Cavaliers Show They Are A Team That Knows How To Win In The Playoffs…..So Far
The talk of this first round battle between the Washington Wizards and Cleveland Cavaliers so far has centered around the physicality of the series. The hard fouls, the technicals, the flagrants, the ejections, the introduction of the term “LeBron” foul. The talk has centered around everything but the actual play on the court, which is a shame because the Cavaliers are certainly focusing on just playing and not allowing themselves to get caught up in all the other games, trash talk, and other hoopla.
When the Cavaliers made the deadline deal to bring in West, Wally, Ben, and Joe, Danny Ferry felt that this was a trade that served multiple purposes. He felt West gave the Cavs a serviceable PG that they lacked, he felt Wally gave the Cavaliers the additional spot up perimeter shooter that LeBron so desperately needed, and in Ben and Joe, he felt the Cavs were bringing in two hard nosed veterans who would bring with them valuable playoff experience. The new guys never seemed to totally mesh in the regular season with the old guys, or maybe its the other way around…..but whatever the problem was, the trade didn’t look like it helped. And while this series is nowehere near being over, the value of a team loaded with playoff experience is showing.
While the Wizards seem to struggle with leadership and taking this series seriously, the Cavaliers have been all business. The defense has clamped down, the offense has been incredibly efficient, and the players are not allowing themselves to be distracted by anything that Washington is trying to do to get under their skin. There’s always something to be said for being playoff tested, and if there’s one thing the Cavaliers are, its playoff tested. Look at the number of career playoff games for this roster:
- Devin Brown – 23
- LeBron James – 35
- Zydrunas Ilgauskas – 39
- Daniel Gibson – 22
- Damon Jones – 55
- Anderson Varejao – 35
- Delonte West – 9
- Wally Szczerbiak – 31
- Ben Wallace – 105
- Joe Smith – 28
- Eric Snow – 103
The Cavaliers are used to this environment, and their play thus far has shown it. The Cavaliers are scoring 104.5 points per game and allowing just 86.0 per game. They are shooting 45.86% from the field while holding Washington to 38.96% shooting. After playing mediocre offense all year and just slightly better than average defense, the Cavaliers have especially clamped down on defense. Their regular season defensive efficiency rating was 103.7. In the postseason, their defensive efficiency rating is 92.9, which is 2nd just behind Boston’s 92.8. The offense has vastly improved as well, as in the regular season their efficiency rating on offense was a lethargic 103.2, but in the postseason that number has risen to 112.5, which is a respectable 5th out of the 16 playoff teams. In the playoffs, the Cavaliers are 3rd in assist ratio, 2nd in turnover ratio, and first in rebound rate.
Many of the individual players have stepped up their game in the postseasos thus far. Take a look at how the players’ PERs in the postseason compare to their regular season PERs (regular season PER is in parenthesis):
- LeBron James – 32.37 (29.23) +3.14
- Zydrunas Ilgauskas – 24.06 (18.76) +5.30
- Daniel Gibson – 16.06 (11.77) +4.29
- Delonte West – 14.20 (12.13) +2.07
- Ben Wallace – 12.64 (11.98) +0.66
- Devin Brown – 11.22 (11.35) -0.13
- Wally Szczerbiak – 9.60 (13.99) -4.39
- Anderson Varejao – 9.16 (12.02) -2.86
- Joe Smith – 8.68 (16.22) -7.54
The point of all of this is that while most writers, whether they be mainstream media or bloggers or whatever, are focusing so much attention on the trash talking and the physical play of the series, they’re missing out on the fact that the Cavaliers have stepped up and are really playing some very good basketball. Some of it can be tied to Washington’s inexperience (Antonio Daniels has the most playoff experience with 71 games played….2nd in Antawn Jamison with just 27) and/or bad play, for sure, but that shouldn’t take away from how well and how efficient Cleveland is playing. As this series shifts to Washington, it will be interesting to see which Cleveland team shows up at the Verizon Center to play….the regular season disinterested team, or the postseason playoff tested veteran team. The regular season team can let Washington back in this series. The playoff team will shut the door and close out the series while they still have momentum. It will be interesting to watch.
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