good in his best years. Too bad about his injuries too. If Portland cuts him loose it’d be nice to see him retire as a Cav on their home opening night next season.
Thought the same thing about Moz tonight. had a refreshingly good game, and there is a definite difference on the team when he plays well. quiet game from all of our guards tonight, but when your three posts combine for 42 pts and 32 rbs, you’re sitting pretty. But I think Reggie Miller was spot on last night. Lebron looked good… like real good, as has been the trend this entire month. despite all the moaning and groaning about every odd look we get from the media, it seems like this team really likes each other. im expecting them to… Read more »
I felt like Gasol was torching Mozgov (again)
I mean, he only had 14 points and most of his minutes were played against TT/Love. I don’t really think Moz was getting torched last night by anyone. 4 blocks for the night too.
Andy will be missed, that’s for sure. Hopefully Frye, like JR, can exceed our expectations. Also, as I mentioned in the reader 5-on-5, the Cavs taking their proverbial foot off the gas is my single biggest issue with this team. I want total annihilation like I know they are capable of doing.
Great recap Mike. Solid take on the Cavs being more physical (for the whole game for once) and trying to get out and run more. I love what JR has been bringing to the team since January but I’m just worried he’s going to throw another punch at some point. So many guys beat on him to try to him upset. Would rather he learn to flop, get the call, and then smile like Sam Cassell in his opponents face. No wait. That sounds horrible. Let em play. Why did we need 10 minutes of referees watching video last night.… Read more »
Really agree about JR. He’s not going to get any sway from the refs picking up techs, and getting in mixups on the court. (Although that ship probably sailed long ago for JR) I think everyone on the Cavs should take a lesson from Varejao – you don’t have to flop, but if you are getting held, or pushed, or whatever, make sure the refs see it. This goes especially if/ when playing the freaking Warriors. If they hold your jersey, make damn sure the refs know it.
Great recap. I loved how hard Mozgov was going to the rack and his hands were on point. TT was an animal. How many guys can score 16 points without hunting for a single shot? His defensive intesnsity flustered the Bulls all night. The Cavs also made the right rotations when they trapped. Progress feels good.