Kluber and Brantley finalists for Cy Young, MVP
November 5, 2014Ray Farmer spoke, but what did he say?
November 5, 2014The kids: They’re not alright.
If there were a single sequence that provided a perfect depiction of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ trip to Portland, one that resulted in a 19-point loss, it took place mid-way through the second quarter. With new additions LeBron James and Kevin Love on the bench, point guard Kyrie Irving brought the ball up the middle of the court with shooting guard Dion Waiters standing in the right corner. It would have been natural for Waiters for put his hands up to await a crisp pass for a catch-and-shoot opportunity, but Irving never looked his way. Instead, the two-time All-Star unveiled a dizzying array of dribble moves, switching from right hand to left and back again. After a clockwise spin move, Irving hoisted what would be three-foot shot that would fall off of the rim and into the hands of Portland’s Chris Kaman. Failing to get back on defense in the open floor, Waiters was flagged for a foul—Will Barton would sink both free throws.
This play was in the midst of a four-minute stretch that failed to see the Cavaliers score a single point. Though they came out firing, hitting their first 10 shots (some of which were downright remarkable), the Cavs essentially flubbed their way through the final three periods, launching jump shots and refusing to get back on defense. From the start of the second quarter, including an Anderson Varejao missed three-pointer (never a good idea) and Tristan Thompson taking at turn-around hook shot from 10 feet out, the Cavaliers missed their first seven shots. There was copious amounts of dribbling with very little in the way of a fluid offensive game plan. It was the new-look Cavaliers looking every bit of the old and stagnant and inefficient group which wore the same laundry a season earlier.
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“A lot of bad habits have been built over the last couple of years. When you play that style of basketball it takes a lot to get it up out of you.”
— LeBron James
“There’s been a lot of losing basketball around here for a few years,” James said following the game, a statement aimed at a few of his teammates. “A lot of guys who are going to help us win haven’t played a lot of meaningful basketball games in our league. When we get to that point where every possession matters, no possessions off, we have to move the ball, share the ball, be unselfish, we’ll be a better team.
“A lot of bad habits have been built over the last couple of years,” he continued. “When you play that style of basketball it takes a lot to get it up out of you. But I’m here to help.”
Interestingly, while James’ presence undoubtedly helps, he certainly wasn’t exuding anything that resembled on-the-job training. While praised for the outcome, the four-time MVP launched a 29-footer that found the bottom of the net during the team’s incendiary start. Throughout the game, however, he was often found standing around, watching as teammates made poor decision after poor decision—his body language oozed that of someone mentally checked out. He sat quietly on the bench when not playing, effectively signaling to his younger teammates that if they wanted to break away from the system, he wasn’t going to play a part.
Though starting the game with a sizzling 10-for-10, the Cavs failed to pull away. They were often beat one-on-one, were destroyed in the post as well as in transition, and made several more costly communication-related turnovers. As bad as Irving was on the offensive end, he was worse defensively as Portland’s Damian Lillard had 27 points (on 13 shots) and seven assists. Wesley Matthews added 21 points, hitting three three-pointers and going 5-of-6 from inside of the arc. In the second half of Tuesday’s game, Irving and Waiters combined for 19 shots; James took four. The holdover Cavs have showed little in the way of chemistry with their new teammates, delivering few passes to veterans such as Mike Miller, who despite being brought in for his floor-spacing has one 3-point attempt in three games, or Shawn Marion who only get passes from James, who conveniently plays the same position.
The team has attempted to do everything in it’s power to preach patience. Head coach David Blatt floated a 10-to-20 game trial period out to Portland media prior to the game. Several players have spoken about how the new pieces need to fall in to place. Even James in his letter to fans this past July said “We’re not ready right now. No way.”
But the expectations are there to at least look like a competent basketball organization that is led—on and off of the floor—by its best player. James has proven time and time again that he’s capable of such. Whether or not he would have to do it this early and this often, well—that’s a different discussion. But the NBA handed the Cavaliers a schedule that featured some of it’s biggest and best teams, early and often. The gauntlet, while 82 games long, has proven to hit them hard over the first three contests, and it’s up to James to keep his team on course, even when Blatt is running five-man units that feature none of the team’s “Big Three.” When the team urges Waiters to be a catch-and-shoot players and he tells media postgame that he’d prefer to do other things—”“That’s not my game. I can do it, but you know what I’m effective at: pick-and-roll and things like that.”—well, there is a big difference between bad habits and blatantly acting on them.
“I’m just trying to do other things to instill what it takes to win,” James said. “My mission is not a one-game thing. We have to do multiple things in order to win. We have to share the ball, we have to play defense, we have to sacrifice in order to ultimately win.”
The Cavs are five-point favorites heading into Utah for the second night of a back-to-back. Without a practice or much in the way of a shootaround to provide learning moments, this team will have to do so on the fly. And it willl take more than James playing the role of passive-aggressive bystander while three or four of his teammates take turns playing one-on-five.
12 Comments
Seems clear it will take more than 3 games to break Kyrie of his 3 year habit of thinking the best basketball is all-star game basketball, and to show him that trying to match Lillard point for point is not winning. Kyrie did play early defense and distributed, but then …
I love Dion’s potential, but he came out of Syracuse as a hard head and is on his third NBA coach in 3 years. He’s going to snap back at LeBron on camera, just wait. This year will go a long way to determining whether he’s going to be A Guy or just a guy. It’s probably good that there are legit veterans in addition to LeBron who will keep sitting on his head even when he sulks. And if at his young age he won’t take tough love from this quality of teammates then, sadly, he’s probably destined to be a guy, a guy who can score for meh teams.
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I understand and love what LBJ had to say but I’m not sure saying it to reporters so openly was such a good idea. I think this would have been better suited for David Blatt being so public. Behind closed doors LBJ could do/say anything.
for all we know LeBron has been doing it in private since camp opened and, not seeing it taken seriously in games, has gone to Stage 2. Kyrie and Dion have already helped get two coaches fired in three years. For now I’ll trust LeBron knows what he’s seeing and knows how to nip it.
Harv, you are in my head. Every time I go to post, you’ve already beaten me to the punch on what I was going to say.
always check for subcutaneous scalp chips. I know I do.
From Lloyd – “James said that could take months. ‘A lot of people get it misconstrued on what it takes to win, just scoring or just going out and trying to will it yourself,” he said. “It’s a team game and you have to rely on your teammates as well.'”
There’s a lot to do, and its not just ironing wrinkles. It’s not just the offense, which was obvious last night. They’re giving up 110 points per 100. That’s worse than the last couple years. Heaven forbid the semi-annual Varejao injury before they can piece something together defensively. And they’re only average in rebounding right now, an area that shouldn’t be taking some time to figure out. And Pelton mentioned last night that the Heat last never shot below 40% in a game, and this team just went 36.5% last night. There’s a lot of hard work to do still.
I’m optimistic, and it’s way too early to hit the panic button, but we’ve seen no real improvement from Irving and Waiters, when the kick in the rear they needed should have already happened.
I think it’s pretty reasonable to assume LBJ has been talking like this since the day he announced his return heck he probably spoke this way when he spoke to Love, Irving and Waiters before he made the announcement. That’s not my point. My point is he can do it all day everyday without saying it to reporters so openly. But as you pointed out LBJ is quite often calculated so it’s probably not an accident he said what he did the way he did. Lets see how the youngsters respond.
Dion has a lot of learning to do. You can nearly see it on his face when it has been several possessions since he has taken a shot that he is determined to get his own. I saw it last night when he dribbled down and took an off balance and tightly contested shot from 20 feet.
Basketball at its worst. Should be interesting to watch the game tonight.
I think LeBron is intentionally not taking over the games so far to try and build the team the right way, even if it means a few losses. He could go bail everyone out and win the game essentially by himself probably 75% of the time, but he knows thats not a sustainable, long-term plan to be a championship caliber team. Last night struck me as LeBron saying, “Oh, Kyrie and Dion think they can just start jacking up shots like this is street ball and win in the NBA?? Well, have at it fellas. I won’t stand in your way.” And then he watched them fail. Hopefully it served as a wake-up call for the young guys.
yeah, Terry Pluto talks a lot about certain NBA players who get panicky when they haven’t scored in a while and will throw the game plan out the window until they get their fix. I’ve seen that when Dion isn’t touching the ball a lot. And pass beautifully when he’s starting at the point.
My guess is that what he sees are a couple of cocky kids who need to learn the discipline of proper basketball and still haven’t. LBJ is smart enough that he probably said something privately, repeatedly. He understands basketball well enough to be able to be at least as good a coach as Blatt, and probably yelled at them in practice.
They didn’t take the hint, so now he’s going to both publicly say something and let the teams lose games until Kyrie and Dion come to their senses and realize that neither of them are the #1, #2, or even #3 player on this team (that would be LeBron, Love, and Andy), and they had better get used to that and do what Blatt tells them to do if they want to stay in their teammates’ good graces. Dion Waiters in particular needs to know he’s going to be benched or traded (or both) if he keeps doing what he did against Portland.