Recap: Cavs 94, Bulls 106 (or, Sometimes It’s Better To Take A Day Off)

LeBron James could have called in sick last night. Maybe he should have. With the other two members of the big three missing in action, and the flu bug hitting hard enough to force him to miss practice, it would have been an easy and acceptable decision by the King to take a day off. Instead, he chose to fight through his illness and try to gut out the Cavs’ last home game for a while against the Chicago Bulls. It almost worked.

The Game

Overall, despite missing three fifths of their starting lineup, the Cavs got out to a fast start… going up 15-2 on the Bulls early. They then got outscored 50-31 the rest of the half, and found themselves down by as much as 17 points late in the third quarter. All looked fairly lost (and downright scary) when LeBron came down awkwardly on Michael Carter Williams’ foot, and limped off the floor with three minutes to go in the third. Yet, the bench bunch, fueled by an inspired Kay Felder performance, roared back to close the gap to two with nine minutes to go. LeBron returned and had the Cavs within one, but the game turned on a charging call. After that, the Cavs went cold just as Jimmy Butler got hot, scoring 14 of his 20 points in the fourth to put the game to bed.

They Bought It!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnsPpAGB9MU

LeBron was questionable to play in this one, right up until about twenty minutes before game time when he convinced the coaching staff he was good to roll. He’d been fighting a pretty severe head cold since Monday, and had missed the morning shoot around. It was interesting to note that the announcement that he was in fact going to go came within minutes of his good pal Dwayne Wade pronouncing that he would play despite some knee swelling. You’d have to wonder if Wade had gone the other way, whether we might have seen Bron sit this one out as well… yet, judging by his post game comments, there was never a doubt he would suit up…

“If I can walk, I can go,” he said, “unless coach tells me to sit down. My plan was to play.”

Maybe coach should have told him to do just that, however, as it was a tall order to ask an under the weather LBJ to lead his vastly depleted squad in a fairly meaningless January game. After all, they were still being cautious with Kyrie Irving’s tender hamstring pull cramp, and kept him out. And, they were giving Kevin Love another day of rest after losing 10 pounds on his rancid sea bass diet (apparently Kev couldn’t keep solid food down and had get IV treatments). They had Channing Frye feeling a bit better from his bout with the flu, and a supposedly better Mike Dunleavy (ankle)… though he was securely forked to the bench for the duration. That left a starting lineup of sick LeBron, recovering Channing, Jordan McRae, DeAndre Liggins and the always healthy and stout Tristan Thompson.

Aside from not ultimately getting the win, though, it’s pretty hard to argue too much with the results of playing sick LeBron. The ailing King still finished with a game high 31 points on 12-21 shooting, with eight boards, seven assists and a steal. The downside was the difficulty he had handling the ball, leading to five turnovers and some wonky and rushed possessions. He also happened to be on the court for the Cavs’ biggest scoring drought (most of the last six minutes), which led directly to his -13 for the game. Without him, the game might well have been a blowout from the start… but it was clear he just didn’t have enough energy in the tank to finish off the Bulls the way a healthy version of himself might have.

Bueller…? Bueller…? Bueller…?

It helped that the Bulls looked like the hot mess they’d been for most of the month of December to start the game. They looked fairly clueless on offense and mostly discombobulated defensively, while the Cavs were getting some early buckets from McRae. There was even this deep three from LBJ that made it seem like he was feeling just fine…

The @cavs are feeling it early on ESPN#NBARapidReplay pic.twitter.com/68xdbeU17K

— NBA (@NBA) January 5, 2017

The biggest problem for the Bulls were the two things that have plagued them all year long: consistent point guard play, and perimeter shooting. MCW was making his first start coming back from injury, in place of the surly (and likely soon to be traded) Rajon Rondo, and looked rusty. Chicago also stayed true to their form as the worst three point shooting team in the league by going just 1-8 from downtown in the first quarter. To their credit, the Cavs did a decent job of forcing bad shots and covering shooters like DWade and Butler early on (the two were a combined 2-14 in the first half). However, once the Bulls started getting the ball consistently inside to resident Cavs killer, Taj Gibson (9-10 for 18 points), it opened things up beyond the arc as well. Enter Douggie McBuckets and Nikola “Hammurabi” Mirotic, who decided they would be the ones to reverse the Bulls’ fortunes from deep. The Cavs seemed to consistently be a step late on close outs, or committed to doubling either Butler or Wade, while leaving one or the other of McDermott (15 points in the quarter, and at one point 6-6 shooting) or Mirotic wide open. The Bulls hit a combined 7-9 from downtown in the second quarter alone, and by the end of the third, had hit their season high…

#Bulls have made season-high 12 3-pointers and lead #Cavs 83-74 after three. Chicago has made 11 of last 14 3s.

— Tom Withers (@twithersAP) January 5, 2017

Overall, the Cavs allowed the Bulls to shoot 48% from the field and an incredible (for them) 43% from three, while only hitting 41% (32% from deep) themselves. Aside from the obvious missing offensive pieces for Cleveland, it was really their defense that was nowhere to be found.

Life Moves Pretty Fast. If You Don’t Stop And Look Around Once In A While, You Could Miss It…

Jordan McRae was the second leading scorer for the Cavs with 21 points, and was alternately effective and infuriating. He started off strong, scoring the first five points, and was 7-15 for the game (although all but one of those was of the two point variety). The Orange Mamba was fairly miserable from deep (1-5), most of them coming on open corner threes. He did manage to get to the line (6-7), yet displayed his usual penchant for tunnel vision on his drives. He had two turnovers where he just sort of left the ball behind while his body just kept moving forward, but he also did manage a couple of assists. For a while in the second half, he literally seemed to switch between making equally good and bad decisions. He was also on Jimmy Butler entirely too much in the second half, and got lazy with his defense. McRae takes a lot of abuse from most of us on the game thread, so I don’t want to pile on too much here, but he does himself a disservice as a player when he doesn’t stop to look around to see if he’s the best option on a given possession.

He’s A Righteous Dude

If it seems we’ve spent an inordinate amount of time discussing Kay Felder on this site… it’s because he’s so damn intriguing. Yes, he’s the shortest dude out there… evidenced by his trouble getting his shots off in the first half (1-5), but he was the driving force at the start of the fourth quarter that got the Cavs back into this game. Kay scored seven of his nine points to kick off the frame to put the team on his back and cut a nine point deficit to just two… all while giving LeBron a much needed break. Here’s his sick and-one that got it all started (in slow motion)…

Flava Kay came to play!#ALLinORANGE || #CavsHWC https://t.co/YrB2s4dqBH

— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) January 5, 2017

Kay even used his 44 inch vert to get up and snag five boards in just 16 minutes of time on the floor. The only real problem (aside from his shooting woes in the first half) was that he did his job too well. In cutting the lead down to two with nine minutes to go, Ty Lue decided it was time to bring LeBron back to take advantage. On one level that worked, with LBJ getting a pair of layups to trim the lead to one. On another level, it took the ball out of Kay’s hands and relegated him to a non-factor on offense and too much of a liability on D to guard either the 6’7 Butler or the 6’6 MCW. It just seemed like Lue could have ridden the K2Zero hot streak a little longer and saved more of Bron’s limited energy for closer to the finish line.

Honorable mentions in the Righteous Dude category go to Tristan Thompson, who hauled in nine offensive boards (11 total) even though he couldn’t do much to stop his personal kryptonite, Taj Gibson. And also to Channing Frye, who filled in admirably for KLove offensively (15 points on 6-11 shooting, 3-6 from deep), but had a forgettable night defensively against the Bulls front line. And lastly to James Jones, who as usual hit the first three he took off the bench, had five boards, and was the only Cav in the positive on plus/minus (+2) in 15 minutes.

The night was more forgettable for Iman Shumpert, Richard Jefferson and DeAndre Liggins who all continued to regress to the mean (4-17 combined from the field, 2-8 on threes), and had rough nights defensively.

Danke Schoen

I know Ferris had Cameron Frye and not Channing Frye to sing to in the movie, and rare home losses can make any fan want to stay in bed all day… yet, there’s an undercurrent here of thankfulness that comes out of a game like this for me. It makes me appreciate the talents of the guys who aren’t out there even more, and appreciate everything that LeBron gives to this team even when he’s not at his best. I can’t even get out from under my covers when I’m sick, so I can’t imagine what running up and down the court for almost 40 minutes must feel like with a bad cold. Here’s hoping the sick get well, the injured heal, and Kev stays the hell away from sea bass for the rest of the season. In the meantime, it’s still fun to see the young guys grow and contribute… even in a losing effort.

Danke Shoen Cavs!