Recap: Washington 127, Cleveland 115 (or, Heavier Lies the Crown)

Energy, tactics, age, and defensive talent tipped the scales to the side of the Washington Wizards Saturday as they defeated the Cavs at home, Saturday. Try as they might, Cleveland could not stop John Wall, Bradley Beal, and Co. Washington dropped 71 freaking points in the first half, and the Cavs could never close the gap in the second. Cleveland cut the deficit to three towards the end of the third quarter, and four midway through the fourth, but for every Cavalier charge, the Wizards answered with a flurry of buckets. In the end, the King resorted to just throwing prayers at the basket in frustration as the Wizards pulled away.

The Cavs clearly wanted this one, and the competition was fierce in the second half, but Cleveland’s lousy defensive start came back to haunt them as Wizards were in far too great of a rhythm for anyone to slow them down on their way to a victory. Washington just wanted it more.

John Wall was the best player in the arena. He got to the rack and his jumper was wet, especially in the first half. A perfect eight-for-eight first quarter got him started and he went 10-11 in the first 24 minutes. Oh, and he distributed too. Wall finished with 37, 11 dimes, four boards, two steals, and a block and +12 in 37 minutes on 85 TS%. Kyrie and Co. had a devil of a time sticking with him in transition and navigating picks to get to him in half court sets. When they did, Cleveland’s defensive rotations were usually sloppy and a Wizard usually got a paint bucket or a three.

John Wall (left) versus Kyrie Irving (right)

Kyrie Irving was the opposite in terms of efficiency as he scored 23 but took 23 shoots to do it and finished with a 44 TS%. His saving grace as a scorer: 7 trips to the line that came from attacking the paint. You could call it just a bad shooting night, but Irving seems unable to figure out that he shouldn’t take every shot that presents itself, especially when he’s cold. He tried to shoot himself into the game with pull-up after pull-up. It didn’t work. Defensively, Irving stuck to screens at times, but at the very least he tried to chase Wall on drives and had a couple blocks and a steal to his credit.One led to this and-1 for Richard Jefferson. It was Kyrie’s best offensive and defensive play of the night and was the closest the Cavs ever got to coming back as RJ missed the freebie, and this was all after Irving and Co. let Wall go off in the first. You’ve got six fouls for a reason, Uncle Drew.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_3BAb5eJgQ

Remember how badly Cleveland wanted Bradley Beal in the 2012 draft? This game showed why. In 43 minutes, Beal played like a young Jesus Shuttlesworth. He was just electric, and as good as a shooter as Beal is, the real damage came from Cleveland’s utter inability to keep him from exploding to the rim. He finished with 27, four boards, six dimes, and a game high +13. He was 7-7 at the line, and Cleveland had no wings to keep him from getting to the bucket, especially down the stretch. LeBron and J.R. were hapless as he blew by them again and again.

The Cavs lack of fouling was also an issue. Cleveland just doesn’t use their fouls judiciously when they’re beat or when guys are at the rim. There are way too many open shots at the basket. Cleveland has the third lowest foul rate in the NBA. If you look at the link, there’s no discernable correlation between foul rate and defense, but it seems like you might not want to be on either extreme end of the spectrum. The Cavs’ low foul rate does help increase pace, but on the second night of a back to back against a younger team? Good fouls increase the physicality of your defense and help you rest.

It was also noted in the live thread by JB225 that “Delly used to stop the opposing team fast breaks by giving the foul at mid court.” The Cavs miss him in that regard. They also miss him on the boards. When we ran Gotbuckets, we noted that Delly was in the 90th percentile for NBA players for positively impacting team rebounding when he was on the court. Delly consistently boxed out and was a master of retreating to the free throw line for the long rebound. The Cavs miss him in terms of firing the team up and getting under other team’s skins. The Cavs don’t have enough annoying players that get teams out of their games.

LeBron was also outplayed by the Wizards’ annoying guy, Kelly Oubre Jr., especially in crunch time. Oubre took advantage of James’ penchant for wandering defensively, losing track of his weak side responsibilities, and not boxing out. Kelly cut from the weak side for dunks, layups, and putbacks time and again and finished 7-8 from the field, all at the bucket. He also grabbed seven boards (four offensive) and was the Wizards’ best bench player.

Speaking of drafts, remember 2013 when the Cavs were deciding between Oladipo, Otto Porter Jr., Alex Len, Nerlens Noel, and Gum Drop Bear? Well after looking like a bust as recently as the beginning of this season (when the ‘Zards wouldn’t give him an extension), Porter is looking like the best player in that lottery outside of C.J. McCollum. Porter had some big plays on both sides of the ball, both defending the King and giving help. This block on Kevin Love was a thing of beauty. Otto finished with 10 including two threes, he added six boards, three steals, two blocks. He nailed the coffin this exclamation point steal and thump on the King that caused coach Lue to send the starters to the bench with 2:32 left. Notice LeBron’s shoulder shrug of defeat after throwing the ball away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEhfRh7d-R4

The guy Porter beat to that ball, Tristan Thompson, looked to many a CtB commenter to be running on fumes. Tristan has a hard time with some of the more physical and imposing big men in the league, and Marcin Gortat is one of the stoutest there is. The man I call the Genie is possibly the best screen setter currently in the NBA. He consistently is at the top of the association in screens that lead to made baskets. Gortat only finished with 10 and five, but his ability to seal kept Tristan off the boards helped lead to the Wizards’ superior team rebounding numbers (40-32). The Genie also freed the Wizards guards consistently in the Cavs old bugaboo, the high screen-and-roll. Tristan, despite going 4-4 inside, only finished with nine points, four boards, an uncharacteristic three turnovers, and a game low -15 in just 27 minutes. Kyrie should’ve definitely gotten him the ball more. As decent of a post defender as Gortat is, he’s not nearly as good in the pick-and-roll. The Cavs seemed more content to jack mid-rangers than feed a cutting Thompson. I wonder if coach Lue will threaten his consecutive games streak if TT doesn’t bring more energy. I know I would.

I hate to say it, but the Cavs really missed Iman Shumpert. Out on the wing, J.R. Smith looked lost yet again and had absolutely no ability to stay with Beal. Swish’s J looks better but he just doesn’t have quite the same elite ability to get his shot off any time he wants. He was 2-6 (all from downtown), with just six points and -14 in 31 minutes. He was not anyone Washington worried about. I’m starting to worry about the long term ramifications of his contract. Richard Jefferson was solid off the bench with 10 points and zero plus-minus, but he can’t (or shouldn’t) play more than the 18 minutes he did.

The Wizards did a great job of staying at home on Kyle Korver. Korver still went for 10, but offensively, the Wizards sought him out and attacked him one-on-one. He was only -3 in his ten minutes, but Cleveland failed to use his shooting enough to make Washington worry about him either. The Wizards’ wings were much better than the Cavs’ and they were missing their best bench wing, Bojan Bogdonovich.

At the forward, Marcus Morris played Kevin Love to a draw, finishing with 14 and six to Kev’s 17 and seven. Again, Cleveland failed to get Kev a shot on the fourth. Love just didn’t get the ball in the post enough, either – only two shots. He just seems like a natural guy to go to against Morris down there, yet the Cavs generally didn’t run any of their post stuff for Kevin.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ultimately, the game and how it’s played comes down to LeBron James, and is top assistant, Tyronn Lue. I know, I know. Ty’s the “coach,” but how do you explain zero minutes Friday and just six Saturday for Channing Frye after getting consistent death stares from James on Wednesday? Yes, it seemed like the Cavs could’ve used more of Channing to stretch the floor. Despite the Wildcat’s +3 and five points in the second, it seems LeBron has gone from being backup point guard to backup center with many of the bench lineups, which relegated Frye to the pine.

When cornered, the James/Lue coaching staff doesn’t seem to have any tactic other than “play LeBron more minutes.” LeBron played 41 and finished with 24, 11 boards, and eight dimes. But again, was running out of gas at the end. Did I mention he started the game with yellow shooter’s glasses due to his scratched cornea? His individual defense also stunk. I already mentioned Oubre, but Beal drove right by James a couple times when the King was on the ball.

Yes LeBron’s amazing. He does it all, and it seems like we want him to do more. But he was pissed and throwing up give-up shots and turning the ball over at the end of the game. Until he starts playing defense consistently, I doubt anyone else will either.

Yet again, the Cavs’ shuffled the bench lineups without Shumpert. Ty Lue threw three dice to see how many dice he was going to roll with and this is how he came up with who he put out on the floor.

https://youtu.be/XfXfOCIIFcY?t=67

So yeah, I don’t know what Lue is doing. We haven’t seen Cleveland’s deathly “big” lineup since February, and Derrick Williams didn’t see the floor till garbage time. You’d think Cleveland could’ve used energy guys like he and DeAndre Liggins, but they were nowhere to be found. Deron Williams played a solid 19 minutes with nine points, four assists, and a +2, but he turned the ball over three times. Perhaps a lineup with Pudge and Liggins could have worked in Shump’s absence. I’m starting to be worried about Ty’s consistent ability to do less with more. But, as Joe Vardon reported for Cleveland.com, maybe Lue just doesn’t want to tip his hand…

We’ve got to hold back. We can’t show our hand early because … these are some good teams and we don’t want them to be able to come into a series and be able to adjust to what we do. We just have to be able to play our normal defense until we get there and then we will see what happens.

I think the rebounding hurt us. Rebounding. But it will be different once some other things happen. … Their two-guards, their threes, they still crashed the boards. But we have something to fix that. Just not right now.

He also complained about back to backs…

Hey. I’m willing to cut Lue lots of slack, and I feel for him about the defense. This is an aging lineup with not a lot of plus defensive players, and defensive assistant Mike Longabardi is no Mike Brown. And the center help Ty got was 58 seconds of Andrew Bogut and Larry Sanders who has played 11 minutes in the d-League. But, at a certain point, with Larry and with Ty, you have to wonder if the Emporer has no clothes. I guess we’ll see come April. As of right now though, the Cavs are not the best team in the East.