The Point Four-ward: Baby Steps Are Still Steps

Four points I’m thinking about the Cleveland Cavaliers…

1.) Just as everyone was getting set to clap the backs of the boys in wine and gold — offering a hearty congratulations on a perfect west coast road trip that would have put behind them memories of uneven performances and lackadaisical losses to shorthanded teams — the Cavs went out and performed less than evenly on the way to a 94-85 loss to the Gordon Haywood-less Jazz in Utah.

This loss renewed the outcry about the team’s lack of effort and focus that seems to be a weekly ritual for those following the Cavaliers this year.

Cleveland.com’s Chris Haynes was particularly pointed, writing:

With 16 games remaining in the season, this type of a loss to a team like this should be in the rearview mirror.

Will the real Cavaliers please stand up?

2.) And, yes, while everyone — including the Cavaliers, themselves — would have felt better had the team stolen one in Salt Lake City, this loss was easier to stomach than, say, last Monday’s home loss to the injury depleted Memphis Grizzlies. This loss came at the end of a week-long road trip, on the second night of a (second consecutive) back-to-back, against a team who plays at the slowest pace in the league (93.5 possessions per 48 minutes) and has proven, when reasonably healthy, capable of elite defensive play.

Oh, yeah, and the Jazz are fighting for their playoff lives. At the time of this writing, they sit just two games behind the Cavs’ next opponent, the Dallas Mavericks, for the eighth spot in the Western Conference. They needed a game that the Cavs would just liked to have had.

Was it troubling to see the Cavs defense that looked so good against the Clippers give up 45 combined points to the starting back court of Shelvin Mack and Rodney Hood? Sure. But, as I repeatedly reminded myself during the Clippers game:

Really want to believe this combo of defense and offensive movement/diversity is NOT a mirage from #Cavs. Been burned too much, though…

— Robert Attenweiler (@Cadavalier) March 13, 2016

But let’s talk about some good stuff, shall we?

3.) We here at CtB have been none too kind to Kyrie Irving’s tendencies in running the pick and roll (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you need to take a trip back to the Wood Shop) and we don’t hesitate to get on his case for over-dribbling.

But a funny thing happened in Sunday’s 114-90 win over the Clippers in Los Angeles. This:

What’s shocking about that play isn’t that it ends in a spectacular dunk by James, it’s what you don’t see in the clip. That dunk was set up by about 15 seconds of Irving dribbling.

Irving brings the ball up the floor and is immediately picked up tightly by Chris Paul. Staying entirely on the right side of the floor beyond the three point line, Irving dribbles himself some breathing room from Paul before spending a couple of ticks hiding behind a Tristan Thompson “screen” (and I put it in quotes because neither Irving nor Thompson knows exactly what they want out of the action).

At this point, every Cavs fan probably felt he/she knew where this play was going. Just as every James possession at the end of a quarter involves The King dribbling the clock down and jacking up a three-pointer, every Irving possession featuring this much dribbling can’t possibly end with Irving doing anything other than taking a shot, can it?

Well, I guess, on rare occasions — rare, beautiful occasions — it can. Turns out, the Clippers were just as convinced as Cavs fans that, once Irving started moving toward the hoop, that the ball was only leaving his hands for a shot. James’ man hedged toward Irving to help defend on the drive, which opened up a huge lane for Number 23 to ready the hammer for a throw-down.

Not only did that play break my rule that no player’s possession should last longer than a Vine (this play would have taken three such clips to contain it all), but it immediately drew the praise of ABC broadcaster and NBA coaching legend Hubie Brown, who gushed about how it was Irving’s over-dribbling that set up the easy play for James.

“No, Hubie!” I yelled at my TV. “Don’t go off message!”

I won’t go so far as to say that this play washes away all of Irving’s dribbling-centric sins. And Hubie probably wouldn’t suggest that either. What this play does show, though, is that Irving may be open to passing the ball out of his dribbling displays if the other players on the court aren’t just lulled into complacence by Irving’s dribbling and use the attention that dribbling receives in a positive way. LeBron James and his “beautiful mind” saw a way that Irving’s ball handling skills could make things easier for him.

James, Irving, and the rest of the Cavs need to keep looking for these moments and turn Irving’s ball dominance into an occasional weapon.

4.) In an email chain following the Cavs loss to the Jazz, our own Ben Werth went contrarian on the narrative that the Cavs just didn’t show up to this one. “I’m not too broken up about this one,” Ben wrote. “There were some really nice sets run against a great Utah D that just didn’t go down.”

When I aksed him for an example, he pointed to this play from the first quarter last night:

Here’s how Ben broke it down:

“Delly started with the ball on the left side with LeBron getting early left elbow position. Shump came from the top to cut down the lane with a soft screen from LeBron. Shump wasn’t open on the dive, but continued to curl around to the right along baseline where he got another soft screen from RJ, and TT ending up on the right wing. RJ slid to the right corner with TT on the right block. After Bron soft-screened, he came to the top to receive the ball from Delly and took a quick peek to see whether Shump was open for the right wing three. When he wasn’t, Bron tossed it back over to Delly on the left wing where he side picked for Delly before rolling down the left side. Delly hit him on the role, the Jazz rotated well, but a back screen from TT on the weakside freed RJ in the right corner. The Jazz continued their rotation so RJ fired over to Shump on the wing who skipped it back to Delly for a wide open left wing three ball. The shot didn’t fall, but bodies and the ball moved. It was a great example of low energy efficiency. Nothing was too much work. Just simple execution that got a wide open three for a great catch and shoot player. And that wasn’t the only option. Good multi-faceted offense.”

This is what we’ve been looking for the Cavs to do consistently for most of the year: keep moving the ball… find the open man (and then the one after that)… don’t make things more difficult than they have to be. We’ve seen the Cavs run their offense like this early in games, but they tend to abandon it the moment they face any adversity.

Are the Cavs, at least, getting better at not abandoning their offense?

Ben: “They did do a pretty decent job of freeing J.R. for some looks in the fourth quarter. He kept missing, but LeBron didn’t go straight Le-Iso. I’d love to say they have turned a maturity corner, but they didn’t really seem that concerned with losing this game. It wasn’t much adversity to deal with.”

So… kinda? I guess? We’ll see.

Those are baby steps, Cavs fans. But baby steps are (hopefully) still steps.