Preseason Podcap: Cavs 102, Celtics 95 (or, Taking Flight)
2018-10-03https://soundcloud.com/ctb-5/podcast-181-taking-flight
Surprise Cavs fans! You get not one, but two preseason games in this latest podcap. Okay, well technically it’s a scrimmage and a preseason game, but our own Tom Pestak was there in person at this year’s Wine & Gold Scrimmage at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, and paints an awfully cool picture of that event. Then, this year’s team got ready for takeoff with a terrific first showing in Boston. They buzzed the tower with ball movement and hustle, and the rotation players built up a 19 point lead at halftime that even the G-Leaguers couldn’t blow in the fourth quarter. Kevin Love channeled his Minnesota days, Cedi Osman did a solid job of imitating his mentor, and the Cavs made Tyronn Lue happy by pushing the pace early and often against the Celtics as they flew down both ends of the court.
Nate, Tom and EG got into the air traffic control booth to radio in all the details on both of these Cavalier flybys, and deliver all the cargo on stats, player evaluations and much more. Tom even drops one last bomb on his nemesis Pablo S. Torre.
As always, you can catch us above, on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts or Google Play.
EG, Vice- thoughts?
I just watched the trailer and was blown away….Wow…
If you liked The Big Short… you’ll love it. McKay is very good at this kind of thing.
Cool, yea enjoyed the big short
Dang Cavs only ahead of the Kings in the very scientific league pass rankings.
I thought the question of how Lue runs the team without LBJ would be fascinating enough to put them into the top 15-20.
George hill has never really a playmaker or great ball handler with SA or Indy. He could get a few assists based off system plays where he is just making a pass to a designed place, but he has never been a creator on his own and just won’t be that for the cavs. He can’t penetrate. I don’t expect much shot creation for other from this team. They have no real pass first guys who can consistently break down the d. Maybe Osman becomes that. Love can get guys shots in the right system, but he can’t do that… Read more »
I don’t know how much you can judge sexton.
True. Small sample size and he did make some decent passes in summer league. However, the point remains I think the starters may have difficulty creating easy shots for each other unless Cedi turns into a true point forward, or Lue institutes an intricate motion offense with a ton of dribble handoffs from love and high post sets for love featuring cutters.
Well both of those things were a large part of Tuesday’s offense.
In fact, the players have frequently been referencing this exact issue. “We don’t have LeBron anymore” “we’ll have to do this together.” It seems like they’ve already realized that they don’t have much in the way of individual playmaking and are changing their play style to adapt. At least that’s what their words are saying.
That’s excellent news. Couldn’t watch the game. Just watched highlights/listened to the podcast. Some of those Cedi drop passes to TT were nice. He may have a higher ceiling than I thought, even though I thought he would/could be a nice starter.
You can judge from a year of college ball that saw a starting PG struggle to average 4 APG
Great pod, guys! The wine and gold scrimmage impressions were definitely a highlight.
The t-shirt toss story was great.
Love the Pods. Good to have you back in such abundance this year, Tom.
Go Cavs!
Wow, a 61 minute podcast. This has to be a recent record for brevity – fun pod guys! Here’s Torre’s article defending himself:
I’ll supply some of my thoughts below.
To get caught up to speed with my quixotic effort to get the most ridiculous case of fake news masquerading as investigative journalism taken down, here’s where this started for me, 2 years ago: https://cavstheblog.com//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////?p=45271
Torre: “It’s worth mentioning, for the uninitiated, that NBER working papers have not yet been peer reviewed.x Full disclosure: In college, my introductory economics professor was Martin Feldstein, president emeritus of, yes, the National Bureau of Economic Research (and a man who, in his capacity as former chief economic adviser to President Ronald Reagan, inspired the creation of another, very different course).” Translation: This could be wrong, and the professor emeritus of the NBER taught an intro Econ class at Harvard and it was poorly taught and ideologically-based. Dude?: You said “78% are bankrupt…”. Player salary data is open and… Read more »
As seen here on this article about Darko last summer.
Of course, your own colleague misquoted you. You never said 60% of players declare bankruptcy, you said 60% are BROKE. And the title of your whiny takedown article: “There’s A Difference Between Broke And Bankrupt For Ex-NFL Players” makes it quite clear you have issue with people confusing “broke” with “bankruptcy”. Little wonder your ESPN stardom doesn’t shine enough for you to have the editors correct a false citation.
What’s with the anger towards Torre?
Did you read everything/listen to the pod and you are asking this?
lol, it would be self explanatory if you listened to it JRL. Don’t trigger Tom even more! Great pod guys, really enjoyed the overall enthusiasm about the Cavs coming into the season.
Get him, Tom!
He is a talking head with a B.A. in journalism. He doesn’t know anything and isn’t a technical writer, scientist, engineer, or academic. He is just a writer posing as a journalist who must have missed out or failed his journalistic ethics course. So much for a Harvard education. Why anyone would lend any actual credence to a financial expose from a sports magazine in the first place is beyond me. He, like many “journalists” never cites his sources, methodology, or anything about where he got his numbers, and therefore his any numerical data should be seen as worthless and… Read more »