Overview: After a close, ugly game, the Cavaliers lost their 2nd home game of the year when a LeBron James was stuffed with the Cavaliers trailing by a point.
Cavs-Related Bullets:
First things first, and by that I mean the first quarter. Last year, the Cavs’ opening unit absolutely destroyed people and set the tone, whether it was Wallace or Varejao in the starting lineup. The Cavaliers were the best 1st-quarter team in the league by a huge margin, and it was a huge reason they were able to cruise to so many victories. And it wasn’t just that they got results-that first unit played some of the prettiest basketball I’ve ever seen the Cavs play. They worked from the high post, cut from the weak side, utilized LeBron off the ball, moved the ball from side to side, freed up shooters on the weak-side with screens, worked cutters from the top of the floor, and played egalitarian basketball wonderfully as LeBron set up teammates and worked on the weak side.
This season, the starting lineup has gotten off to one sluggish start after another, with the exception of the Boston game, which was more about the Cavs hitting shots than good offensive sets. The energy isn’t there, and with the poor Shaq/Andy spacing, the starters are trying to force-feed the ball into the post and watch Shaq or LeBron go to work rather than playing 5-man basketball and working the entire floor. Shaq can still punish teams when they single-cover him, but the team has looked incoherent and confused during the opening stretch instead of controlling the flow of the game.
Thursday night, in the first quarter, the Cavs scored 12 points in the 8 minutes Shaq and Anthony Parker were on the floor and 15 points in the 4 minutes the Cavs played their starters from last season. The current starting unit is just too much about one-on-one basketball to get the team into the kind of flow it wants to be in out of the gate. This has to change, and soon.
More fun with completely baffling rotations: twice in the game, Mike Brown went to the “giant” lineup, which is the one that makes me start throwing things. This lineup does not work. This is not a state secret. And the Bulls have nobody in their frontcourt that can score down low. Eventually, MB did figure out that going small was a good idea, and by “eventually” I mean “with 2:50 to play in a tight game.” The Cavs then scored 7 points in three possessions, and set up a wide-open Mo Williams three in transition on the next one. Mo bricked the go-ahead three, then compounded the problem with a horrible floater the next time down. Not a good finish, but the small-ball works a whole lot better than the Day Of The Lineup.
Z is not good off the bench. This is his first season playing there, and it just doesn’t work. He went 0-9 tonight, and 1 of those shots was from Z’s comfort zone. The rest were forced shots that he didn’t take when he was in the starting lineup and could count on being set up. I know Shaq’s feelings would get hurt on the bench, but Z gets a lot worse at basketball when he comes off the bench. Priorities, I suppose.
Shaq is not making the other 4 players better right now, so when he needs 13 shots to get 14 points, he’s not helping much. He worked in the fourth, when he was out there in a non-LeBron lineup (WHICH IS WHAT BENCH PLAYERS DO), but he needs to hit his shots to be effective.
Just to finish my daily gripes, Anthony Parker is fantastic at hitting open threes and did move the ball better tonight, but his scoring game inside the arc is hot garbage. His 1-6 performance from inside the arc tonight brings him to 17-54 on twos this season. This is the thing that is not good. And Windy touched on this tonight, but how does Parker get 35 minutes while the still-immolating Boobie only get 17, during which time he scored 8 points?
Alright, onto the good: Andy was the Cavs’ best big on the floor tonight. He was everywhere (boy, that’s something you say about Andy a lot), showing on pick-and-rolls, fighting for every rebound, slashing from the top of the key for some tough finishes, and was a game-high +11 in his 35 minutes. That means the Cavs leaked 12 points in the 13 minutes he sat. But hey, he’s no Zydrunas Ilgauskas at the four.
Of course, JJ Hickson went ahead and played like he’d been lit on fire, forcing 4 shots in 3 minutes and blowing some defensive rotations for good measure. Yipes. At this point, I’m willing to volunteer any ligaments Leon Powe may need from me to get him back on the floor as soon as possible.
Also, no Jemario Moon at all when the Cavs should have been going small-ball aggressively. That’s just peachy.
3 good games for Mo Williams, 3 wins. 3 bad games for Mo Williams, 3 losses. Tonight, it was just the open threes not going down-he was 3-6 from inside the arc, and had 6 assists against 1 turnover. That’s something you just have to live with from a shooter, although that go-ahead three would have been nice. That forced floater, however, is not something you live with.
As for LeBron, another nice game within the offense, getting a lot points on weak-side cuts (including two off counter-movement plays initiated by Mo and Delonte, which are my favorite thing ever), some transition finishes, and open opportunities. But I would’ve liked to see him grab the reigns a bit more at different points, although with his jumper not working so well that would’ve been tough. Still, it wouldn’t have hurt to establish some LeBron off the pick-and-roll with the floor spread with the offense struggling as badly as it was.
As for the last play, there were 4 seconds left, and he went to his highest-percentage play: damn the torpedoes and make a hard, decisive drive. The real issue was that Noah was there waiting for him because we’d parked 320 pounds of a guy who can’t shoot or screen directly under the rim, and Hinrich made a nice rotation down to cut off that pass. Shaq shouldn’t be out there in those scenarios. Period. And no, there was no foul on that play-Noah was in perfect position, and LeBron tried to crash into him out of desperation. Not a pretty play, but at least it happens on November 5th. Get the bad ones done early, I suppose. Yeah, there’s the ticket.
Good news: defense. The only Bull with more points than true attempts (FG attempts+FT attempts/2) this game was Kirk Hinrich, and he had 9 points on 8 attempts. For the 2nd game in a row, Shaq looked fine defensively, and even had some very nice blocks late in the game. There’s your silver lining.
Bullets of Randomness:
Well, the Bulls’ spacing looked just as crappy as the Cavs’ so there’s that.
Hinrich should be a Delonte West-like starting two, Salmons should be a scorer off the bench. That’s just how it should work.
I always thought Taj Gibson would be a solid NBA player. Good to see him catching on.
Well, that’s all for now. Hopefully we give the Knicks a whoopin’ tomorrow. Because right now, I hate people. But, campers, I like you. See you tomorrow.
In a couple places I read praise for the “great defense by the bulls on that last play” or “great defense by Noah”. What exactly about that was good defense? Did Noah draw the charge? No. Did he block LeBron’s shot? No, in fact he never made contact with the ball, hence it was rightly called out of bounds off LeBron. A clean contest? Not that either.
I guess running into the restricted area, and smashing into the arm and body of a driving player is considered good defense. Should we coach our big men to do that now?
It’s extra frustrating going from that to watching Tony Parker fall down on a layup, after literally NO CONTACT with any other player, and get a call. Have the refs seriously not figured out that he falls on every shot?
Excuse my venting.
[...] Network: John Krolik of Cavs: the Blog: “As for the last play, there were 4 seconds left, and he went to his highest-percentage [...]
It’s still early, but not too early to panic. What concerns me is that I don’t see the Cavs getting any better from one game to the next. MB’s line-ups are questionable and we aren’t sinking wide open shots (which I’ll live with sense they are good open shots).
Seems like MB is trying to force Shaq into the line-up and has now ‘ruined’ the chemestry the team had all last year. Boobie, Shaq, Parker, Moon, should kill most second units, and just like the first unit, they should get some time to play significant minutes together. “All” we gave up from last years team was Big Ben, Sash, Wally. Shaq, Moon, Parker are clear upgrades. What the team was doing last year was effective and our upgrades if used properly should have us in a much better spot than we are in now.
Guess I’ll wait another few weeks to panic, as long as the Cavs come in the top 3 of the East I’ll be o.k. (they don’t have to win the East although that would be nice). But playing .500 ball and losses to teams like the Bulls and Raptors doesn’t make me feel at ease.
Hopefully some early losses will get your message home, and drive up the sense of urgency for some lineup changes.
I had the pleasure of going to the game and your points are spot-on with what I saw from way up in the nosebleed seats. Excellent analysis. I also agree 100% with your “Shaq needs to come off the bench” idea. Last year’s starting five is still fantastic, great chemistry, great spacing, great basketball.
On that last drive, I think Lebron had a split second of hesitation and that’s what kept Lebron from turning the corner around the first Bulls guy (Salmons?) and allowed the second guy to come over in time to help. I don’t know why he hesitated, but I think he really needed to push it just a little bit faster.
I hope things get better for the Cavs. I really do. But as a Suns fan who watched them the past 1.5 years, I suspect things might not get better.
ugh, Mike Brown, your 2009 NBA Coach of the Year! my friend (Nets’ fan) has been saying that as a joke since June. And I have recently joined him.
I have the feeling MB is great at the hard work of coaching; practices, motivation, handling his players. But his lineup choices? baffling, though Ferry et al are to blame in part for bringing in Shaq without considering: is he our best starting cente? will he accept being bench player?
The silver lining is O’Neal is a huge expiring contract, so if the Cavs continue to be inconsistent and Ferry can man up to his mistake then a move can be made. I know there have been whispers b/c of Z’s contract, but if I have a choice between two slow over-the-hill centers, I will choose the guy whose been in town for a decade. Z knows what he needs to do, even if his shooting has gone to hell over the past year
The problem is not that Shaq is on the team. The problem is that Mike Brown and his staff have no earthly idea how to use him in this offense. They keep trying to fit square pegs into round holes, and it’s killing the flow.
But don’t blame the parts of the engine when your mechanic doesn’t know what he’s doing.
How would you guys react if Mike Brown was fired this afternoon?
“But don’t blame the parts of the engine when your mechanic doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
^^^^
This
It’s mind blowing that the Shaq and Z lineup is getting sooo much playing time. I wish I could believe that Mike Brown knows something we don’t, but this is too obvious. What about this seems like a good idea?
I think the Shaq acquisition was a bumbling “win now” move made in response to the meltdown in Orlando, as I am far from sure if Shaq can check Dwight at this point, especially if he plays this many minutes, by the time the playoffs get here.
Meanwhile what is overlooked is that Z getting dominated by Dwight Howard was only part of our problem, and really shouldn’t have been the one to be addressed by a personnel move.
The biggest personnel problem I saw against Orlando was that we got smoked at the 4 because there was no one out there who could play the 4 and match up with Rashard Lewis. I’m also worried because the Celtics seem to pose the same problem now that KG is back.
Meanwhile the Coaching was, in my opinion, the biggest issue with Orlando. I watched the Michael Jordan Bulls play against a young Shaquille O’Neal in his Orlando days, and they were running Luc Longley, Will Purdue and Bill Wennington (can’t believe I remember their names) at the 5. They basically amounted to 18 fouls plus 6 more from Dennis Rodman.
Why we didn’t foul Dwight Howard with a Ben Wallace or a Joe Smith, HARD, everytime he got the ball low was beyond me. It was a simple coaching adjustment that was never made.
I think the Cavs need to make a move for a long athletic player to stretch the floor at the 4 position. I also am afraid that Mike Brown is one of the most overrated coaches in terms of matchups and adjustments. I love the guy and I desperately want him to prove me wrong, but everytime Shaq and Z run out there I put my head in my hands and get that icky “Ohio Sports Fan” feeling in my stomach.
It’s nice for you to notice that Hinrich made a nice rotation to deny the pass to Shaq, which is also critical for the Bulls to win the game against an elite team on the road (besides Deng/Noah defense). Hinrich also made other good plays that do not show up on the box score, which is part of the reasons that the Bulls won, even though statistically they should lose this game.
I often found that it’s the other teams’ bloggers or writers mentioned Hinrich or whoever made critical impacts (that are not shown on the box score). I enjoy reading articles with intelligent analysis. I sometimes read other team’s blogs (usually when the Bulls won) to see how they analyzed the contributions of Bulls players, because I noticed Hinrich (or Thabo when he was with the Bulls) made some really good/clever plays (not shown on the box score) that helped the Bulls win, but no one (including the writers from AP, ESPN, other major sports websites, Chicago news papers, Bulls-related blogs) even mentioned them (they usually just talked about who scored more or keep hyping about Rose, rather than doing intelligent analyses). So I don’t read these writers’ writing anymore; if I click their articles, I’m only interested in reading comments. Matt (By the Horn) is relatively fair. But B-a-B is more interested in hyping someone scored more or Rose, so I don’t read it much anymore. Rose is very talented and has a lot of potential, but he hasn’t achieved anything yet; he hasn’t even proven that he can lead the team to playoff without Hinrich; the Bulls wining% was lousy last season when Hinrich didn’t play due to injury.
Nice Bulls (or rather, Heinrich) analysis on a Cavs blog.
Anyways, not much can be said that hasn’t already been said about Mike Brown. Dude is not a good game manager. Consistently fails to adjust properly. The fact he has a Coach of the Year and Jerry Sloan doesn’t is pretty baffling. Also, as a sports fan (who’s not a Cavs fan), it’s painful to watch LeBron’s first half of his prime wasted. Sorry, but this team will not beat either Orlando or Boston in a seven game series. At least not as presently constructed, and not unless LeBron goes even more bonkers than he did last year in the playoffs.
it’d be easier to accept mike brown if he did more to inspire faith.
the hollinger per diem today made me feel a little faint.
…kuester…kuester…kuester…