Overview:
After a hot first quarter, the Celtics blitzed the Cavaliers’ second unit in the second quarter and carried the momentum all the way through the game, surviving a 38-point effort from LeBron James en route to a 95-89 victory.
Cavs-Related Bullets:
-Starting on a happy note: LeBron seems to be picking up right where he left off last season. An absolutely monstrous game to the tune of 38/4/8 on 68% True Shooting, with 2 steals and 4 absolutely crushing blocks thrown in for good measure. His jumper is the big story-LeBron was 3-5 from midrange and 4-9 from beyond the arc, giving him 18 points on 14 jumpers. That’s a 64% eFG on those shots, which is just monstrous. He looks extremely comfortable with that stroke, which is so good to see, considering how badly he struggled with his jumper out of the gate last season.
The downside is the 5 turnovers-LeBron was definitely forcing a lot of home run passes and seeing them deflected, but a lot of that is a function of what I’ll get to below.
-Pretty much all of the other news is of the unpleasant variety. The 2nd-highest scorer on the Cavaliers had 12 points, and LeBron was the only Cavalier to shoot better than 50% from the floor. That’s not going to get it done against a team as good as the Celtics.
-First of all: there is no excuse to have LeBron and Shaq off the floor at the same time. It’s absolutely ridiculous. There are two players on this team who can consistently get their own shots efficiently and/or command a double-team, and their offensive strengths don’t even play off each other that well. The second unit has always been stagnant offensively, and prone to miserable scoring droughts if the outside shot isn’t falling. Now the Cavs have a guy who can change that, and he’s watching from the bench. I am livid about this.
-And after a hot start thanks to a couple of nice post-up baskets, Shaq really wasn’t helping the first team offense all that much. The lane looked extremely cluttered with him and Andy down there, he wasn’t opening much up passing from the low-post or working off the ball off the penetration of others. The worst thing was how disinterested he seemed setting screens and moving away from the basket. He’d just sort of amble over to an area, put his hands over his crotch, and stand there doing nothing as the man he was supposed to be screening went right around him and disrupted the play. If Shaq wants to play with Varejao, he has to make an impact with activity and good screens on the perimeter. Ben Wallace was able to be a part of a very good offensive unit last season doing only these things.
-And defensively, Shaq was regularly being exposed on the pick-and-roll. Pick-and-Roll defense has always been a problem for Shaq, but I was hoping that Mike Brown would be able to turn him into a defensive asset the way he did with Z. That wasn’t the case tonight, as Shaq regularly got caught in no-mans land and got blown by on the defensive end. I’m trying to breathe, seeing as how this was Shaq’s first regular season game with the team and the Celtics have one of the best defenses in the league, but a lot of the nightmares I’ve been having for the past few months came true tonight, so I’m a bit freaked out.
-The other big worry was how quiet Mo Williams was offensively. 3-8 from the field, 3 assists, and 0 threes for Mo. And if I remember correctly, all of his field goals came off the bounce. For a guy who’s most valuable when he’s shooting catch-and-shoot threes, this is a monstrous red flag. He just didn’t have the space to work with or the good off-ball screens he needed to get free on his catches, and he really suffered without guys who could play with him on the perimeter.
-Offensively, the team took a step backward tonight. This was a drive-and-kick team who could go to high-post action, players catch-and-shooting behind back picks, curl plays coming off the sidelines, weak-side motion off screen-rolls, everything. It was a lot of jumpers, and only LeBron could really be counted on in crunch-time, but there was great movement, great spacing, and could run smoothly for the entire first quarter without LeBron initiating any plays from the perimeter. Tonight, it was a big, ugly cluster looking for a post set, not swinging the ball from side to side, having guys smothered out on the perimeter, trying to force passes in a cluttered lane, and ultimately saying “screw it” and having LeBron go ISO. The ball was just not moving.
-Delonte’s absence hurt. Anthony Parker actually looked pretty good, although I don’t love him shooting fadeaway jumpers off a pin-down early in the shot clock. But he was solid as a spot-up shooter, and was generally comfortable making good passes when the opportunity presented himself. But he was never really a threat to get to the rim, and the team definitely missed Delonte’s playmaking-he takes the ball from side-to-side as well as any other Cavalier, which was definitely missing tonight. And a big part of the 2nd unit fiasco had to do with Boobie having to fill in at shooting guard, where he was just completely overmatched.
-Varejao didn’t have anyone stretching the floor up top and letting him dive low for pick-and-roll finishes, and ended up going 3-9 from the field, although he did have a surprising amount of success with shot fakes.
-Zydrunas continues to look like a terrible fit on the bench, forcing some deep jumpers, not getting any offensive boards, and finishing 1-4 from the field.
-Defensively, the speed wasn’t there to slow down Boston’s drive-and-kick game, and the result was the Celtics making nearly half of their threes.
Alright, that’s all I can really say about this game. Although I will say I have a perverse sense of relief about losing home game #1 this early in the season-it does take some pressure off the team in the regular season, and I do feel like the Cavs’ “we’re invincible at home” mentality came around to bite them when they lost game 1 of the ECF last season. Right now, I’m really not sold on starting two guys who can’t shoot, and I remain more convinced than ever that Shaq should be coming off the bench. But it’s the first game, and this is a heck of a team to play with two brand-new starters. It’s not time to be Chicken Little, not even Liz Phair’s crazy, threatening, and vaguely awesome version of Chicken Little. There needs to be more movement. There needs to be high-to-low post action. The bigs need to be active freeing up the guards on the perimeter. LeBron can’t be in bailout mode for 45 minutes. Hopefully these things will come. The good news is that the Cavs get to play the Raptors tomorrow, so hopefully they’ll look like the team they’ll need to look like. Until tomorrow.
a not a single mention of boston shooting the lights out from 3 in the first half, eh? huh. that’s odd…
i fully expected the cavs to lose this game but i saw nothing – let me repeat – NOTHING to make me think we won’t beat boston in a series. the big three were merely ok. the bench was pretty decent but if you think rasheed’s shooting 50% on three’s for the season, you are crazy.
look, the cavs CLEARLY have a lot of room to grow. but what upside do you really see from boston this season? pierce’s PER has gone done 4 straight seasons. garnett can’t dunk and allen is ok but getting older too. and while rondo was impressive defensively at times, his offense and playmaking weren’t outstanding by any stretch. what do really fear from them. esp after they play 82 games on hose old, old legs.
the cav’s ceiling is clearly much higher. relax a bit…
Cleveland’s Weakness’s
-Mike Brown doesn’t play his best five at crunch time (which likely would be a combination of Williams, LeBron @ PF and Shaq with West/Parker/Moon filling the wings). Varejao will be out there and it will always put the Cavs at a disadvantage.
-LeBron is the only defender the Cavs have to attempt to successfully guard stretch PFs (Wallace/Garnett, Lewis, Gasol/Odom). Varejao and Powe are both too slow.
-LeBron is the only defender the Cavs have to attempt to successfully guard elite wings in the NBA (Pierce, Carter, Kobe). Parker, Moon and West all have glaring weaknesses on defense and are not stoppers.
-Mike Brown has no offensive system to get quality possessions at crunch time. It’s up to LeBron to make it happen, whether that’s from half court or the top of the key offense we saw in the playoffs.
-LeBron, therefore, is asked to be our complete offense from halftime on AND to be the defensive stopper on whoever is hot. The energy required takes it’s toll (as shown in the Orlando series).
-The other contenders all have a stretch PF and elite wing scorer (Orlando, Boston, Lakers). Cleveland will require LeBron to guard one and always give the other team a favorable matchup with the other.
Getting Shaq solved none of this. Signing Varejao to his absurdly bloated contract solved none of this. Varejao is an energy guy, he’s great for chemistry and winning regular season games against teams you should beat anyway. He helps avoid upsets during the regular season with his play, gives the Cavs a better shot at home court. He’s also awful against the good teams in the NBA matchup-wise and is a liability come playoff time (i.e. the games that actually matter). Mike Brown is not only an awful offensive coach, he’s purely an awful head coach in the NBA. Despite his assumed defensive prowess he continues to put his players in a position they’re likely to fail in (Varejao having to guard Garnett/Wallace/Lewis/etc in crunch time).
The Cleveland front office has to identify that they overpaid Varejao for what he his, their team will continue to have an enormous hole until they get a stretch PF and Mike Brown will not win an NBA championship as a head coach. Then they need to fix those issues. That’s their only shot at retaining LeBron James.
My biggest worry is Mike Brown. He seems to not come up with any offensive schemes. Like Barkley has repeatedly said, having Lebron play 1 on 5 basketball will not beat the elite teams. Cavs will easily beat most teams as they can’t match-up with Shaq and Big Z. And most teams only have one major scroing threat that Lebron will end up guarding when the Cavs need a shut-down.
The Celts are loaded with talent and veterans. Later in the season when Delonte is back and the big 3 (4 with Wallace) aren’t all 100% healthy, the Cavs have a legit shot at beating them. However, I’m really hoping that Mike Brown accepts the fact that he doesn’t know how to create an offensive strategy and brings in a new assistant coach who does.
Easy everybody. Am I the only one that remembers that we lost to Boston to open last season and bounced back pretty nicely? It’s ONE game against an elite team that is, for the most part, playing together for its 3rd straight season. We had 2 new starters last night with one of our most important players on the inactive list.
Yes, this team might have some growing to do and might still be one piece away. But we also have some monster expirings to move, not to mention 6 months to get this thing down. As last year proved, the regular season means squat, so let’s just worry about getting things right by May, not November.
The game was lost when we had the 10 point lead and Brown decided to sub 4 of his 5 guys and left LeBron in. We lost all momentum – those guys looked like they had never played together, which they haven’t! It will take time, but Brown can’t change out 4 guys at a time.
Celts shot lights-out from 3, which is exactly why we lost to Orlando last year.
I disagree – Rondo had some decent offense, but I would let him shoot any jumper he wanted, but he did stay away from those for the most part. His defense made Mo look silly dribbling around and never driving, even off a few picks.
LeBron and Delonte are our best 2 defensive 1 on 1 stoppers. I was very impressed with Parker, and disappointed in Moon. Moon CANNOT shoot all those jumpers!
And, why would Brown leave Shaw in at crunch time instead of Z? Z get get the O boards and can actually shoot foul shots. I don’t want to lose games simply because Shaq’s feelings may get hurt.
Z just needs to get used to playing with the backups, he’ll be fine. Shaw is the starter, and it showed until Brown switched out 80% of his starters at once.
Once Hickson learns how to position himself, he will be the rebounding monster Andy can be at times with his energy. I saw him leap at least 1-2 feet OVER guys last night going for boards, unluckily they all had him boxed out rather well and his leaps started from the foul line.
This team will be the one to beat once they all play together and Delonte gets back. Even if Delonte can’t come back for whatever reason, I am content with Parker/Moon. Let’s face it, LeBron and Shaq are the ones that are going to matter the most in the playoffs.
I’m starting to lose faith in Mike Brown, but it’s been an ongoing concern. At some point he needs to remind me why I should have faith in him.
I mean wtf was with Z and Shaq for 7 or 8 minutes in the 4th quarter. (boobie was out there with them at that time?).
Sloppy play, rust, etc. are one thing. That combined with weird line ups and bad defense… yikes.
Mike Brown just doesn’t inspire confidence in me.
…but I’m glad they’re back.
Wow, Fish, for a team that won 66 games last year, we sure have a lot of problems. Call me in a month if things haven’t changed.
Delonte may be as valuable to us as Ray Allen is to the Celts (in different ways albeit). So once again, let’s see this team at full strength before we tell them they’re terrible.
With you on the Shaq bit, Krolik. Shouldn’t Shaq play 8 min to start the game, then start the second quarter with anyone while LeBron gets his rest? That seems like the easiest lineup decision in the world. The rotations were real bad. Get to work Mike Brown.
And boo on the crowd for disappearing. The most important time to cheer is when things aren’t going well. Just awful.
On the brightside, we’re still winning sixty. VIVA LA CAVS!
Everyone is pointing to how the Cavs started slow last year but won 66 games.
The Cavs are going to win a lot of regular season games this year, too. Who cares? No matter how many regular season games they win, they cannot beat the elite teams in the playoffs. Last season was a failure, not a hope for this season.
Dan, the positive that I, and I am guessing several others, are taking from winning 66 games last year is that we don’t really need to worry about winning every game (especially in friggin’ October), because a top 3 seed in the playoffs is pretty much assured just based on our talent level. That being said, we can use the next several months to work out the kinks (and yes, several kinks were on display last night, no doubt about it). With the ***SUMMER OF 2010*** looming, I know everyone is going to dissect every second of every possession of every game all year long since it could well be this team’s last gasp (not my viewpoint, but that is neither here nor there). Hell, the Spurs practically throw games through February just to make sure that they are peaking in May and June. So yeah, if we end up tied with the C’s 81 games from now and then lose by 1 point in Boston in game 7 of the ECF’s, this is a bad loss. Any other outcome though, and this game is probably a meaningless blip on the radar, just 1/82 of the season.
You know “laconic” means terse, right? How does someone “stand there laconically”? Before reading this blog, I didn’t know how valuable spirited conversation was to a screen.
This was just one gme, but a critical one to see how we can play the elite teams and to see what Mike Brown can do as a coach. I actually appreciated seeing Shaq and Z on the court at the same time – a twin towers if you will. It didn’t work out, but I’m hoping to continue to see various combinations of players to get this whole thing figured out before the playoffs. However, this give Lebron the ball and let him score type of system just doesn’t cut it. I’m disappointed that Brown just hasn’t figured out any other offensive strategy. It’s not really like he tried various plays to get Parker, Mo, Shaq or even Z an open shot, he just said give it to Lebron.
This loss doesn’t bother me as much as the poor coaching strategy does. I’d rather be complaining that Parker couldn’t make his shot or that Mo has disapeared again, than having to say Lebron just can’t do everything for the team. I know Brown won coach of the year, however, I’d rather have Larry Brown than Mike Brown.
It’s essential. Have you ever seen Don Draper trying to set weak-side screens? It’s not pretty. But yeah, I’ll fix that.
As much as it pains me to say this…
They need to trade Big Z. I consider Varejao to be a center, not a PF, which means their 3 rotation bigs are all centers. And I think it’s pretty clear that Mike can’t keep playing Shaq and Z together. Neither of them can guard PFs. Varejao can, but he’s a liability on offense at the 4 spot. They need a shooting combo forward. Maybe Nocioni?
Actually, I thought the Shaq/Z pairing was a nice gambit. What Mike Brown SHOULD have done was moved LeBron to the 4 and put Moon at the 3 when the Pistons brought in Wallace. I think Moon is long enough to check Wallace on the perimeter, and I’d live with Wallace in the post. This was a seriously poorly coached game. Brown didn’t look like he had a plan at all. He looked unprepared. Also, they desperately need to let Mo play point guard. LeBron dominating the ball keeps it from moving. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the rotation. I think Shaq needs to be a token starter, and play a few minutes before LeBron moves to the 4 with Z/Andy, Boobie, moon and parker. Then I would love to see a lot of offense versus the other team’s subs with Mo, Shaq, Hickson, Moon/green/west. They need to space out their use of Shaq, Mo, and LeBron so there is an actual offensive plan instead of: give the ball to LeBron. Brown’s lack of offensive imagination can’t be allowed to fester. Give him a month, and if it doesn’t start working, bring someone in.
Welcome to the world of Shaq John! Everything you saw last night, is pretty much what Shaq has done his entire career, except for one spirited campaign way back in 00. And for those people who think all he needs is time or that he’ll agree to come off the bench…good luck with that. He is what he is. An ego-maniacal, monstrous man who dominated the NBA with his size, agility and athleticism. Now that all he’s got left is size, he’s more of a liability. If you had just kept Ben Wallace, who led the team in plus minus last year…now you’ve got to hope that Powe can come back from injury early. He might work better playing next to Shaq.
Orlando is easily the class of the East, and, if healthy, maybe the NBA. and that’s coming from a Lakers fan.
John, is there anyone that we can trade Z for that can benefit the team? I love Z and I would feel bad if we ditched him (most likely ending his career after the season), but if we come to a point where we realize we have to make some changes to compete with the top teams, I would be for it.
The problem is I can’t think of anyone that we could get in a Z trade that would benefit the team. I think Z for Captain Jack, even if Jackson has no attitude/chemistry problems, would not help us where we need help because if we lose Z we have Shaq and Varejao and JJ. Unless JJ proves he can be a reliable PF (like now), I don’t see Z being traded for anyone but a PF. I also love JJ, and I want to see him get more minutes, but is he ready to be the first big guy off the bench?
Did Brown get an o-coordinator to replace Kuester? That might be the reason the offense looked even worse than awful…. then again, the Celts are a GREAT defensive team.
The problem with the Cavs is that they looked awfully similar to how they looked in the playoffs last year. LeBron being amazing, Mike Brown being outcoached (or outcoaching himself), and most everyone else getting outplayed by their counterparts on an elite team. They had a poor record against Orlando, Boston and LA last year, and if things don’t change, those kinds of things can carry over into the playoffs. I feel really bad for LeBron sometimes.
The four biggest problems for the Cavs:
1) Shaq should not be starting if Varejao is the Cav’s starting PF.
As others have noted above, having two guys that can’t shoot consistently from outside at the same time in your starting rotation is straight up dumb if you’re trying to compete with the elite teams in the NBA. Shaq should be coming off of the bench and should be in the game whenever Lebron James is not in the game and a little when he is. I see Shaq causing more trouble for other team’s second unit. If Shaq won’t accept that, than it was a mistake picking up his 20 millions dollar contract. Z plays very good pick and pop basket ball with Lebron, and to me is the easy pick as a starter, even though his shot looked off in this first game. Shaq should be starting in special situations, like when he’s required to gaurd big centers that Z can’t guard, like Dwight Howard. Otherwise, Shaq will be much more effective with the second unit, especially in the second quarter, easily the Cav’s worst quarter for the Cavs against the Celtics.
2) Anthony Parker is no Delonte West.
We need West back. Parker can be good off of the bench, and hopefully we won’t see too much of the 15-year-old Gibson too much.
3) Ball movement on offense is very sloppy.
This will work itself out. There are two new starters. When the Cavs offense is working well, it’s a beautiful sight to see. Watching the Cavs against the Celtics was like watching a completely different team.
4) The Cavs need another Big that can shoot from the outside.
I suspect that management will make a move before the playoffs to get one other big that can shoot from the outside, because it’s absolutely necessary. Otherwise, Lebron needs to be playing at least half the time at PF. Lebron James at PF should give most teams fits, especially if Shaq is in, because Lebron can make that sweet pass inside while posting.
I’m confident that the Cavs will fix a lot of their problems and be at least 2nd place in the East at the end of the season. The number one goal is to stay healthy, keep Shaq’s minutes down, and hope Delonte West gets his mental health back, because his absence reminds us just how valuable he is the to Cavs at both ends of the court.
Beautifully said, Bumpkin. You took a lot of the words right out of my mouth-hope you don’t think I’m biting you in tonight’s recap.