Recap: Heat 92, Cavs 85 (Or, too much Bosh)
2012-01-24Overview: The Cavs kept the Miami Heat from imposing their will on them for most of the game, but Chris Bosh’s 17 fourth-quarter points led the Miami Heat to a somewhat lackluster 92-85 win over the Cavaliers. Kyrie Irving led the Cavaliers with 17 points in 26 minutes.
Cavs-Related Bullets:
You’ve gotta give the Cavs a lot of credit for taking the Heat out of their game on Tuesday night. The Heat’s offense is built around Pace, Space, and LeBron James being a beast, and none of those things worked for Miami on Tuesday. The Heat managed only four fast-break points, shot 5-18 from deep, and LeBron was held to 18 points on 8-21 shooting.
Unfortunately for the Cavs, Chris Bosh reminded everybody why it’s a “Big Three” in Miami — with the Heat’s best player having an off-night, their second-best player out with an injury, and their shooters drawing iron time and time again, Chris Bosh was able to simply take over the game with a mix of tough drives to the rim and smooth mid-range jumpers. At some point, that’s just unfair, but that’s life in today’s NBA. It would have been nice if Tristan Thompson was available, because he may have been able to bottle up Bosh somewhat, but there’s little comfort in wondering what could have been.
Offensively, the Cavs had a few good performances, but no huge ones. Kyrie had 17 points on 11 shots, but Byron Scott is still steadfastly refusing to give Irving superstar minutes, presumably because of his defense. (To Scott’s point, Norris Cole and Mario Chalmers did have 19 points on 12 shots on Tuesday, which pretty much negated Irving’s offensive effort.) Alonzo Gee continues to look like a new man — he kept the defense honest by hitting a three, which opened up the lane for a HUGE and-1 dunk. I continue to be amazed by his development into an actual NBA player this season.
Samardo had a great game, but I refuse to get sucked into believing in him — we’ll see if he can keep this up before calling him a legitimate piece for this team.
This game was pretty much a classic good news/bad news story — the Cavs did everything right and kept the Heat from playing their game while holding their best player (and the best player in the NBA) in check, but came up short because the Heat’s 3rd-best player is far better than anyone on Cleveland’s roster. It’s an uncomfortable truth, but it’s the truth nonetheless. Hopefully the Cavs can bring this kind of effort against teams with less star power, because the results will come if they do.
I continue to like Kyries offensive agressivenes. I also continue to hate his defnense and turnovers. I can acutally live with the turnovers as I think many of them are just due to rookie growing pains as he gets used to the speed of defenders etc. However, I really don’t know why it seems as though any decent PG looks like an all-star caliber PG when they play against him. Ramon isn’t a much better defender, but clearly plays better defense and doesn’t seem like he’s getting blown by. Jamison hasn’t been considered a very good defender since he came… Read more »
I think on the trade front… No one is trading right now. They’re all waiting to see if they’re a contender or a pretender. When the trades do start happening, Razor and Chucky Jamison are far down on anyone’s radar. First up will be DWill, Dwight Howard, the breakup of the Celtics, Devin Harris, and New York trying to hook up to the juvenation machine. The Cavs will be far down on that list .
Gocavs pretty much expressed my sentiments exactly. Sessions is pretty overrated. We really should’ve been looking to dump him the moment he had a few good games – he has a favorable contract and some skills that contenders would love, but for a young, growing team he doesn’t really provide anything that Boobie Gibson could, and he’s not exactly the perfect model for Kyrie. Sessions is a bad defender – we want Irving to learn from guys who can keep their guy in front of them. I really wish we could swing some sort of trade for some young pieces/future… Read more »
I’m starting to think we all got fooled into the thinking Razor is a good player… again. At least he can get to the line, right?? The guy shows you just enough to get excited, then buries it under sub 40 shooting percentage
Heh… A week ago, everyone was worried that the Cavs were playing too well. The Cavs have the worst starting 2-3 combo in the league. The only saving grace is that their bench plays about as well or better than the starters, so at least there’s no dropoff. Thought the Cavs played well, even though they didn’t bring it at the beginning when the Heat looked like they were taking the night off. Also thought the Heat got a lot of star calls. I especially thought the the refs missed some shooting fouls around the basket. But… Gee had the… Read more »
Byron Scott’s point is terrible. Comparing two point guards to one? Ramon Sessions had 10 points on 7 shots. Add it all up and Kyrie/Ramon have 27 points on 18 shots. Yes, Kyrie gets burned a lot, but he’s a rookie. But this is on Sessions too.
Playing a little ball myself, I know that the more you have to try to cover on D (and his D is pretty bad to start) the more tired you get and the less you can provide on offense. It all takes energy. We could see Bosh having his way with the D and I’m sure Antawn was trying to do something out there. On that crazy high jumper over Jamison, with a few minutes left near the end, you could see the frustration. As the camera faded to Bosh jogging the court you could see Jamison throwing his arms… Read more »
What is Antwan’s purpose on this team. Really. What is it. I wish i was a reporter just to ask him that. He cant defend a roach, he cant rebound effectively, and now he’s not even scoring anything anymore. Watching him today made me so mad i really conteplated taking a sabbatical from watching the Cavs. After his lip service the other day, you would think he would try to even seem interested in the game today. Instead he goes out and is 2-6 for 5pts, and gives up like a million pts to Bosh and looked like he wanted… Read more »
This darn lockout is already making games less fun to watch. It was the Cavs that were absurdly tired a few games back: this team is not the best, but I don’t think those 30 point losses were purely talent or effort related – this years team tries hard consistently. Tonight the Heat looked pretty shaky, its just a shame we couldnt capitalize. And did anyone watch the Boston Orlando game where the Magic scored 56 all game? ESPN were talking about historically good defense from Boston, but I must admit all I saw was an unconditioned and overworked Magic… Read more »