Overview: The Mavericks beat the Cavaliers by a final score of 99-96. The Cavaliers are now the sole owners of the longest losing streak in NBA history. Jason Terry led the Mavericks with 23 points off the bench, and made the game-clinching jumper with 35 seconds remaining.
It’s the longest losing streak ever, Charlie Brown bullets:
- Remember how I said that good offensive teams can have more trouble against the Cavs’ defense than mediocre or poor offensive teams? The beginning of this game was a good example of why. The Mavericks settled for open jumpers early in the shot clock, only to watch Peja and Dirk miss some open jumpers and some easy shots at the basket.
When the Cavs took an early 8-1 lead, Dirk Nowitzki got the ball in the mid-post, and you could hear his internal monologue: “Wenn ich in Richtung zum Ziel gegen diesen Mann gehe, in der Lage ist er nicht, mich zu stoppen. Er ist an der Verteidigung schrecklich.”
Blame Babel Fish if that’s a horrible translation, but the Mavericks basically realized that Antawn Jamison is a horrible defender who had no chance of stopping Dirk from getting to the basket and would immediately become invisible if the Mavericks put him in the pick-and-roll.
The Mavericks started exposing Jamison with Nowitzki dribble-drives and pick-and-rolls that should have forced Jamison to show above the screen or go under it to force a jumper. Jamison does neither of those things. He runs into the screen, waves his arm in the direction of the ball-handler, then jogs back towards his man as the ball-handler easily turns the corner. Every time Jamison got screened, the Cavs were playing four-on-five, and Hickson’s weak-side rotations (which do not exist) weren’t going to cover for Jamison’s poor defensive effort. The Mavs started scoring inside, got the lead by the end of the first, and never trailed again.
Offensively, the team continues to look competent. Sessions has been looking great on that end of the floor; he pushes the ball at every opportunity, and that’s when the Cavs are at their best. In the half-court, those dribble-handoff sets are starting to produce results, and Hickson is starting to look like he did at the beginning of the season again. Every now and again, the Cavs look like they know what they’re doing on offense, and that’s the highest compliment I can give to Sessions and Hickson.
Eyenga had some nice moments tonight — when he gets near the basket, he just has an extra tenth of a second or two up there and can do whatever he wants. He’s exciting to watch, although he’s still missing too many long jumpers and not drawing enough fouls.
Jamison put on a flip shot exhibition early, and it was pretty. He promptly gave all those points back by forcing jumpers and flip shots, and finished 8-23 from the field while shooting all of one free throw. Parker had a bad shooting night, Gibson and Manny were n0-shows, and Ryan Hollins managed to commit five fouls and nearly decapitate a guy in 16 minutes of play. It’s very tough to beat the Mavericks on their floor when Hickson and Sessions are the only guys who have it going.
Still, there’s something here — keep Sessions, keep Hickson, keep Eyenga, get Varejao back, look for a perimeter stopper and a guy who can guard the rim, get that top-5 pick to boost the offense, make training camp about DEFENSE DEFENSE DEFENSE, and…sigh. There’s simply too much to do. 25 straight losses.
The end of the game went like this: the Mavs played tight, the Cavs got themselves back in the game thanks to Ramon pushing the ball and Jamison making a big three and a big steal, and Jamison and Hickson made horrible decisions early in the clock that kept the Cavs from getting a good chance to tie the game or cut the lead to one. Parker had a chance at a pull-up three to tie it, the Cavs got the rebound, Moon decided his chances of passing to another shooter were better than his chances of draining a contested three, and time ran out. Game over. History made. Until next time. Every game is a chance to make history now, right?
I’ve got to think that Donyell Marshall would have definitely made a difference in the outcome of this one.
This team is like the real life version of Major League. Sorry to ruin anyone’s innocence, but in real life, that Indians team wins only 40 games… tops. Man, sometimes I wish life was more like movies.
Hi John, Dirk’s translation was almost perfect.
Some corrections:
“Wenn ich gegen diesen Spieler zum Korb ziehe, ist er nicht in der Lage mich zu stoppen. Er ist schrecklich in der Verteidigung. Seine Entscheidungen in der Verteidigung sind noch duemmer als meine Entscheidung, mich auf eine aeltere Frau mit 5 Ausweisen einzulassen.”
Cheers
#lasttimethecavswon
Scott Raab was calling Lebron by his government name instead of some whore he met in Akron.
Had two chances to tie at the end… missed a 3, then lost track of time and instead of shooting a 3 at the buzzer, 1 too many paases and time runs out. Oh, well. At least they haven’t given up, Dallas is a tought place to win even for a GOOD team.
I’ll tell you what, if they play this well at home against Washington, that losing streak will be history.
Had an argument with some guys at work and wanted another opinion, no matter how biased it may be getting it from here but here goes. I hate hearing the “the cavs were just the lebron show look how bad they are now” line from every other nba “fan”. I say that if the Cavs had lost only lebron (kept west, z, shaq) and andy and mo were healthy this team would have a shot at a 7 or 8 seed in the east. Again I know the people who visit this site are probably biased and if this has been disscussed here before i apoligize but I have no other cavs fans at work and need to hear some other fans opinions.
Completely disagree, Kyle. West, Z, and Shaq all missed significant, significant amounts of time last year (as did Mo and some other players), and the former three all underperformed when they were on the court. When Andy and Mo were healthy, the Cavaliers were still the worst team in the league — I believe they lost 17 of their last 18 games Andy played in, and lord knows Mo wasn’t helping much when healthy. They may have avoided 25 in a row if they were healthy, but they would be the worst team in the league. They were the worst team in the league. And West (who has been out all year for the Celtics, and they don’t care), Z, and Shaq would not be doing much for this team if they were on it — they’d help with the defense, but those two are thriving because they are surrounded by quality playmakers and literally don’t have to create any shots for themselves.
Here’s one — do you honestly believe this team would win less than 45 games with LeBron, considering what they did in the past with a worse version of LeBron and an unspeakably horrible supporting cast? Because this team will probably finish at least 30 games under the 45-win mark. I will do a full post on this, but my thoughts in a nutshell: it’s fine to dislike LeBron for personal reasons. Denying that he is THAT good of a basketball player and was THAT important to the Cavaliers makes you look somewhat foolish.
John,
Appreciate the quick and unbiased response. On a side note, I have enjoyed reading your blog for sometime now. I guess maybe I just enjoyed watching those guys play with LeBron so much that I couldn’t see their lack of talent hidden behind LBJ’s greatness. Also, a lot of my argument was under the assumption that all of the non-lebron former cavs would be healthy. Thanks again for sharing you thought and work, we really enjoy it (through the good and the bad).
I’ve said for years that the team was built around “LeBron and duct tape.” That said, I gave the front office and coaching staff a lot of credit for using their limited talent capital to acquire the perfect pieces to maximize LeBron’s abilities, particularly in 08-09. However, the fact is that they had precious little talent capital due to how little they added through the draft post-LeBron, and without LeBron to cover for those deficiencies, as well as an ill-conceived post-LeBron strategy and some in opportune injuries, the Cavs are going to lose almost 50 more games than they did last season and in 08-09.
I’ll keep all the guys you mentioned and add Gee and Harris to the list. As for anyone else, please somebody take ‘em all…
As for the 25th loss — I’m just glad I wasn’t at home watching the game because I would be needing to buy a new tv right now. I swear, the remote would have been flying the moment Moon passed the ball back. For Moon to not take the shot is beyond stupid…
When Mo comes back he has to be coming off the bench right? Sessions has been playing very well as of late, the game seems to be slowing down and he isn’t rushing headlong into the interior defense and just hoping for contact.
@John, it certainly is silly to deny that LBJ has talent and/or is the best basketball player in the world. It’s also ridiculous to insinuate that he didn’t leave an extremely large impression on this franchise. It will take years to get out of his shadow.
However, a team of Andy, Mo, Jamison, Boobie, Hickson etc. isn’t the worst team of all time. Certainly not a good team, and probably a lottery team but on paper that isn’t a team that should rival the 1970′s Cavs. Something happened on December 2nd when Lebron came to town. The Cavs were over performing at that point at 7-11. The Heat were somewhat underperforming. Fortunes flipped that night and the Cavs promptly lost 35 of 36 games.
That doesn’t explain why it’s watery though, does it? You dumb fuck! – Jake and Amir
Sheesh ya’ll, glad someone is finally speaking my language…
I’m glad to see the Cavs keep on fighting and sooner or later they’ll get a win. I’m not sure how many wins more we would have if Shaq, Z, West, Andy, Mo were all on the team and 100% healthy, but I’m sure we would not be looking at a 25 game winless streak. Minimally I’d guess 5 more wins but maybe 10-12? A large part of our problem this year has been size (which Shaq/Z solve) and would also allow Andy to play PF as a defensive stopper when Jamison is getting killed. Without Lebron we would still have the big gap at the SF position, but at least our interior defense would be much better and allow West/Parker/Mo to concentrate on closing out on 3-pt shooters and could rely on inside help.
It’s unlikely that Manny would have made the team if West was still here, nor would we be playing Samuels as much and Gee wouldn’t be on the team either if the entire team (-LBJ) was back this season. I don’t want to take anything away from LeBrons “greatness” as a basketball player, but I just think our rotations, size and personelle would be so much different with the other guys still here that we would be a much different team. Maybe more on par with a Pistons – still a lottery team but at least respectably bad.
I think Byron Scott’s incredible lack of drive to establish competent defensive rotations and his seeming to overwork the players in practice without any tangible in-game benefit can’t be overlooked. Yes, Lebron was probably worth 20-30 wins for this team, but the change from Brown to Scott is a pretty huge chunk of wins itself. Granted, nobody was thinking he’d turn out this bad when we hired him, but jesus he’s been awful. Remember early in the year when there was all this talk about how it was a good thing that he was forcing the team to run wind sprints until they threw up and doing these absolutely hellish-sounding practices?
I really think the insane amount of injuries the Cavs have dealt with this year and the overworking practices are related. Not to mention, again, Scott has basically decided to ignore the defensive end. The Cavs don’t rotate correctly, don’t close out, and don’t do any of the things that made Brown’s defensive schemes at all potent. We don’t have a ton of great defenders, but with a good system, this could be a 20-25th ranked defensive team, not 30. Brown deserves a lot of “whoops, my bad” apologies from Cavs fans for how quickly the Cavs’ defensive strength became an insane weakness after he left.
if shaq and delonte were on the cavs, they would both be out with injuries like they are right now.
Shaq would probably retire midseason
I’m a freshman at USC writing for NeonTommy, USC’s online publication. Check out my take on the Cleveland Cavaliers losing streak… http://www.neontommy.com/news/2011/02/cavaliers-set-nba-losing-streak-record