With such a lopsided drubbing, you’d think there wouldn’t be much to smile about. But, in truth, I’m not feeling all that bad about this 20 point loss. We learned a lot about some of the players we’ve got, and, against a good team, saw some seriously critical flaws.
First off, the Cavs won’t always shoot 13% from the three, and Casspi, who I’ll discuss in a bit, isn’t going to always go 0-5 from downtown. Boobie and Kyrie had equally abysmal nights from the arc. Basically, had they hit anywhere near where they should have, or even up to the 28% that Portland shot, and this game would’ve been a LOT closer when it counted (remember, they blew it in the 3rd.)
Second, they’re still learning to play with such a high tempo, and it showed. Cleveland had 24 turnovers. Reduce that number, and again, the game is much closer.
This isn’t to take anything away from Portland, who played outstanding tonight. Wallace, Aldridge, Crawford, and Batum all had multiple steals, and their general domination of the paint and perimeter really said it all.
One other quick note – our interior D definitely left me wanting…
I’m going to try to keep this brief – tomorrow night I have a Rookie Roundup coming, so I’m going to attempt to save most of my thoughts on the youngsters for that.
Onto the good and bad of the night:
Good:
Kyrie Irving – Yes, he had four turnovers, and yes he shot a big fat zero from downtown, but he’s young and he’ll learn (we have a nice long grace period to say that.) The fact is, he shot 9-17 (with a few late misses to pull his stats down) and had four assists and four rebounds to boot. The pace of the game, and aggressiveness of a really good team defense, definitely threw him off – his passes didn’t look quite as crisp, and there were a lot fewer open looks for the guys he dished to, but I was happy with the way he stayed aggressive and continued to drive to the rim.
Tristan Thompson – Seriously Byron, how did he only play 18 minutes??? And WHY Can’t you play him with Kyrie a little more??? Stop teasing us!!!! But really, this kid is a stud and we all know it. When he’s in the game, the energy level is palpable. And when he played with Varejao, while only for a few seconds, it was awesome – there so much energy, I thought the court would explode. Tigger is a joy to watch – every time he goes near the ball I watch the screen a little more intensely, looking for that exciting moment we all know is coming. Byron needs to stop trying to out smart the other team and just play his best players. Imagine what would happen if Thompson was given a chance to get into an offensive rhythm! There’s no way Tristan should be playing 18 minutes a game. Inexcusable.
Anderson Varejao – Yeah yeah yeah, everything here is completely predictable, but did you realize Wild Thing had 5 rebounds in the first 9 minutes of the game?! He slowed down a lot, and I think the combination of Camby, Aldridge, and Thomas wore him down over 30 minutes, but gosh darn I missed him last year.
Bad:
Pretty much everyone else…
But really,
Casspi – First and foremost, we’ve got to talk about Casspi. It would be an understatement to say I was curious to see how Casspi would fit into the Cavs. I’ve always enjoyed his style of play, and figured if he could put even a tiny bit of weight on and maybe drive a little stronger, he could be a good player. Lo and behold – not only does he seem terrified to move with the ball in his hands, he is completely unable to do the one thing he’s naturally great at – hit the three. 1-4 would be a huge disappointment for the first Israeli to ever play the game. But 0-5?!? That’s pathetic. And it’s not as though he’s delivered on other nights – day in and day out, he’s done the same. We’re really thin at the swing, I get it, but play like this is costing us wins (which, I guess, we don’t really want right now, so good job Byron?) I’m not a particularly huge fan of Gee, but Casspi has done nothing for us so far.
Antawn Jamison – I’m going to keep this short. 1-8 fg%, 1-4 3pt%, -22 +/-, 4 fouls, and 3 points. Yes he had 11 rebounds, but a lot of those seemed like they were right place, right time. Jamison is the exact wrong player for a young team – he’s streaky and takes a lot of dumb shots. When he’s on, they fall, and when he’s off, look out.
Daniel Gibson – Ouch…just…ouch.
Byron Scott – I want to preface this by saying I like Byron and I think with a good team he’ll do wonders. But with such a tight, low range of performable talent, he’s using far too big of a rotation. Additionally, he’s letting the vets play too many minutes, and keeping the young guys from playing together and meshing. I know it’s a condensed season and he doesn’t want to wear the kids out and risk injury, but Kyrie could handle some big minutes once and a while. Tristan too. Let the guys play together and figure it out.
Additional Thoughts:
Did everyone see what happens when Kyrie and Tigger play together??? AWESOME! Maybe Byron didn’t realize who was out there, but we finally got to see what can happen when the two young studs see the court at the same time. That beautiful dish down low…that slam home…I can’t say this enough – AWESOME.
Keep on the lookout for my Tigger gushing…err…blog post about our rookies tomorrow.
I realized I didn’t mention Casspi’s D. Realistically, he had been OK on D. But tonight, that came apart too. The missed shot/fast break via Wallace was ridiculously amateur of Casspi. No hustle, just gave up. Ugh.
Let’s be honest. This team is a matchup nightmare for the Cavs. They expose the Cavs biggest weakness: lack of big/athletic wings. Felton, Batum, Matthews, Wallace… They’re all bigger and stronger than anyone the Cavs have at the wing except maybe Gee. It’s a lot to ask the ghost of Anthony Parker to guard any of those guys.
Kyrie looked good, especially finishing around the basket. He can’t do everything though.
Not that I miss Hickson, but Sacramento may have fleeced us in the Casspi deal. I don’t understand his game at all.
Liking Tristan, and I hope the Cavs get a good big man coach to work with him, because he could be special. He had one block that was ridiculous
Anyone see Danny Green’s 24 points the other night? We kept Manny Harris instead of him, why?
The only thing worse than an over-agressive Ramon, is an under-agressive Ramon. I’ve never seen him pass to the post so much in one game. He was feeding SamarTO like he was Shaq.
Is it me, or is Portland one leader away from being REALLY good? They manhandled the Cavs in the second half, and Portland is a rough rough place to play. If I was their GM, my one worry would be the eight man rotation exhausting and injuring their best guys before the end of the season (a very big reason the Cavs bench was not their usual effective selves).
@HoopsDogg: “SamarTO” Lmao, nice nickname ;-)
TT really needs more minutes argh… give this kid 25-30 minutes and he will probably average like 11 points,
8 boards, 2 blocks… I’m so happy with both our draft picks!
I still dont understand how a guy like Kanter got picked 3rd while Markieff Morris was only the 13th pick, seems the Suns got a steal right there…
This blog rocks, keep up the good work!!
I’m all right with these losses. I guess I would have liked to see a little more effort to climb back into the game at the end. But the rookies flashed promise and that is the most important thing. However, Casspi is the only disappointment for me this season. I mean we only have Kyrie, TT, Andy, Boobie, and him signed past this season. So I would like to see something out of those five. Boobie was off tonight, but before that he had some solid games coming off the bench. Casspi really needs to step up his game so he can be a reliable 20 minute bench guy in the future.
With Kyrie, TT, and Andy together, could you imagine Barnes or Kidd Gilchrist out there on the wing? I really hope we end up with a high lottery pick somehow.
Saw a new name and gave your recap a read. Agree with a lot of your main points, especially Kyrie and Tristan not getting enough playing time together. Then went on twitter to follow you and found out about your political activism, and your consultancy. How did you get this gig?
(I know, I kid)
The post title says we played the Raptors last night.
Sorry about that, Douglar — wrote that last night and just copied the title from the last recap. The perils of writing at 12am.
It’s been a bit of a return to reality for Gee. He’s stayed aggressive, but his ball handling was really sloppy tonight. In the first few games of the season, he was showing a bit more promise as a shooter and playmaker also, but that’s tailed off too. First four games; 5 – 10 from 3 and 3.5 assists per game. Last four games; 1 – 8 from 3 and 1.3 assists per game. Hopefully he can turn it around.
Not that his play was spectacular, but it was nice to see Erden healthy. I hope the Cavs give him a rotation shot over Samuels for a while.
The Cavs like to play fast but there is control fast and out of control fast and the Cavs are doing the latter…especially last night. Gerald Wallace is very underrated….what a nice pick-up…Ive noticed that the Cavs interior D pretty much sucks. Besides Varajao either no one plays D (Hollins and jamison) or inexperienced to play correct D (TT2 and Samuels). Wonder if this Erhden dude is any good…he’s a tall white boy so I cant imagine expectations being that high but he could help with interior D
Gee is athletic and plays hard but doesnt have a shot to go with all that which is a shame….and Casspi is beyond brutal the dude is 6’10 and all his shots were barely grazing the rim
Kyrie is clearly head and shoulders above anyone else on this team…not sure whats up with Boobie and Sessions is too outta control…
Until next game
My thing with Gee is he doesn’t really do anything exceptionally well. He’s OK at shooting, he’s a decent defender, and he’s athletic, but not in the WOW sense of the word. I kind of feel like the meh swingmen of the league – the Jeff Greens, the Travis Outlaws, even the much much richer versions – Danny Granger, Andre Iguodala – need the PERFECT team around them to find true success. Sure, Melo, Lebron, Pierce, etc. strike fear into all our hearts, but the rest leave me feeling pretty flat. For the most part, the position lends itself to the megastar highlight reel type guys, and I think there’s a tendency for the less talented at the position to try to over compensate.
The point is Gee is definitely not the answer. Even on his best days, he’s really more of a low minute role player. Unless he learns to do something (hopefully D) REALLY REALLY well. Then that all changes.
Guys like Gee make me miss Brandon Roy so much. He was able to use his talents better than pretty much anyone out there. Sad…
I like Gee, but yeah, he’s not not exception at anything, except maybe finishing around the basket, and offensive rebounding. The problem is he’s too much of a tweener. He’s too small for the 3, and he doesn’t have a good enough handle for the 2. Still, I like his attitude, and the amount of work he’s put into his game. However, I think everyone forgets that Gerald Wallace is one of the top 4 defensive small forwards in the league (I actually would rank him right behind LeGone, and just ahead of Marion), so he’s gonna make Gee look bad. Gee needs to work on his handle so he can run both wing spots and fill in at SG when the team gets more depth if he’s going to stick long term.
Gee’s effective on the post, in isos, and driving in the half court, but usually only against bench players. He’s much less effective at spotups, and you’ll never see them running a pindown for him. I actually like him as the screener in the pick and roll, but you can tell he’s never been asked to do it a lot. He should take some lessons from Andy, as he seems to finish around the basket well enough to be effective at it.
If he rounds out his game, he could be an effective seventh man on a good team, or a starter on an average team. He should be starting for the Cavs now, but i have a feeling Casspi would be even worse off the bench.
Well I guess it’s a good thing that Gee IS a bench player and paid like one. Casspi on the other hand, yeesh…at least he isn’t clogging up cap.
I guess one telling mark on Casspi is if you look at his stat lines from the last couple years he only started 31 and 27 games while playing in 77 and 71 total. Maybe he looked better coming off the bench and facing lesser talent. So maybe the Kings did fleece the Cavs although we all know that Hickson comes with his own issues.
We weren’t gonna pay JJ the big money at the end of this year and lock him up long term. Casspi’s contract is the reason we went with the deal.
Youth movement needs to take over…Jamison is brutal to watch.
Good wrap-up. However, this whole “Tigger” thing has got to stop.
@HoopsDogg Agreed on Danny Green, my heart dropped when I read that stat line. I always liked him, why did we get rid of him? He’s going to be a good NBA player. Would fit nicely on this team right now.
@Brendon – C’monnnn. The TT/Tigger link is indelible. Think about it – TT bounces all over the place, plays with a ton of energy, and brings joy to us all. He’s soon to be a fan favorite, and I think the nickname suits how much fun he is to watch perfectly.
Plus I grew up a huge Winnie the Pooh fan. Gotta love anything that recalls that.
This was the first ‘real’ test for the Cavs, overall the failed. However the two rooks played pretty well, considering the talent they were playing against.
My biggest disapointments were Gee and Casppi. Gee because he’s been playing so well and has shown so much improvement – til this game. Casppi (who has let me down all season long) because I expected him to be at least decent this year. Maybe it was the Gerald Wallace factor and the defensive intensity of the TB overall, or maybe not…
Andy, AP and Jamison played pretty much how I expected them too. Jamison get’s torched a lot of defense but he at least shows effort and like AP can’t help it that he’s a step and a half to slow. Jamison also get’s criticized for his shot selection, however, I’d argue that the majority of the shots he takes are good looks and they just don’t fall as often as we’d like them too. He’s a 45%-50% shooter over his career and I think he’ll continue to be that way, plus, he’s asked to be a scorer on the team so he’s doing exactly what he needs to.
Boobie and Ramon…hmmm. I can’t expect Boobie’s shot to go down everyday, so I’ll just call this an off-night for him. Overall, I still think he’s solid and has a lot to contribute going forward. Ramon just didn’t look like himself though. He didn’t seem nearly as agressive as he’s been and seems like he’s affraid to shoot. He’s been working on his outside game this offseason and in the early going it showed. If he’s ever going to be a dual inside/outside threat, he needs to keep shooting (smart shots). I understand this was a very good team they faced, but you can’t play scared.
Will be interesting to see what Erden brings to the table and how he may/not impact Samardo’s minutes.
Do we really want to be winning these games anyways? All I want to see is some rookie potential. Cavs have a coupe of drafts to go before we to wins become the primary motivation. .
No seriously. Let’s stop the Tigger thing. Please.
I truly think we have won exactly as many games as we were supposed to.
Good games for the draft picks and I’m hoping Eden can get his game going soon.
Ugh. I have to be the voice of reason here. No young African American athlete can have a nickname that ends with “igger.” It gives the trolls of the world far too much to work with. Also, no cool nickname in the history of the world came from Winnie the Pooh. Have to agree with Dustinello.
TT is Canadian.
That was to hoopsdogg. Great write up Mallory – donatello and HD are just being Eyores.
@hoopsdogg spot on