Recap: Cleveland 109, Indiana 123 (or, Self Fulfilling Prophecy)

The first full recap I ever did for this blog, just over 13 months ago, happened to be a road game… in the Bankers Life Fieldhouse… against the Indiana Pacers… with LeBron James sitting out for scheduled rest. Strange how sometimes the more things change… the more they stay the same. On that particular night (being that it was my inaugural game cover), I boldly predicted a wine & gold victory… albeit a close one. I was sadly proven wrong. More than a year later, and with a season of wisdom behind me, I knew better than to fall victim to the temptation of blind faith and optimism, and, for the first time this season, I forecast a Cavs loss in a pre-game Live Thread.

This is, of course, not meant to be self-congratulatory, or as a show of righteously discontented pessimism. On the contrary, it was simply a matter of common sense and reason once the Cavs officially announced that LeBron James would be forgoing the second night of the final back-to-back of the season. After all, this team was just 4-13 (now 4-14) over the past two years and 1-3 (now 1-4) this season when the King sits, and only one of those four wins came outside the friendly confines of the Q. Add in the mitigating factor of this being a second game in two days (for the 17th and final time this year), as well as the fact that the Cavs were facing an opponent that was not only desperate to make the playoffs,but also improve their standing enough so that they don’t wind up having to face Cleveland in the first round, and the outcome was fairly obvious. It wouldn’t exactly take a crystal ball, tea leaves or an oracle to provide the King-less Cavs with a prophecy they couldn’t help but fulfill.

“You will find Love in your immediate future…”

Given the absence of the reigning EC Player of the Month, and his 25/7/8 line he’s been putting up lately, the game itself was still fairly competitive… well, for at least a quarter and a half. Both teams shot the lights out early on, as defense was mostly of the rumor variety. In a barn-burner of a first quarter, the Pacers shot a blistering 65% from the field, but the Cavs surpassed them at a dazzling 69%. Kevin Love had a second straight strong start (after scoring 15 in the first frame against the Bucks the night before), tallying 14 in just the first six minutes of the game. And, he did it both inside and out, mixing four jumpers off of assists from Kyrie (two from downtown) with a few trips to the line after banging inside and drawing fouls on Indiana big men Ian Mahinmi and Myles Turner. Though he seemed to run out of gas toward the end of the period, JR, Delly and Kyrie picked up the slack and continued the hot shooting. However, the Cavs had a tough time stopping the Pacers from getting whatever they wanted both in the paint and from the outside. George Hill, Monta Ellis and Paul George took turns either slashing through or rising over the barely there Cleveland D. PG-13 offset most of KLove’s output with 12 first quarter points of his own, as Iman Shumpert (getting the start in place of LBJ) had his hands full. Despite the carnage, Kyrie was able to knot the score at 33 with 17 seconds left… unfortunately the Solomon Hill YOLO tour began with a corner three to beat the buzzer and put the Pacers up 36-33 after one.

“An old friend and an unknown stranger will hurt you deeply…”

The second quarter began with an energetic Loaded Wombat, as Delly found an active Tristan Thompson, who hit the glass twice on the next possession for a tip in. A goaltending assisted layup for Mo Williams gave the Cavs their last lead of the game at 39-38. It was mostly downhill from there as the ball stopped moving (just two assists in the quarter following the six they had in the first), the shots stopped dropping, and the Pacers took full advantage of the smaller lineups Ty Lue was trotting out. While Mo and Richard Jefferson took turns missing threes (0-4 in the period, 1-8 for the game), Indiana went on a 14-0 run to effectively put the game out of reach. CJ Miles (who seems to relish torturing his old team when he plays them) and Solomon “YOLO” Hill (who usually averages about 25% from beyond the arc) made as many triples as Mo and RJ missed (4-4 in that span), to perpetuate the Pacers’ torrid shooting.

Order was briefly restored as Kyrie checked back in and actually played some defense, getting two steals for run-out layups. He also found KLove once more for a triple on his sixth (and final) assist of the game. But, the Cavs couldn’t seem to keep the Pacers off the glass with just Kevin at the five, and no Timo or TT in sight, and Indy took advantage of several second chance opportunities. Despite Love’s 21, and Kyrie’s 13 first half points, CJ Miles knocked down one last trey to help the Pacers become the first team since the Warriors to hang 70 on the Cavs in a first half this year. Indy led 70-61 at halftime.

“Love will fade and your Uncle won’t save you…”

The Cavs made some effort to keep things close (offensively anyway) at the start of the second half. They fed the ball inside to KLove for another trip to the line (he went a perfect 10-10 from the charity stripe), and Kyrie started to get things going with a couple of jumpers including his only made triple (he was 1-5 for the game). Then came the play that led to the inevitable third quarter malaise. Kyrie snagged a rebound and fired it up the floor to Kevin, who had gotten behind the defense for what looked to be an easy fast-break score that would have closed the gap to five. Instead of dunking it, Love went for the layup and got his shot swatted from behind (LBJ chasedown style) by “King” Solomon. He then lagged behind as the Pacers went 5-on-4 to get Hill a score on the other end to push the lead back to nine. As it turned out, Kev had to leave the game briefly with back spasms, which potentially explained/excused the previous sequence. Recognizing their good fortune, Indy went on a 13-4 jag, fueled by a PG-13 three point barrage (he hit three straight and 4-9 for the game) to push the advantage to 18 and help encourage Ty Lue to start resting the remainder of his starters. The Pacers led 96-82 after three.

“Beware of exercising poor judgment, and recognize when you’re beaten…”

What should have been a final 12 minutes of extended garbage time for the Cavs’ bench bunch, especially with the game seemingly out of reach, was rudely interrupted when Channing Frye hit a triple to cut the deficit to 13. Inexplicably, Ty Lue sent both Kyrie and Kev (back spasms and all) to the scorer’s table to check back into the game.

#Cavs, currently down 13 after that Frye trey (109-96) are gonna try to make a final push here: Love and Kyrie at the table before that T.O.

— Joe Gabriele (@CavsJoeG) April 7, 2016

This attempted comeback lasted all of two minutes, before PG-13 went on his own personal 6-0 run to extinguish whatever false hope remained. At least there was still a bit of rest for the starters, and it didn’t appear that KLove did any further damage to his ailing back. A JFJ three, Sasha Kaun high-degree-of-difficulty-for-no-apparent-reason layup, and a couple of Shump trips to the line made the final score semi-respectable… but no less unexpected.

The Evil

• On one hand, the narrative for this one seemed destined once it was announced that LeBron would be sitting out, and so it’s hard to get too upset about the result upon reflection. On the other, is it really too much for everyone not wearing the number 23 to actually try to give effort and win games in his absence?
• The offense at least seemed to click in the first quarter, and for moments in the second and third, but for the most part the ball stuck in the middle two periods (4 assists) after being shared in the first (6 assists). Only some garbage time dimes got them to 15 total. Maybe it was the back-to-back effect, or just not having LBJ to collapse the Pacer D away from the perimeter shooters, but too often the Cavs settled for jacking up contested threes (they went just 8-29 for the game and half of them were in the fourth once the game had mostly been decided).
• As inconsistent as the offense was minus LeBron… the defense was practically non-existent. Aside from a couple of Kyrie steals for transition buckets, the Cavs didn’t do a whole lot to slow down the Pacer attack. There was very little in the way of boxing out, and they got beaten on the glass 44-38 while losing the battle in the paint, 46-32. The Cavs also allowed the Pacers to shoot 56% from the field (60+ through the first three quarters), and an unbelievable 16-31 (52%) from downtown.
• Ty Lue gets a lot of flak on this blog for his odd rotations. It’s not always warranted, but tonight he seemed to stick with ultra-small lineups, even when they were getting abused. In all honesty, given all of the other variables (no LeBron, second night of a back-to-back, on the road, facing a desperate team, etc.) I would have preferred if he’d made the decision to rest multiple players. KLove probably could have used a break, as could TT (consecutive game streak be damned), and even JR and Delly. But, maybe the most questionable decision was re-inserting Kyrie and especially KLove (with his bad back) into a meaningless fourth quarter. Why take the risk? Why not just rest them and gear up for the Bulls on the weekend?
• Moz didn’t help himself stay on the floor with some early foul trouble, but Lue never really went back to the big man, even when the Cavs were giving up layups and second chance opportunities. Granted, it’s hard to know what exactly to expect from Timo from game to game, but getting just 16 minutes of run probably doesn’t help the situation.
• Without LeBron on the floor, JR seemed to shy away from shooting. He was still 4-7 for 10 points, but missed the only three he took. The Cavs need JR to step up in games like this and be a part of the solution, but he was unfortunately a team worst -15 tonight.
• Shump did not make the most of his spot start in place of LBJ. He went 0-4 (0-3 from deep) and scored his only points on four free throws at the end of the game. He did lead the team with a +5, although again much of that came from his time on the floor at the end, as he was at least partially responsible for letting PG-13 go off for a game high 29 points.
• Somehow, Mo Williams managed to chuck five shots in five minutes… and miss all of them. Okay, technically that’s not true since he got credited for one bucket on a goaltending call, but none of his attempts hit twine. He also appeared to tweak his knee, and didn’t return in the second half. At this point, it might be best if that knee stayed tweaked…
• 60 wins is no longer on the table…

The Genius

• Despite his back issues (which led to the embarrassing CDB by Solomon Hill), Kevin Love had a pretty efficient game with 23 points in just 19 minutes. He was just 5-13 from the field, but got to the line five times and went 10-10. He also was really the only Cav who was hitting from beyond the arc, going 3-5. It wasn’t a stellar rebounding effort (just five on the night), but that and his second half shooting were most likely a product of his back spasms.
• Kyrie had a few nice steals, and hit 11-18 shots to lead the Cavs with 26 points. Although, he did have a rougher time from three, knocking down only 1-5. Early on, he moved the ball well and looked for Kevin almost exclusively (five of his six dimes dropped to the Hooper kid). But, all but one of his assists came in the first quarter, and he had none in the second half.
• Even though they jacked up a lot of deep balls that didn’t connect, the Cavs did manage to draw contact inside, getting to the line 34 times and converting 31 (91%).
• Most importantly, LeBron got a night off, and now has three total days off before the Cavs play the Bulls. LBJ should be well-rested and ready to clinch the top overall seed in the East.

One Last Prediction

I fully expect the Cavs to bounce back and win their next two games against the Bulls and Hawks to clinch the top seed. Then, Coach Lue will rest his starters against likely the first round opponent Pistons in the final game. All of this leads me (along with the comments made by Lue and LBJ about the Bulls) to believe that Detroit is the preferred opponent, much like the Celtics were last season. The Pistons could still prove to be a handful, though likely not as much as either the Bulls or Pacers. Until then, I’ll be polishing up my crystal ball for the post-season.

GO CAVS!