Cavs vs Rockets Behind the Box Score: Not enough Kyrie’s

Houston Rockets (24-11) 105
Cleveland Cavaliers (19-17) 93
[Box Score]

There are different types of losses. The loss to the Sixers on Monday was an atrocious loss. The loss to the Rockets on Wednesday night honestly wasn’t that bad of a loss.

Of course, that’s not to say it was a good loss, either. The Cavaliers are still shorthanded. Recent acquisition Iman Shumpert is still hurt and newly acquired Timofey Mozgov obviously wasn’t in Cleveland yet for this game. And oh yeah, LeBron James is still out. Despite those shortcomings, the Cavaliers played a decent game and hung in there with the Rockets for three and a half quarters.

Kyrie Irving was on fire and having a monster game through three quarters. In the fourth quarter, the Rockets clearly shifted their defensive focus and dared anyone other than Kyrie to beat them. Unfortunately for the Cavaliers, nobody was up to the challenge and the Rockets more or less pulled away late.

The score might make this game look a little worse than it really was. The Cavaliers actually played some pretty solid defense. Despite Kyrie’s monster game, though, the team was just a little too sloppy on offense and when Houston adapted to Kyrie late in the game, they just couldn’t get anyone else going.

It might be telling that at this point in the season the Cavaliers can hang their hats on just being competitive with a very good Western Conference team, but that’s the reality of where this team is right now. With the injuries they’re facing and while waiting for the players they just traded for to all be available, Houston was simply a better team and down the stretch they had more answers than the Cavaliers did.

Now lets look at some numbers…

• 38 – Kyrie Irving led all scorers with 38 points in this game. Kyrie had it going in his return to action. He was dazzling with the dribble and kept finding creative ways to score. He was knocking down jumpers, he was drilling step back shots off the dribble, and he was weaving his way into the lane. It was the complete package of what Kyrie can do on offense. But in the fourth quarter, Houston shifted the entire focus of their defense onto Kyrie and were content to leave other guys open. There just wasn’t anyone else up to the challenge of stepping up and forcing the defense to shift back off of Kyrie. It was a disappointing end to an otherwise excellent night for Kyrie and the Cavaliers as a whole. And while some may try to point to Kyrie’s three assists as a negative side effect of his game, that number is a little deceiving. Kyrie was distributing the ball early trying to get others involved, but the shots just weren’t falling and Kyrie had to take over to keep the Cavaliers in the game. It’s hard to have a lot of assists when your teammates shoot only 21.43% on uncontested field goals.

• 32 to 19 – The Cavaliers were outscored in the fourth quarter by a 32 to 19 margin. The Cavaliers were simply outmatched in all facets of the game in the last quarter. Houston outrebounded the Cavaliers 15 to 5 and had 8 second-chance points compared to 0 for the Cavaliers. After playing so hard and sticking with the Rockets for three quarters, it just felt a bit like the team sort of ran out of steam. Some of that is the result of still being shorthanded. It would have been nice to have a couple other fresh bodies to provide some energy down the stretch, but you can only work with the players you have. And in this game, that just wasn’t enough in the fourth quarter.

• 13 – Speaking of being shorthanded, the Cavaliers bench scored only 13 points in this game. The sad thing is, 8 of those 13 points came in the first quarter. Which means the Cavs’ bench scored only 5 points the rest of the way. It’s getting to be a broken record situation, but this bench continues to just absolutely kill the team. So many people are questioning why it is a team with players like Kyrie and Kevin Love isn’t better, but it truly isn’t so much about the starters. It’s the lack of depth that is destroying this team right now. That’s why the recent trades were so important. Once everyone gets back (other than Anderson Varejao, of course), this team’s depth will look much more promising. Assuming Mozgov starts, Tristan Thompson can move back to the bench. Iman Shumpert starting at the two guard spot will allow Matthew Dellavedova to slide back into a role better suited to his ability. JR Smith can always provide some bench scoring. Role players like Mike Miller, Shawn Marion, and Joe Harris can go back to role players finding their spots. But for right now, this team’s lack of depth is a very serious issue.

• 0 – JR Smith was shut out in his Cleveland debut. It shouldn’t be that surprising considering he hasn’t even gone through a real practice with the team yet. It was pretty evident at times that he wasn’t completely comfortable yet with his spacing in the offense and he wasn’t as aggressive as the JR Smith we’re used to seeing. Despite not scoring, it still felt pretty good seeing Smith in action. He gave good effort on defense and he showcased a better passing game than I think most of us expected to see. Once JR gets acclimated to the team and to his role in the offense, I think he will really be a strong boost to the bench unit.

• 50 to 37 – The Cavaliers were absolutely smashed on the boards in this game. Houston had 50 rebounds, including 19 offensive boards which led to 24 second-chance points. The Rockets had almost as many offensive boards as the Cavaliers had defensive boards, which is astounding. You can’t blame Kevin Love for the rebounding woes. Love had 16 boards, 13 of which were defensive. Other than Love, the next highest rebound tally went to Tristan Thompson with 6. Tristan had only 1 defensive rebound which is completely unacceptable for a player of his size and athleticism. The Rockets are a very big team and the Cavaliers’ depth problems in the front court aren’t helping, but still, despite Tristan playing some good basketball in other aspects of the game, he needs to be better on the defensive boards.

The name Timofey Mozgov probably doesn’t excite a lot of people. And JR Smith and Iman Shumpert are not stars. But all of these guys fill roles that the team needs right now. Sure, the Cavaliers might have been able to get a better player than Mozgov for the assets they gave up, but I’m not sure they could have found a player that is a better fit for what they need. Mozgov is a legitimate center, a true big who can offer a little bit of rim protection, rebounding, and inside scoring. Shumpert’s “3 and D” role will be needed. JR Smith is a bench production guy.

Things have been rough the past few weeks for the Cavaliers, but at least the team has gone out and found some reinforcements. I’m not going to sit here and say these guys make the Cavaliers automatic Championship contenders, but I think they can help the Cavaliers turn their season around and start getting things back on track. We still have to wait for LeBron and Shumpert to recover from their injuries, but at least now there’s some real hope for things to get a little bit better.