Recap: Cavs 123, Hawks 98 (or, Game 3 in Atlanta if Necessary)

At the end of game 1, Kent Bazemore clapped his hands and presumably said some defiant words of encouragement to no one in particular as he walked off the court.  He was quoted post-game saying: “you gotta give them credit, they shot the crap outta the ball.”  When NBA players or coaches credit opponents with making crazy shots or “shooting the crap outta the ball” it’s a subtle way of suggesting that some statistical randomness conspired against them and that they expect things to return to the mean.  The Cavs kinda did the same thing in responding to Schroder’s big night.  Unfortunately for Bazemore and the Hawks, the Cavs did anything but return to the mean.  They shattered (I mean, to the point of absurdity!) the previous NBA playoff record for 3-pointers in a half.  Seriously the previous record was 12.  They hit not 13, not 14, not…THEY HIT EIGHTEEN THREES!

At the risk of being bush league, I’m going to repost my live thread preview, if only because of how ridiculously prophetic it turned out to be in retrospect.

The preview headline on NBA.com reads:

The Hawks have lots to clean up. Will they find answers for the dangerous Cavs?

My initial reaction to this was: that’s the appropriate adjective given what the Cavs have shown this season!  They are a ‘dangerous’ team, in the way J.R. Smith is a ‘dangerous’ opponent or setting off fireworks is dangerous.

You’re dealing with stuff that is generally manageable but has the potential to be explosive.  J.R. Smith has a usage below 20 and never gets to the foul line.  Disciplined opponents can manage him.  He’s also capable of hitting impossible shots at the most inopportune times.  In the same way, the Cavs have athletic limitations that make blocks, steals, and free throw attempts hard to come by, and were barely above league average defensively in the regular season.  Disciplined opponents can manage them.  They also boast some of the most top-heavy talent in the league and have the shooting bonafides to break NBA playoff 3-point records.

Let’s review the finale to game 1.  The Cavs go into offensive stagnation, enduring a 7 minute stretch where none of their big 3 tally any points.  They’re unable to muscle their way to the basket, and the defense begins succumbing to the Hawk’s transition attack.  Then they get burned repeatedly by going under screens, a decision management conceded was due to the fact that “you gotta give up something against them.”  ‘Them’ being Atlanta, who ranked 18th in ORtg in the reg season.  The Hawks take the lead just as LeBron James loses all confidence in his jumper and the rest of the team has trouble muscling through defenders to create space.  When it looks like the Hawks have the Cavs on the ropes, this happens:

https://vine.co/v/ixiaIBDvzbQ

That drawn out “wooOOOOoow” from Chris Webber pretty much sums it up.  You’ll notice that Kevin Love‘s screen whiffed and Kyle Korver was able to keep pace with The One Through Whom Liquids Flow.  Korver’s contest even forces J.R. to add a good 10 degrees of arc to his scorched earth tank.  The Hawks only sin here, is that Kent Bazemore (the guy who was encouraged enough to be clapping at the end of the game) lacked an appropriate fear of his ‘dangerous’ opponent.  J.R. is one of a handful of players to possess both the confidence and ability to take ‘n bake that make.  It was all over after this.  LeBron snapped out of 8-minute funk and Dennis the Umlaut-ified was more than anti-clutch enough to be buried by the Cavs top-heavy talent.

The Cavs have decided (and reminded us at every possible opportunity) that they view Korver as ‘dangerous’ and not Schroder.  Paying Forward the gamesmanship of SVG, Coach Lue offered specifics: “No Adjustments.  Our gameplan was great.  […]  If Korver had one shot and Schroder had 20 shots, we like our chances.”  Fair enough.  The Hawks are a dangerous team in the way that gas heating is dangerous.  As long as your pipes (get it?) are solid an otherwise dangerous thing is properly contained.  Do some preparation before you install and get that inspected and you like your chances of not dying in a house fire.

So if you’re the Hawks and you wanna win four outta the next six, you gotta stay completely focused and manage the Cavs in a way that exploits all of their vulnerabilities.  If you’re the Cavs, just don’t do anything really stupid that wipes out your significant margin for error.

Let’s have some fun tonight!!!!!!!  EZK with the boots on the ground!

So we’re all in agreement that I basically called this game, right?

1st Quarter:

This beginning of the first quarter is the only thing worth a traditional recap analysis.  The Cavs defensive focus and energy was off the charts.  Kyrie Irving fought through screens like a man possessed.  Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson continued to stymie Al Horford and Paul Millsap on the blocks.  J.R. continued his OCD-like faceguarding of Kyle Korver, and LeBron James scared the Hawks out of using any useful passing lanes.

@tompestak I can't fault him for that. Blanketing Korver a big priority

— Marla Ridenour (@MRidenourABJ) May 5, 2016

Indeed not, Marla!  The Cavs missed their first two threes and had some trouble scoring even as the ball movement and body movement was indicative that they came to play.  After LeBron hit a 3 to give the Cavs a very normal-looking 21-16 advantage, the Cavs perimeter defense shut down Dennis Schroder‘s ability to penetrate or find a roller and J.R. Smith and Kyrie Irving poked the ball away and the Cavs were off to the races.  Incredible ball movement, and a signature LBJ pass that only he can make, resulted in a Kevin Love corner 3.

https://vine.co/v/ixPrvDrt1Em

The Hawks impatience resulted in a clanked contested 3 at the other end.  The Cavs gang-rebounded the miss, ran down the court, and no one on the Hawks respected J.R. Smith enough to guard him the way Smith has been guarding Korver.  Bang!  Timeout Hawks.  The needed a 2-hour timeout to avoid being leveled by the incoming meteor shower.  The Cavs hit a few more for good measure and finished the quarter on a 19-4 run to take a 35-20 lead into the break.

Impossible to quantify this, but the crowd at The Q really has been fantastic tonight. Of course, Cavs giving them plenty to cheer about.

— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) May 5, 2016

2nd Quarter:

I want to point out something the Cavs did that we’re not accustomed to seeing.  While certainly enjoying the NBA Jam flames and the berzerking crowd, the Cavs never felt good enough about themselves to let the foot off the gas.  They Delly-Shumpert-LeBron-RJ-Frye lineup actually played a grind-out, half-court battle for a few minutes.  Richard Jefferson drew an offensive foul, Matthew Dellavedova stayed in front of Schroder – resulting in a travel, and Channing  Frye caught a tough pass while being double teamed and made a nifty move to finish in traffic.  With the Cavs up 20 midway through the 2nd, Iman Shumpert got crossed up on defense and Kyle Korver cut back-door for an uncontested layup.  An audible “$hit” could be heard from the mouth of Iman only to be followed immediately by the piercing tweet of an official’s whistle.  Tyronn Lue called a Gregg Popovich timeout!  (I’m may have cried tears of joy.)

Korver gets a layup, Cleveland and Coach Lue have had enough! (they're up 20)

— Bo Churñey 🇨🇦 (@bochurney) May 5, 2016

Delly hit a 3 (his only made FG of the night) out of the timeout and on the next possession the Cavs had a had another wild sequence of fantastic ball movement that resulted in a wide open three from Richard Jefferson.  On their next trip, Kyrie found LeBron who canned a 3, cus why not?  You knew LeBron was going to take a bad 3, and he did, but Channing Frye speared it out of the air without really jumping and popped in a lefty hook.  The Hawks actually ran some decent sets and got to the line a handful of times at this point, but it was only prolonging their eventual shelling.  Jeff Teague earned three free throws after Kyrie and Kevin defended the PnR a bit too aggressively.  Still, the fact that Kyrie was not only fighting through everything in the first quarter, but with the Cavs up 24 in the 2nd, was telling.  The Cavs spread the floor on the next possession and the Hawks closed out on everything like clowns being shot out of cannons.  The Cavs had the personnel and the patience to swing the ball to the most open shooter.  Kyrie got those three points right back after Channing Frye hit him with a skip pass.  If you want to be in a good mood, just check out the live thread during that stretch.

If I put all the vines in here the page will probably crash, but J.R. Smith hit a ridiculous fade away 3 with Horford landing on him and it prompted Reggie Miller to say :

This is getting ridiculous.  It’s comical.  I mean look at this.  Look at how great this defense [Horford’s] is, hand in his face, and a 28-foot step back…

Hilariously, this was only J.R.’s 3th or 4th most difficult 3 of the night.  Delly got some high praise from Reggie on his smothering defense of Teague on the next possession which resulted in another travel.  The second most ridiculous J.R. 3 of the night happened shortly thereafter.  Enjoy.

https://vine.co/v/ixPPFrH9lnD

I loved that call from Kevin Harlan.  “NO!  NOOOoOoo!”  And then Reggie calling it “Pop-a-Shot” (later he called it NBA2k) and deftly giving J.R. credit for his defense through the half as well.  Good on you, Reggie.

The roof blew off moments later as Delly waved off a Kevin Love screen and shouted something that was probably indecipherable because Delly has an accent and wears a mouthguard designed in the 80s.  Love relented, and he moved to set what appeared to be a screen for J.R. to get loose.  But it was a decoy, and J.R. ran a funky ying-yang circle around Love which resulted in J.R. pinning both his man and Love’s, leaving Love wide open in the corner to bury the Cavs 18th 3 of the half.  Pandemonium.

https://vine.co/v/ixPQMJWMldt

At halftime, all seven Cavaliers that attempted a 3-pointer had made at least one.  They sank 18 of 27.  That is the most 3s in a half in any NBA game ever.  Some outstanding statistician somewhere uncovered that the 36 point half-time advantage was the largest in almost 30 years (1987).  74-38 Cavs at the Half.

Sure, why not? Everybody into the pool.

— Jason Lloyd (@ByJasonLloyd) May 5, 2016

Half-time:

Ernie deadpanned about the beatdown while Charles showed a bit of empathy for Coach Budenholzer and his task of convincing the Hawks they could build off something from this game, a game everyone conceded they had absolutely no chance of winning.  Shaq brought up his past skepticism of whether the Cavs could win “like this”, meaning, bombing away from downtown.  He cocked his head to the side and said “I guess so.”  Kenny doubled down on Charles’ statement, prescribing for the Hawks something positive out of halftime to instill some confidence in the starters.  Either that or “one-two-three Cancun!”  Then Charles had my second favorite take (paraphrasing)

You gotta understand something.  These guys got swept the last time they played in the playoffs.  And they got swept in the regular season.  After game 1 you’re feeling good about yourself again.  And now all of that is wiped away.

Sorry, Bazemore.  Ernie segued into the commercial with: “Game three of this series is Friday in Atlanta… If necessary.”  Perfect.

3rd Quarter:

The Cavs came out with no signs of letting up.  Poor Paul Millsap, having had no luck against TT or K Love, was isolated against LeBron for an entire possession.  He was unable to drive past LeBron in semi-transition, unable to back LeBron down to a favorable post position, and ended up rimming out a 10 foot fadeaway.  Moments later, the Cavs ran downhill on a rebound and LeBron finished a layup while being hacked.  Al Horford stroked an out-of-rhythm, why not? 3 as Kevin Love kept his hands at his sides.  But the joke was on Hoford as a glitch in the programming actually activated J.R. Smith’s NBA Jam fire.

https://vine.co/v/ixPlhEBg1qq

Kyle Korver finally hit a 3, shaking free in transition.  Hey!  A good sign!  Hawks can hang their hat on that, right?  Then Korver picked up a foul, apparently his 3rd, and was promptly benched.  Huh?  The only guy on your team that is really dangerous finally hits a 3 and you take him out because of foul trouble?  When you’re down 30?  This was the white flag moment.

Kyrie Irving got into the mix a bit and after hitting two free throws he put the Cavs up 99-60 with 4:19 remaining in the 3rd.  It took the Hawks the final 16:19 of the game, which was essentially garbage time and the Cavs gunning for the record books, to score 98 points.

The Record Books:

To back up a little bit, with 5:30 in the game, Kyrie Irving drained a 3 to give the Cavs 21 3-pointers on the night.  This tied the Warriors playoff record of 21 makes set a little over a week ago (against NOT the 2nd best defense in the NBA)  On the very next possession Kyrie hit another no-hesitation YOLO triple.

Up 40 the Cavs starters continued to fight through screens, argue with officials over out of bounds calls, gang rebound, and generally destroy whatever will the Hawks still had.  After breaking the NBA playoff record for 3s in a game, the 3-point shooting dried up for a bit.  The Cavs seemed invigorated by the prospect of doling out some punishment to Kris Humphries, who grabbed LeBron’s jersey (Draymond style!) and refused to let go.

Kris Humphries hanging on the rim and trying to punk LeBron while he's down 36 points smhhhh

— William Lou (@william_lou) May 5, 2016

Richard Jefferson and Iman Shumpert both threw down dunks before the 3rd quarter ended.  Shumpert’s was a vicious facial on Mike Muscala.  At the end of 3, the Cavs led 106-70 Cavs.  The Cavs made three more 3s before the final buzzer mercilessly sounded. First, Iman Shumpert got a right-corner 3 off of Mike Muscala‘s face.  So I guess Shumpert found two ways to facialize Muscala?

https://vine.co/v/ixxM3P2xDgB

Dahntay Jones (be honest did you ever remember the Cavs added him?) hit a spot corner 3 in front of the Cavs bench to give the Wine and Gold the all-time 3-point record for any game (regular season or playoffs) with 24.  Mo Williams hit one moments later to pad the record at 25, a very important number in Cavalier lore.

https://vine.co/v/ixxJxVL9nIz

After the game, Charles Barkley created a bit of a stir by pleading with the Hawks to show some backbone and “take someone out”.  I love Barkley but he really got some people riled up. Including:

Charles Barkley ,you better stop talking s*** about Cleveland you was never tough you hide behind TNT

— Charles Oakley (@CharlesOakley34) May 5, 2016

Final Thoughts:

The Cavs are a dangerous team.  And while the 3-point shooting gets all of the attention, the Cavs played an outstanding game defensively. They were more nuanced in how they defended Schroder and Teague, not allowing them those alone-in-the-gym looks from downtown.  But they stuck to their script of shadowing Korver and fought like mad through screens.  Without the ability to get any dribble penetration going or Korver coming off screens, the Hawks often went to Millsap or Horford in isolation.  Whether it was face ups or back-downs, the results were almost always favorable for the Cavaliers.

The Cavs were going to win this game with or without circus shots from J.R. Smith.  In fact, at the half, the Cavs were 18 of 27 from 3 and still managed nine offensive rebounds.   The had forced the Hawks into 12 turnovers by that point as well.

They missed a thr-

/offensive rebound

— FearTheSword (@FearTheSword) May 5, 2016

They moved the ball well on offense and once they hit enough 3s to completely shell shock the Hawks, they started exploited the over-aggressive closeouts, leading to skip passes and easy dribble drives that caused any remaining defenders to collapse.  It was a bit of a snowball effect.  But the fact that J.R. Smith, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love have played such improved defense in the playoffs bodes very well going forward.

As a parting shot, here’s a cool stat and a video of all the violence.

How “on” were the Cavs in their 3s? Of their 25 makes, only 1 hit multiple parts of the rim before going in. pic.twitter.com/IeZIEgrJT4

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) May 5, 2016

All 25 of the Cavaliers NBA record breaking threes.

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 https://t.co/C0y2Ns3YbK

— NBACentral (@TheNBACentral) May 5, 2016