The Point Four-ward: Restin’ Up
2016-04-27
Four points I’m thinking about the Cleveland Cavaliers…
1.) The Cavs’ win Sunday night ensured that they’d have a week off to rest and mend any bumps and bruises they incurred while sweeping away the Detroit Pistons. LeBron James described the mood in the visitor’s locker room in The Palace at Auburn Hills as “the complete opposite” of that which followed last year’s series clinching victory over the Boston Celtics, mainly because the Cavs finished this series playing well, playing hard and, most importantly, staying healthy.
If the men of wine and gold needed any further reminder about how a championship run can turn on one play in one game, they need only look out west, where the defending champion Golden State Warriors will be without Stephen Curry for a stretch and their presumptive second round opponent, the Los Angeles Clippers, lost both Chris Paul (hand) and Blake Griffin (quad) in Game 4 of their series against the Portland Trailblazers.
So, yes, the Cavs are happy to rest healthy and whole as they await the winner of the Atlanta Hawks/Boston Celtics series. Atlanta leads that series 3-2 with game six coming Thursday night on TNT.
2.) Whichever of those two teams the Cavs end up playing, they now know, at least, when they will be playing. On Tuesday, the NBA released the schedule for the Eastern Conference semifinals and it goes like this:
Game 1: Monday, May 2 at 7pm on TNT (Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland, OH)
Game 2: Wednesday, May 4 at 8pm on TNT (Quicken Loans Arena)
Game 3: Friday, May 6 at 7pm on ESPN (Atlanta or Boston)
Game 4: Sunday, May 8 at 3:30pm on ABC (Atlanta or Boston)
Game 5 (if necessary): Tuesday, May 10 TBD (Quicken Loans Arena)
Game 6 (if necessary): Thursday, May 12 TBD (Atlanta or Boston)
Game 7 (if necessary): Sunday, May 15 TBD (Quicken Loans Arena)
Nothing much to see here. The Cavs will have one day off between Games 1-6 and, if necessary, two days off before a potential Game 7.
3.) If the regular schedule is any indication, the Cavs will like the spacing of their second round series just fine. The team had, by far, their best winning percentage — going 34-10 (.773) — on one day of rest. They also notched their highest field goal and three-point percentages in that roughly half-season-long sample.
The only stat that swings noticeably with more rest is rebounding. Not surprisingly, the Cavs hit the boards better the more days off they have.
And, while the team as a whole does its best work with the 24-hour layoff, James may benefit most from this week off. While he shoots above his season average from deep (a respectable-ish 33.7%) on one day’s rest, longer layoffs have led to a ten rebound game for The King and one where he dished out 11 assists. If Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love can continue to take the scoring load off of him, the extra spring in James’s legs could lead to some major stat stuffing across the box score.
Another reason the Cavs have to welcome the break this week is that, even without knowing who their next opponent will be, the team will get to do something it has had scant chance to do since promoting Tyronn Lue to cushioned end of the bench back in January: practice.
Lue acquitted himself well in a series that many (myself included) worried would end up as Stan Van Gundy’s personal coaching clinic going up against a rookie play caller. Lue showed few of the problems that bothered him in his shortened first season — uneven rotations, defensive breakdowns, lapses in team focus — and kept an even keel in steering his team to the first four playoff win of his career.
For a coach who has had to implement much of his vision on the fly, this week will give Lue the longest stretch of practice time he’ll likely see before training camp next year. What he is able to do with that time will be one of the interesting things to track as Round 2 gets underway.
4.) Now, in the spirit of resting up for the next round, I’m going to go soak my hands and wrists in the CtB cold pool, ice down my over-heated noggin’ and visualize dominating our opponent blogs in the next round.
Rest while you can, Cavs fans. The screws start tightening again on Monday.
Kyrie singing the praises of ISO ball at the end of games in today’s practice interview game. Lue somewhat concurred. Really disagree with KI’s assessment, and his ego got a bit big in the interview proclaiming either he or Lebron should be the ones with the ball in their hands at game’s end. A JR open three, or Love on a mismatch in the post ain’t bad either. Love got to the free throw line more than any Cav in the playoffs, and he can do that in crunch time. Assuming you pass either Love or JR the d**m ball.… Read more »
I disagree. If the Cavs have the lead, the smart move is to dribble out possessions until about 8 seconds are left and then start some movement to the hoop. Passes lead to turnovers which lead to easy buckets. With the lead, the slow down offense has proven very effective. Assuming that you measure effectiveness in wins, not in what you might find most pleasing to watch.
Maybe we have different ideas of what effectiveness means. In their final 8 possessions against the Pistons, the Cavs were 2 for 7 with a turnover (on an iso, not a pass), turning a 9-point lead into a great escape at the buzzer. Irving is so slow walking the ball up the floor, they should just keep going right into their offense. By the time they do any minimal offensive action — like making 2 or 3 passes or running some PnR — the shot clock will be down around 5 seconds anyway. Instead what usually happens is LeBron or… Read more »
Phil Hubbard you are using facts and logic, but of course that isn’t as smart as outright conjecture based on nothing.
Just thinking back to last post-season and there were similar complaints even though we successfully used the slow down dribble offense to sweep the Celtics and the Hawks and take 2 games vs the Warriors. Having the lead with a few minutes to go pretty much demands that you go this offense to limit the number of turnovers and possessions for the other team.
When the Cavs do it, it shreds their offensive efficiency. And their normal offense is hardly the “7 seconds or less” Suns. Burning a couple additional seconds per possession with 4 minutes to go at the expense of making the offense one-third less efficient is a bad tradeoff.
It may shred their offensive efficiency, BUT they did average 5 less turnovers per game in the Detroit series than they did during the season, 13 TO\Game down to 8 TO per game. So there is something that appears to back up Cols argument for the slow down offense.
We’re talking how to play the closing minutes with a lead, not whole games. But amazingly, those low overall turnover numbers came in a series where the Cavs mostly moved the bell well and did not go to dribble-heavy slowdown. So maybe passing has little or no correlation with turnovers.
Maybe. I can’t find any more granular splits except for by quarter. I would love to see some data on the last 2 minutes of the games or last 2 minutes for each quarter when we know they are going to the slowdown offense. I can tell you that the Cavs averaged 2.5 TO in the fourth quarters of the games to 4.3 assists. 22 assists per game, 8.5 assists per game. In the first half they were at 12.5 assists and 4.0 TO, so second half at 19.5 assists to 4.5 TO. Pretty even there. From what I saw… Read more »
Oops that should have been 9.5 assists in the second halves not 19.5.
well if the defense is switch everything 1-5 mode, it negates a lot of ball movement action because they just switch all screens so it goes into beating your man off the dribble and forcing the defense to collapse. which the 2 best players on the team to do that are the 2 players with signature Nike Shoes. Ball movement is great and the Cavs late game movement is ugly at times but I’m not as angry as you seem to be.
More frustrated than angry. As pointed out below, the Cavs were just 2/7 with a turnover in their final 8 possessions in Game Four. The 9 pt lead dwindled to the Pistons getting a three pointer for the win. The slow ball walk up the court by Kyrie almost guarantees an iso play, and a quicker set up should at least allow for a few passes. I don’t remember the exact increased percentages, but Lue posted on the locker room chalk board how incrementally higher the Cavs’ shooting percentage gets with each increased pass. It was quite dramatic. A 2/7… Read more »
The problem is, LeBron and Kyrie usually wait too long to initiate, so if they drive the defense doesn’t have to worry about anything but collapsing. If they kick the ball out, the shot clock is expiring as their teammate is catching it. There’s no time to get the defense rotating and chasing the ball.
It’s basically the ineffective LeBron end-of-quarter offense that we’re all too familiar with, applied over an extended stretch of minutes at a critical phase of the game.
Did somebody get the pipe?
Robert, you are a good writer. I would like to see more content from you during the playoffs. Aren’t you #AllIn with the rest of The Land?
Hey, thanks, Kevin. I appreciate your kind words. Of course, I’m #AllIn. I’m just worried that a sudden, unexplained jump in my output could bring anti-doping authorities down on CtB and force us to relinquish a season’s worth of great content from everyone!
Anti-doping authorities?!!!!?!?! That would cause panic!
The CtB cold pool. Don’t scratch yourself on the bottlecaps, Robert.
Want. Want want want want want want
That lone bottle of Jager at the bottom is classic. And, I might add, classy.
I hate not getting any Cavs games all week but I’m glad the dudes get to rest. Plus Lue has proven to be a master at finding defensive schemes to slow down opposing teams once he has some time to watch so digital video.