Live Thread: Cavs @ Celtics
2018-02-11
If you hibernated through January and woke up this morning, you might be a little surprised. The Cavs’ brand new roster is set to take the floor this afternoon. The starting lineup this game will be George Hill, J.R. Smith, Cedi Osman, LeBron James, and Tristan Thompson, and if Friday night was any indication, get ready to see a much faster Cavalier offense with more ball movement. The Cavs should have scoring all up and down the lineup (everyone except Kevin Love is available to play today), and at least have the youth and bodies to be a more energetic and athletic defensive team (if not the defensive reputation).
Key to this defense will be communicating like they did Friday night and learning when to switch and when not to switch. If everyone can play in peoples’ faces like Cedi did the other night, they’ll be just fine. Tristan and J.R. seem like the weak links on the starting lineup. Tristan has been getting torched when he gets switched, and J.R. has just been getting burned all the time. If Thompson can stick on Horford/Baynes, and someone can contain Kyrie, the Cavs should be able to hang. The Cavs have to focus on not turning over the ball over against the Celtics young guns.
Offensively, if I was Tyronn Lue, I’d run everything through LeBron when he’s on the floor and when he’s off, use Kyle Korver’s gravity to set up everything else, with a side of Clarkson/Nance pick and roll (they should already have chemistry). The old play where Delly ran high pick and roll with JR running off a screen on the wing would be a fantastic option for Clarkson, Nance, Korver, Green, and Hood. Wow. This team is loaded now.
For the Celtics, Marcus Smart and Shane Larkin are out with a hand and knee issue respectively, while Gordon Hayward is out indefinitely while Celtics fans pray he can come back this season.
Buckle up Cavs’ fans. This should be a fun one. Here’s hoping the Can inspire a Bill Simmons Twitter rage. My prediction: 112-106, Cavs.
from.. this-cleveland-beating-is-hard-to-take-as-a-celtics-fan
I would like to know one thing..
How the hell did Cleveland send out trash and receive treasure? No one will give us table scraps, but Cleveland got FOUR players of quality. We are supposed to be the team with all the assets. Any one of Cleveland’s new “fab four” would have been a major step up for the Celtics. Clarkson and Hood are solid gold ! Now I know how the rest of the league felt when Danny did the Billy King deal.
by Johnnyeff on Feb 12, 2018 | 12:32 AM reply
too sweet
He wants to know “how the hell did Cleveland…”
One word: Dan Gilbert.
do we remember when we all (or at least some of us) longed to have gotten brown or tatum in the kyrie deal? I don’t think anyone would trade either of our new pairs trades for the young boston duo..
The team speed and athleticism is awesome; the Cavs can run most teams out of the gym. That is what happened today; the game was even for about a quarter, and the Celts started screwing up and the Cavs ran past them. Osman’s steal, then missing a dunk, and forcing a turnover the next time down is an instant classic. I would give serious consideration to using one of the last spots on the Enchilada, who will be finishing up in China in a day or two. He is one more big athletic guy who can run. If nothing else,… Read more »
Depends. For the starters it works. For bench units, having plays, or at least more initial actions would help. I think a lot of what we saw from Clarkson, Hood, and Nance while they were playing with Korver and Green was carry over from their days in Walton and Snider’s systems. They don’t wait around like we have seen our system do for the past three years.
from celticsblog..
If the Celtics lost because of bad play and the officiating was fair, nobody would complain. The problem is how the NBA consistently fixes games for the Queen and the Warriors. You seem to never watch the games and wouldn’t know. It’s universally known that the Warriors and whatever team Queen LeBaby is on get help from the referees.
Are you insane??? LeBron doesn’t get anywhere near the calls that Hardin and many others do.
He is quoting the Celtics blog.
I look forward to more of your cynicism when lebron comes back in and drops 30.. ha ha..
In all seriousness, he’s played 14 and half years and just doesn’t slow down. He’s like a Marvel character that chose to play basketball.
Gotta say I greatly admire Lebron and consider him the overall best player I’ve ever seen, but hoping he slows down eventually…..
above from celticsblog..
from celticsblog..
A quarter and a half in, the cavs look miles better than the lst time we saw them..
It goes to show you just how much of a sinking ship that previous roster really was. Unlike before, now I think Cleveland goes to being a really tough out in the playoffs.
Nance Jr moves with purpose out there. He sets great screens and rolls and/or sets up for inside positioning like a beast. I can see him and Lebron developing a great pick and roll chemistry. He knows what he is doing out there.
Best screener we’ve had since the 90s me thinks. Varejao is obviously up there as well.
from celticsblog..
But everyone around here..
thinks the Cavs new pieces are crap. It’s clear they’re all better than the pieces they had, simply from an athletic standpoint. Lebron is the best passer in the NBA, he’s gonna get athletes the ball. Pretty simple formula. They win this and they beat us 2 out of 3, and suddenly we’re looking in the rear view mirror at a dangerous Cavs team that probably overtakes us for the 2 seed. We’ll end up 3, maybe 4.
Just for fun, and a little shade, so far: IT: 22/1/6, 7/12, 4/8, 6 TOs, 31 min, +0 Crowder: 15/5/3, 5/11, 3/7, 3 TO, 29m, +4 Wade: 3/2/2, 1/6, 1/1, 4 TO, 22 min, -3 Crowder: Frye: DNP Shump: DNP, injured Rose: Waived —————– Hill: 12/3/1, 3/8, 2/4, 3 TO, 21 min, +17 Osman: 12/5/1, 4/8, 2/3, 2 TO, 29 min, +8 Hood: 15/3/0, 6/11, 3/6, 1 TO, 19 min, +14 Clarkson: 17/3/1, 7/11, 3/4, 0 TO, 23 min, +8 Nance: 5/4/3, 2/5, 0/1, 0 TO, 21 min, +4 IT & Crowder can still be useful players in the right… Read more »
9-10 threes taken by Clarkson and Hood were with a defender no closer than 5 feet from them… those are the kinds of shots you can get with an energized LeBron James…
from celticsblog..
This team had a chance THIS SEASON..
If Danny was aggressive. Now the Cavs are favorites to get to finals, and they’ll do it easily. Too many young athletes for Lebron, that’s a recipe for disaster for the rest of the East.
from celticsblog.. There’s no denying the biggest addition the cavs got.. is a rejuvenated lebron Lebron had been LAST in the NBA in +/- over the last few months. That doesn’t happen to the greatest player in the world on accident. He basically quit on his team right up until 2 games before the trade deadline. He knew his team wasn’t going anywhere with that current roster, and just simply wasn’t playing as hard. These trades though, which we have to admit look pretty solid, have reinvigorated him. Before the trades, I was 90% convinced the Cs could beat the… Read more »
from celticsblog..
in fairness the Cavs new guys are playing like their lives depended on it, there will be a regression, but we still suck
thanks for cherry picking these gems.
Ain’t buying it. The four new guys were playing like they were having fun, and they can look forward to playing for a championship. A lot of guys in the NBA never get that chance.
Before the game I posted “These guys must have thought they went to heaven” or something like that.
Again quoting c’s fans.
from celticsblog..
Man i wish we had traded for tyreke.. we have no offense other than kyrie
Brown picked an awful time to play like this..couldnt buy a basket.
Wr are toast and we will lose to the Cavs in round 2..that is if we reach there because Indiana is gonna smoke us in round 1
So sad they had to pick a bad time to play like this…on Paul Pierce night.
Mood…
It’s been so long, I forgot about that whole thing.
lovin’ this one from the celticsblog..
They beat us as lakers, now they are beating us as cavs
I hated that loss to the Lakers more than any other. But this one sucks too.
more from celticsblog..
Maybe we should address the elephant in the room..
and admit that the Cavs are a much better team than they were a week ago.
more from celticsblog..
It’s a wrap folks..
Raptors and the Cavs are gunning it out in the Eastern Finals..
Ive seen enough sample to say that this team will not come out of the east as constructed..
It will take a miracle and Hayward for us to even sniff the Finals.
from celticsblog..
Magic Johnson is a moron..
He gives up 2 talented players with reasonable salaries for a late 1st round picks and still won’t be able to sign a game changing free agent. Unlikely Lebron will find greener pastures and more likely to stay with guys who complement him.
personally.. my favorite post from the collection i posted from the celticsblog.. it takes two to tango in a transaction.. sometimes clear winners, sometimes not.. i was in boston when Red traded the rights to joe barry carroll for mchale and parrish,, that was like christmas morning.. not saying we picked magic’s pocket, but the boston take on the clarskon-nance transaction is revealing.. obviously, the hood-hill transaction was also critical.. but suffice it to say the cavs took some nasty sour lemons and made some sweet lemonade.. $50 million lemonade, but hey it’s only $$
Sending positive energy to Nick and all the Gilbert family.
Second that.
So glad D Wade is gone. Think he was poison.
Sure sounds like it…and he sure was with the Bulls…
Poison is waay too much. I don’t think he’s a positive contributer on the court. But I don’t believe he’s a locker room wrecker. Many stories in the media are blown out of proportion.
He certainly was in Chicago… and that wasn’t media, that was players talking about him. Similarly, the Dahntay Jones Tweet isn’t from the media… he’s a guy that’s pretty straight up.
Jones didn’t name names. He could have been talking about IT and Crowder.
True… but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was directed at Wade as well
EG – I’m just gonna leave this right here…
https://twitter.com/Pchopz_/status/962885418076262400
Schadenfreude – so tasty when it’s Boston.
Right. And the Boston homers don’t even realize they have a problem yet.
THIS IS AWESOME!
Wow! That is great. This guy tells it like it is. If Boston is smart, they will foist Kyrie off onto the Lakers in the off season. Once the Lakers realize they are not getting LeBron, they will be desperate for a supposed “superstar”.
I saw this post too, and there is some truth to it, although it’s going way too far. (Don’t get me wrong, it’s hilarious to read)
I wonder when Simmons is going to write a 12000 word piece on Kyrie trade destinations…
That is a bit of hyperbole I think. Hot take central from Boston fans. I wouldn’t blame Kyrie for that game. Also Stevens is not a bad coach I would say. If they complain about rotations, they could have talked to us about problematic rotations for the past three years. Everyone knows it’s true as has been discussed ad nauseam on this blog and elsewhere. I have no idea about him as a motivator but again, the same could be said for Lue, and clearly motivation has been an issue during the regular season for three years. Offensively, they are… Read more »
Kyrie got down and just started jacking shots and going ISO, which helped the Cavs run away with it. The author isn’t wrong that Stevens is completely overrated… Also, I don’t get your point on Theis… he plays all the time
Was reading celtics blogs, and they seemed to be complaining he didn’t play enough. Don’t know. Just going based off some comments I read. I think we should give some credit to the cavs d here. They shut down a lot of passing lanes, got some great steals and broke down the Celtics d. I would say that was more of a factor. As for Stevens, is he the third best coach in the NBA? No probably not. I think he is a good coach though.
I would definitely give credit to Cavs D, but Kyrie also didn’t stay woke and fell into his old bad habits in the second half of this one… mainly because he was hounded by Cedi, Hill and others for sure…
Stevens is a fine coach who I would be easier on if he weren’t exalted as the greatest thing since sliced bread by most NBA pundits… not his fault, but he’s not the be all end all…
Sure. Stevens is unfortunately the wonder boy to his detriment. The Celtics fan’s and most of the nba have too many expectations from him after years of overachieving. What they don’t realize is that after Hayward went down, he has vastly overachieved this year again. The Celtics are finally falling back to earth and they can’t handle that that Brown and Tatum aren’t there yet and without Gordon, they did vastly better than they should have up to this point. They are falling back to earth, through no fault of their own, or really Stevens and the cold hard reality… Read more »
Kyrie was 4-5 in the first quarter… 3-8 after that… most of which were just jacked three pointers…
Again, the cavs played, in my opinion, pretty good perimeter d (attempted closeout in most cases and ran hard at shooters much of the time), defended the pick and roll competently (even great in some cases) and played great interior d for most of the game.
Also Kyrie was one of the few guys that actually could get and hit shots that game. A lot of Roziers points came in garbage time from what I recall. He also was not exactly passing first, yet somehow a lot of c’s fans think he is the solution. He/Smart is their Delly. Fine for the regular season maybe, but nowhere near as effective as Kyrie in the playoffs.
I hope they keep thinking that… let them overpay to keep Smart and Rozier…
Wow the sky is really falling for ever wrote that.
Hmm, sounds familiar. They really don’t know drama like we do, do they?
Kinda nice to see Kyrie sitting there looking at all of our shiny new toys.
Damn thoughts and prayers for NG.
+1 to that
Prayers up to Nick, Dan and his family.
Giving to CTF right now. Prayers for Nick!
David Griffin is 100% class
Man Nate – what would a Cavs:TheDuels on Dan Gilbert look like tomorrow?
The upsidedown
Great to see energy and enthusiasm back today. Playing some actual D makes the game so much easier. Cavs can still cruise to 120 points, but now they can hold opponents to 100-110 instead of trading baskets for the whole game or getting torched.
Celtics are tired and a bit out of sync, so its not always going to be this easy. But off to a great start.
A lineup of Bron, Hood, Love, Hill, Clarkson or Jr (whoever is on his game of these two on that particular night) could be scary to any opponent to defend.
I’d replace Love with Nance against some teams just to provide some interior defense.
It’s obvious the Cavs can put 120 points against everyone the key for me is going to be at the defensive end. If TT can’t do his job defensively and on the boards then don’t hesitate and let Nance Jr be the Cavs rim protector.
Go Cavs!
Absolutely. However, we saw a motivated energetic TT tonight who was as good in the paint defensively as he has been since about 2016. With Nance lurking to take his starting job, we may see this continue.
https://twitter.com/AllaireMatt/status/962821822541651968
HaHaHa!
“Uh, dad, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea”.
I took a quick peek at the Celtics’ forum and the members are blaming not having Smart and the ASSISTANT COACHES – not President Stevens . Hahahahaahhaaa.
“YOU GUYS DONT GET IT SMRRT IS OUR GLUE GUY ITS NOT TEH CELTICS WITHOUT HIM!!!”. That ‘s cool…so max him.
If JR and TT stay energized, I almost want Hood and Nance to stay with the second unit. Loved how the Clarkson, Korver, Hood, Green, Nance lineup played together on both sides of the ball. Nance and Clarkson have chemistry, but the rest of those guys didn’t stand around. They were decisive with the ball and moved off of it and were really great defensively. Thanks Luke Walton for coaching up Clarkson and Nance how to space and find gaps.
preach it dahntay—preach it !!
Wowser. Real shade, but also the cold hard truth.
Love that we made their two wings brown and Tatum basically disappear. The number of time they had to rely on Haynes to hit a jumper was probably near double digits. Just really nice to see us hustle for each other
Hood, JR, Korver were all solid defensively. LBJ was very good except for one failed closeout. Cedi was too, but he spent a lot of time guarding ky. Nance and TT we’re tremendous in the paint.
Hill also was tremendous at times though he got burned a few times by KY as did Cedi, but what are you going to do?
Wow was I wrong about this game. Hanging 120 in boston is no joke. LeBron has owned that arena for 6 years now, great to shut up those fans
Amongst many good things, I thought JR’s activity on both ends was the most important
Missed the game but so happy to wake up to this news.
Amazing that Mike Snyder was just able to say that the game was effectively over in the 3rd quarter when it was 95-74. That scoreline two weeks ago would in no way indicated we were safe!
Looking forward to watching this game on replay.
It was I don’t even think Stevens brought my back for the 4th.
You’ll love it…I missed the first half, but the third and fourth quarters were sheer hilarity…
The second quarter was pretty good too.
To be honest, I’m surprised the Celtics fans didn’t start booing earlier.
wonder how much “grief ” cedi took in the locker-room from missed dunk
another positive as evidenced today is the potential for less minutes for LeBron ——-not trying to ” overly harp ” on this but who should cavs /”MR ” KOLBY —ACTIVELY /’ AGRESSIVELY pursue at buyout
FWIW, Russ & Melo are both out vs Memphis. Sneak a win & catch the Nets, Grizzlies!
nice quote by George —have to remember that one —–we aren’t even close on both off / def at what potentially we can do with this team—going to be fun —still waiting for a ” L-JR ” MONSTROUS SLAM !!
When the Cavs were up by 30, wonder if Kyrie was reminded of last year in the playoffs when the Cavs were up on Boston by 40 at the half…
yes rick I have given up “taking the garbage out for my wife ” for lent –I am here EVERYDAY WITH YOU GUYS MAN—-TOO MUCH FUN TOO MISS !!!
Nate said it best; The Cavs just keep coming in waves.
Herculoids 3.0? Potential to be the best version.
Or if Clarkson, Hood, and Nance all stay with the second unit, Young Bloods.
Also if Cedi goes back to the second unit, it will be especially relevant.
I like Cedi in the starting lineup. Once Love is back he’ll pick up the offensive slack off TT.
Agree with JRL.
THE UNFLEECING HAS BEGUN…
That was a beautiful game. The Celtics never made a run. NBA teams ALWAYS make a run at some point. But the Celtics never made a run.
Well Stevens did concede the fourth by not putting back ky in.
Sorry I checked out in 2nd half. Overcome with joy! So many talking points. 1) Big picture: BREATH OF FRESH AIR! For everyone. We move the ball (mostly). We move off the ball. We play D. We smile. Wasn’t all on one guy, or even just the guys that got traded, but the vibe is different. 2) We did this without Love & without any one guy going bananas. Though Clarkson kind of did for a bit (7/11, 3/4 deep) & JR was 6/7. Point being, everyone was solid. Adide from JR & Clarkson, the only rotation Cavs to shoot… Read more »
What was that last year when Tom said we needed more variance guys? Clarkson seems like that kind of player. But I will take consistent 15 pts too.
Yeah I was just repeating an interview with Daryl Morey. He basically said the only way you are going to be a juggernaut like GS is to focus on high variance players – kinda like punchers chance. And yes, the archetypal “high variance” players are guys that can get white hot. Cavs have a few now: J.R., Hood, and Clarkson. I don’t put Korver in there because he is such a system player for us on offense and other than Jeff Green no one actually works to get Korver the shots he needs. It’s why he just went an NBA… Read more »
Celtics apparently fading hard. They’ve been down by 26, 29, and 30 this week against Toronto, us, and the Pacers. Cs fans blame it on Smart being out. I think there is a real chance the cavs catch them for the 2 seed this season if everyone stays healthy.
Cavs only 4 behind Boston in the loss column. Now it feels like they could get at least the No. 2 seed, instead of maybe dropping into the lottery.
They don’t appear to be galvanized…Kyrie looked like he wants out, like he doesn’t like his teammates…I gotta wonder, when is he going to go to Ainge and demand a trade?
I would like to see us catch SA, or whomever is #3 out west, just in case.
I believe they are 19-13 in their last 32 outings.
that would be sweet evil to get him !!!
So sweet
hey, Nomad… I think that recent events demonstrate Divine Dispensation for Lent! :)
If Hawks buy him out and Cavs get him…
They’re not buying out Dedmon.