Overview: The Washington Wizards got their first road win of the year, and they got it pretty easily. The Wizards absolutely punished the Cavaliers with their size and athleticism, and have now won more games by double-digit scores on the road this season than the Cavs have at home or on the road.
Everything about this team is miserable bullets:
If Mo Williams didn’t make that game-tying shot, J.J. Hickson got called for goaltending, and the Cavs didn’t rally to beat a 4-18 road team, this would be the low point of the season. In fact, 8-74 may have been in play if the Cavs didn’t pull off that win against the Clippers. Oh, and the Cavs haven’t won a game in regulation in their last 38 tries. This team could easily be on a 38-game losing streak.
On Sunday, the Cavs were coming off their first win in a month and a half and were playing a team that has not won a road game all season. And the Wizards were on the back end of a back-to-back. The Cavs got absolutely spanked. In fact, the Cavs haven’t played as well all season as the Wizards did on Sunday. That is absolutely awful. Let’s get into it:
This defensive frontcourt is an abomination. You know how long it took before Antawn Jamison had his first defensive breakdown that led to an easy score? Twelve seconds. The Wizards won the tip, and ran a Wall-Blatche pick-and-roll. Jamison moved towards Wall without actually preventing him from turning the corner, then began to jog back in the direction of Blatche as Wall hit him for an easy pass with a dunk.
You can say that Hickson should have rotated off of JaVale McGee to prevent the dunk, but asking a lot of him in that situation — the Cavs are not going to be competitive if they have to play four-on-five on defense. By the way, the Wizards drained two open mid-range shots on their next two possessions because Jamison didn’t rotate correctly.
Speaking of Hickson, he was nearly as bad as Jamison on defense. Bad shows, blown assignments, miscommunications, you name it. Antawn Jamison is easily the worst defensive forward I have ever seen in my life, but Hickson isn’t a whole lot better defensively. Jamison and Hickson make Blatche and McGee look like Duncan and Robinson.
Offensively, Hickson couldn’t build on his big performance against the Clippers — he’s still taking it inside and crashing the boards, but he rushed a lot of shots at the rim and had problems with McGee’s length.
Mo Williams looked about 400 steps slow on both the offensive and defensive end. I know Mo made a big shot and some nice passes against the Clippers, but Sessions isn’t much worse on defense than Mo is and is clearly the superior offensive player. Trying to pretend that Mo Williams can lead an effective offense is doing nobody any favors.
I take big performances by opposing players with a grain of salt since the Cavaliers are an insult to defense, but Nick Young was freaking immolating. The Cavs had no answer for his size, length, and ability to hit pull-up jumpers. That was an impressive performance.
Not sure what to make of John Wall. He may be one of the five best open-court scorers in the league, and he’s a nightmare when he finds a passing lane or a driving lane. However, he REALLY can’t shoot, but he’s JUST competent enough with his shot to keep tossing them up. Even though the Cavs couldn’t stay in front of Wall at all, he shot 8-19 from the field and 2-9 on shots from outside of 10 feet. If he gets comfortable with his shot, he’ll be unstoppable. However, that’s a really big if.
That’s all for tonight. This is not good. This is not good at all.
Long time lurker, first time poster.
Great blog John, keep up the great work. Christian Eyenga will be the face of the cavs one day. No doubt about it; he just needs a few more seasons under his belt. All hail the high flying Skyenga!!
I will debate you untill the final days of the Earth that Sessions is a superior offensive player to Mo Williams. Sessions simply doesn’t set Hickson up the way Mo can. That’s really about it, but it isn’t like Sessions is bringing a whole to to the table.
Wall won’t need to learn to shoot to be really, really good. If he just limits his shooting, he’ll be a nightmare and that’s mostly because of what he will become on defense. You could see it in this game and I only imagine within 2 years he will be the best defensive PG in the league.
Let’s see. Cavs have lost the easiest game on thier schedule and have a one game losing streak. They are nine and forty six so they have 26 games lsft. The NBA record for consecutive lsoes in a season is 26- as we well know.
Are the Cavs capable of closing out the season witout another win? Of course. We could be looking at another record for consecutive losses, set twice by the same team in the same season.
But you do think Jamison would fit well into a playoff team’s defensive scheme, right John? Riiiiight John?
I have to save, the Wizards have much more talent than their record indicates. Nick Young has looked great since Arenas was traded. Andre Blatche has crazy athleticism (and unfortunately a terrible attitude) Javele McGee is a solid big, and John Wall shows flashes of being the next big thing at the one. Add in veterans like Josh Howard, Hinrich and even Rashard Lewis, and I am amazed that team has as many losses as it does. If the Wizards play to their potential of course the Cavs lose to that team. I’m not suprised by the result as much as how they got their. The Cavs, apparently still glowing after their one game winning streak, came in like showing up would be sufficient to win. When you are one of the worst teams of all time, having that attitude is of course, ludicrous.
I still can’t understand how Coach Scott keeps giving Jameson so many minutes over Graham…
I dont know if you need a jump shot to be dominant at point guard. Rondo was the main reason that Boston beat Miami last night, he’s really,really good even without a shot.
There’s not much joy to take from this season as a fan. Instead, let’s play EA Sports’ newest franchise, NBA General Manager 2012!
John: you’re got a pretty good feel of the league. Would anybody be interested in trading for Jamison? Are the Cavs willing to trade him away for virtually nothing, like how they acquired him in the first place?
The Wiz dominating the Cavs off a back-to-back in a Cavs home game is embarrassing
I’m still just thankful that we beat the Clips, ending the streak and didn’t have to play the Wiz in a battle of who’s embaracing streak is going to finally be over.
I’m not sure if Jamison is just blowing defensive coverage because he doesn’t understand what/how to do it, or is it that he just doesn’t want to put in the effort. JJ on the other hand I think just doesn’t understand. When he can just ‘naturally react’ with his athleticism, then he’s a decent defender, but when he’s asked to think about his assignment and what/where he’s suppose to be, then he’s lost. I hate that we have to play Jamison so much, but he’s our only ‘somewhat’ consistant offensive weapon.
Trade deadline is fast approaching – are we going to make any moves? Scary thought is that we trade away Parker, Mo and/or Jamison just for draft picks/assets. If we did that, our second half of the season would likely be even worse than the first half. OUCH. Well, maybe it’s necessary for the long look ahead, but just thinking that we could likely give up any combination of our 3 most productive players and receive nothing this season in return is just painful.
In short…this was a classic trap game.
9-73, anyone? Seems quite possible. Well, this has been a lost year from the day LeBron left.
What the Cavs need to do is dump Jamison for picks, play the youngsters and draft well the next couple of years. Assuming there’s basketball next year, with no worse than a #4 pick this year and presumably another high pick next year, plus [with luck] a couple of gems unearthed in the 2nd round [think Nick van Exel quality], the foundation for a very good team could be laid quickly. Combined with Sessions, Hickson [if he improves his hands] and Boobie, if 2 stars [high 1st-round picks] and 2 solid rotation players [2nd-round picks] turn up, by 2014 or 2015 the team could be back in the conference finals. In the NBA if you draft well you can improve a team quickly, because all it takes is 1 or 2 players to carry a team if the role players around them just do their jobs. Think positive!
Cavs will be damned lucky to get a 2nd rounder for Jamison. If not, they’ll buy him out in the offseason and get nothing.
Yeah, I am with Rich on the Sessions/Mo debate. Mo looked about 45 years old and is clearly not in good enough shape after the time off, but the still keeps his head up, forces the defense to respect his shot (though he is certainly not shooting well this sesaon) which opens up the weak side. That is a very important aspect. Since nobody has to go over a pick with Sessions, the backend of the defense doesn’t have to work as word which eliminates the ball swing wide open three. It is not a coincidence that was were getting tons more open looks from beyond the arc with Mo against the Clips. He looked twice as fast in that game as he did against the Wiz. I think Scott always screwed up by making the starting change after only one game back. We finally win a game and what does he do? change the lineup. Ugh… I will happily give props to Sessions for cutting down on his TOs (though he still likes to hand the ball to the other team at times) for deciding that he will try to dunk every ball that he can, and for keeping his head up at least until he crosses the three point line which, sadly enough, is an improvement. But he doesn’t get people easy buckets. Wait, let me clarify. He doesn’t give the CAVS easy buckets. Which brings me to correlation between our god awful defense and our attempt to stop a 1-4 pick with the two worst pick and roll defenders in the league.
So, yeah, he probably comes another losing streak, but at least we are almost to the trade deadline. It will be nice to have an idea of how we are supposed to go forward as fans.