Recap: Cavs 124, Nuggets 91 (Or, How Can I Be of Assistance?)

The Cavaliers took the court with the opportunity to clinch their 5th division title and 50th win of the season. Though the Wine and Gold has struggled in recent weeks, it is no small thing to win a division title. Playoff seeding questions aside, hanging a banner in the Q is always a good thing. With Kevin Love out due to illness, Coach Lue turned to Channing Frye to start the contest. The sweet shooting Arizona product has seen the majority of his minutes at center with the Cavs, so it was somewhat surprising to see Lue start Mozgov in tandem with the stretch big man. Cavs fans were happy he did. Let’s get to it.

1st Quarter:

Cleveland looked to build Timofey Mozgov’s confidence early by going to him with the first play of the game. Unfortunately, the entry pass was sloppy and the big fella didn’t receive the ball. Still, the effort was rewarded. Mozzy played some fantastic help defense and his hard working offensive game got the Cavs easy buckets. J.R. Smith put the Cavs on the board after a Timo offensive rebound. An early rim run in transition cleared the path for LeBron to find Swish for a right corner three. Another early offense Mozgov seal led directly to a James putback. LeBron was just getting started. The King trickled in beautiful running skyhook before Channing Frye went on a personal 5-0 run with a surprising post dunk and a less surprising left wing three. When TT and Delly subbed in at the 4:44 mark, the Cavs had a tidy 19-11 lead.

From there, Delly and LeBron took over the offense. James repeatedly sealed his man deep under the basket after good play-action. Delly found him on almost every occasion with a variety of passes. On one play, Delly and Bron cross-screened under the hoop before Matthew curled around to the top of the key and found James still under the bucket some 5 seconds later. No three seconds was called. Bad for Mike Malone. Good for Cleveland.

Tristan and Shump did a nice job of harassing the Nuggets with a pair of blocks. TT’s offensive rebounding set Delly up for a mulligan three after the Aussie blew a layup. Denver allowed the lead to balloon to 19 when they couldn’t stop the Cavs pet play: Bron gets a weakside backscreen to get deep post position while Delly runs PnR on the strongside. Delly found him for the bucket. The Cavs defense swarmed early, but got foul happy to end the quarter. The Nuggets grabbed a quick 10 points in the last two minutes of the frame to help mitigate LeBron’s ridiculous 17, five and three first quarter line. After the Cavs’ highest scoring first quarter of the season, 38-23.

2nd Quarter:

Richard Jefferson finally got off the pine to start the second period joined by TT, Shump, Kyrie, and Delly. RJ continued his hot shooting from the other night with a right wing triple to give the Cavs 41 points. They would be stuck on 41 for nearly the next six minutes of game time. Kyrie had back-to-back turnovers from poor decision-making. The Cavs defense continually allowed the Nuggets to get to the middle off easy “horn action” dribble hand-offs. Kyrie was in full jog mode on that side of the ball and in mistake mode on the offensive side.

Meanwhile, Will Barton destroyed the Cavs from a variety of angles on his way to 16 second quarter points. The Cavalier lineup was too small and overwhelmed by the Nuggets’ size upfront. With just over six minutes remaining in the period, LeBron checked back in with the Cavs only up two. Directly after, Jusuf Nurkic blocked LeBron’s baseline move, resulting in a Will Barton three ball, to give the Nuggets a lead. Nurkic, the son of superhero, isn’t afraid of anyone, and had a good time talking trash with LeBron. Mozzy was subbed back in with five minutes remaining, and gave the Cavs another lift. He hit Denver with a quick six points and a steal that led to LeBron’s and-1 revenge over Nurkic. LeBron and Mozgov helped the Cavs regain momentum and the lead going into the break, 56-48.

3rd Quarter:

Mike Malone went to his supersized lineup to begin the second half. With Jokic, Nurkic, and Arthur up front, the Cavs were tasked to defend some bully ball. The Nuggets did have a modicum of success on the offensive side, but Channing Frye’s ability to space the floor toasted Denver on the other end. Channing drilled a right wing three with Jokic sagging off of him, and dribbled-drove for a layup off a hard close out. Mozzy’s quick hands poked the ball away from Nurkic leading to this highlight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkbYRN7DsOc

The Cavs continued to put on the pressure after the Denver timeout. J.R. Steal grabbed his fourth theft of the night before becoming J.R. Swish. The Nuggets took a bad angle closing out on Channing Frye yet again. Frye tried to posterize Nurkic, but the best he could do was draw a foul. His front court partner, Timo did him one better with a sweet upfake dunk out of the post. Moz nailed the and-1.

The Cavs offense hummed with a mix of solid ball swings and early offense push in transition. LeBron did a great job of pushing off all of his rebounds, and the perimeter ball movement created open shots and driving lanes. Smith flew around in defensive rotation and buried a few shots. Things were going well, but it seemed somewhat strange that there was no substitution for the Cavs until the 3:08 mark. Even then, it was only Tristan that entered for Mozgov.

Kyrie finally got it going a little bit with a mix of dribble-drives and pull-up jumpers. He still didn’t look totally engaged until RJ and Shump came in for Frye and James. Perhaps it was because Kyrie didn’t see any time at the point with the initial lineup. Delly, who had a great first half moving the ball, entered the game with only one minute remaining in the quarter. Weird rotation.

Denver was getting outplayed on both ends, but Will Barton propped his Cleveland HOF case with more dead-eye shooting to keep Denver in shouting distance. 87-72.

4th Quarter:

Delly, Shump, RJ, Bron, and Tristan trotted out to start the final quarter. The Nuggets weren’t quite awake after the quarter break. Jefferson’s alley to James’ oop forced Malone to call a timeout less than one minute in. It didn’t do much good. LeBron was going to score, regardless. Delly got a staggered left side PnR from Shump and Bron. Shump popped to the left wing, and Bron loop rolled to the basket. Delly hit him with a perfect long distance Loaded Wombat that LeBron tossed into the hoop. On the Cavs’ next possession, Bron returned the favor handing Delly an early transition three ball to push the lead to 23.

Richard Jefferson and LeBron James spent the next few minutes of game action triple-double hunting. RJ missed multiple shots that would have given the King a tenth assist. The scorers table hilariously gave LeBron an assist on a baseline bucket from RJ. Yes, I know the two dribble rule, but that was a stretch. LeBron and RJ probably felt guilty, so they went back to the well in transition. RJ dropped it through the hoop giving James a real assist. J.R. checked in for LeBron who finished with 33, 11(10), 11 and a staggering plus 38!

Garbage time was fun for the fans with four dunks, a few threes and even a cursory cheer for Mike Miller when the former Cav drilled a bomb of his own. Oh, and Sasha Kaun!

Thoughts:

LeBron was an absolute beast. He did much of his work off ball, establishing great post position and sealing his man. It came within the flow of the offense, his teammates found him, and he passed well out of tough situations for the majority of his assists. Defensively, LeBron still has a tendency to leave a guy to reclaim “his” man a beat too early. Considering the Cavs are switching so frequently, it doesn’t make a lot of sense the James is so eager to get back to his original man. It led to some easy buckets and confusion with Frye and Timo, but it didn’t do much to stain this masterpiece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhbWrE-Uyz8

Timofey Mozgov was second in plus/minus at +26 and it properly represented his impact. Mozzy played a beautiful game. His rotations were fantastic. He played with extreme force. Maybe he got excited to play his old team. Whatever it was, the Cavs organization on the whole needs to help him keep up this play. He is capable and the Cavs need him to be at this level.

Matthew Dellavedova had seven assists, but it seemed more like 20. He found LeBron on so many occasions at exactly the right time. After a rough couple weeks, it was nice to see Delly knock down a few three balls and play turnover free basketball.

Speaking of turnovers, Kyrie Irving somehow was only credited with two, though I counted four. Exact number aside, Irving had a rough stretch in the second quarter and didn’t seem completely dialed in. His stat line did him justice as well and it wasn’t good.

Will Barton would prefer to play the Cavs everyday. He averages 28 a game against the Wine and Gold. 27 points on only 12 shots is pretty.

The Cavs had 38 assists on 48 made baskets! Wow. Sure the Nuggets are not a fantastic defensive team, but anytime the assist number is that high, it is a result of good player/ball movement. Until next time.