Cleveland Browns Week 7 Film Room
October 23, 2014Video: Andrew Hawkins kicks son out of house for calling AJ Green his favorite player
October 23, 2014With the 2014-15 NBA season right around the corner, the national media is hitting the gas pedal on the “hype-machine” when it comes to this year’s newly formed Cleveland Cavaliers team. Ernie Johnson and the rest of TNT gang, Kendrick Lamar, and Kevin Hart have already RSVP’d for the October 30 home opener and Sports Illustrated went ahead and made the so-called “Big 3” the cover boys for this season’s NBA preview (The first time since Oct 26 2009 that featured LeBron and Shaq, but let’s not focus on how that ended up).
Somewhere, San Antonio is loving the attention Cleveland is getting. Cleveland, conversely, needs to continue to shut out the outside world much like James did in Miami over the past few years in order to get through the growing pains and life lessons of their upcoming season as the rock stars of the professional sports landscape.
Thus far, Cleveland’s coaches and players have all been saying the right things (“We’re not the Big 3; we’re the Big 15.”) because the long road ahead is going to take work. So let’s look at the work that needs to be done.
From my notes…
• The Cavs continue to learn head coach David Blatt’s offense this preseason but I’m still concerned with their defense. Anderson Varejao, Shawn Marion, and LeBron James are proven individual defenders, but they need to buy into team defense. They struggled as a team under Mike “Why Did We Hire Him Again?” Brown and finished 19th in the league in points allowed per possession—and that was an improvement from the Byron Scott years where defense was an afterthought.
• Kyrie Irving showed flashes of being a decent defender this summer during the FIBA games for Team USA but his on-ball defense is still worthy of concern. This preseason I watched Derrick Rose, after two knee surgeries, score 30 points at will on the fourth-year All-Star guard. Even though Rose is an offensive freak, Kyrie has to continue keeping his man in front of him especially with weak rim protection. The Cavs do have 34-year-old Brendan Haywood to defend a few of the bigger centers still left in this league, but the guards need to do a better job defending their man one on one.
This does not qualify as a “better job.”
• The Cavs are 5-2 in the preseason and they’ve only played two games with their full line-up. Kevin Love actually looked immensely comfortable in the new offense and there have been very few plays run for him specifically. While this was cool, LeBron and Kyrie have to do a better job getting him the ball in position where Love will be effective offensively. Love’s best game this preseason was against the Milwaukee Bucks shooting 66.7 percent from behind the arc (10-of-15) with a game-high 25 pts without LeBron and Kyrie. James has picked up right where he left off four years ago playing beautiful basketball with Anderson Varejao. The two have a very telepathic chemistry where Varejao is always in the right spot for the perfect James pass. LeBron and Love need to work together to find that two-man game for spots where Love can do his thing much like he does with the big man from Brazil. Given how intelligent they both are, this should happen eventually—it just may take some time.
Ray Allen. Paging Ray Allen. You there? I didn’t think so. Enjoy your golf game.
• Ray Allen. Paging Ray Allen. You there? I didn’t think so. Enjoy your golf game.
• Does it seem the Cavs play better with Kyrie and Matthew Dellavedova in the back court? Maybe this is just my perception but there always seem to be one extra pass when Dellavedova is on the floor and last season they were better with him offensively and defensively with him and Kyrie in the back court. Dion Waiters could be the Cavs biggest breakthrough star this season—or the biggest problem. There is nothing in-between with Waiters. He needs to continue working on his team game and playing without the ball in his hands. If I was Dion (and I often pretend I am) I would focus on my ability on being the best defensive player I can be, much like Tristran Thompson did in the off-season. This is the very best way Dion can contribute and not put the Cavs in the position to trade him at the deadline for a better wing defender and role player. No one should panic with Dion because there are proven veteran winners in the locker room to keep him in line and this is a long season to figure things out. But it’d be disingenuous to not bring up this potential issue.
• Preseason has come to a close and what good would a column be without grades? I am going to give the Cavaliers at B+ considering injury, rest, and the new system. It is so early to tell, but one thing I am enjoying is the Cavaliers continue to make progress regardless of who is in the line-up. This is very encouraging heading into the season but let’s not fuel the hype machine. Let’s sit back and enjoy each game as it unfolds.
9 Comments
We don’t have to play lockdown defense (that’s never going to happen…)…we just need play AVERAGE defense.
“proven individual defender,s but they need to by into team defense” Well written and a better job of editing. WFNY is better than that. Zumock’s a joke – please keep him off the site.
There’s no shame in Kyrie getting his ankles broken by Rose – he’s in good company. But Kyrie thinking that the way to defend is to turn his back to his man, spin and try to use foot speed to catch up … perfect illustration of a guy finally confronted by his lack of junior high-level fundamentals. Saying a guy has the physical potential to defend is nice. But the question is: Will a guy this highly-paid and acclaimed dedicate himself to learning fundamentals that he has always been permitted to ignore?
That misplaced comma really got to ya, eh?
As with everything, you hope the presence of LeBron can change his attitude.
Mighta been by vs buy
“Iriving” and “Tristrain” are additional grounds for expulsion. Dude was definitely having a bad keyboard day.
It was the “buy” vs “by”. Still not fixed. But whatta gonna do, eh?
I see. LeBron = windex in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”