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February 20, 2015Report: Browns Interested In Trading For Sam Bradford
February 21, 2015Cleveland Cavaliers (34-22) 127
Washington Wizards (33-22) 89
We did it, Cleveland sports fans fans! We survived the long absence of live sports that we so desperately crave on a night-to-night basis. After last Thursday’s game against the Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers fans had to wait nearly eight whole days until the Cavs played again. That’s roughly 189 hours of real, uninterrupted life. How did you fill the empty, crushing void in your life left vacant by the All-Star Break (other than poring over the engrossing and informative material at WaitingForNextYear.com)? Read a book? Exercise? Spend time with your family? Those things are awful!
Luckily, a live sporting event with one of our beloved teams ended the reprieve on Friday night, when the Cavaliers visited Eastern Conference rivals the Washington Wizards. It ended up being a lousy game for all the right reasons, but let’s take a peek behind the box score.
8 – Again, eight days without live sports. That’s almost certainly the longest break in action in the past year. The MLB All-Star break only stopped the Indians for five days (July 13th to July 18th) and the Indians played during the Browns bye week, sparing fans of a break greater than seven days (September 28th to October 5th). Fans can drink their fill now, as the Cavs are back for meaningful spring basketball, and the pitchers and catchers reported for the Indians reported in Goodyear, Arizona, this week, meaning Indians baseball season on the horizon.
12-0 – I’ve been relentlessly beating this point like a dozen eggs for a ham and cheese omelet,1 but I’m going to continue to until it ceases to have such significance. The Cavs held the Wizards to 89 points, which is less than 100 (I did not need a spreadsheet for that one). After game 17 A.B. (After Bowling) the Cavs have held 12 of their last 17 opponents to less than 100 points. Their record in such games is 12-0. On the season, the Cavs are 24-5 (.828) when holding teams to under 100 points. Inversely, they’re 27-2 (.931) this season when scoring more than 100 points, and 13-0 when scoring more than 100 A.B. A lot of this sounds like “the Cavs are better when scoring more points and allowing fewer points!,” but it’s more than that. Notice the overlap in the After Bowling era: consistent defense and effective offense. The Cavs are exceptional offensively, and if they impersonate a top-10 defensive team, they instantly become extremely difficult to beat. On the season, the Cavs are ranked fifth in offensive efficiency and 22nd in defensive efficiency.2 Over the last 15 games, the Cavs are first in offensive efficiency and 13th in defensive efficiency. Their 112.5 offensive rating over the last 15 games is the magic number for success in the NBA, and an average defensive number has boosted them to the second best net rating over that span. Dominant offense plus consistent defensive effort is the Cavs’ recipe for a championship.
25, 7, & 4 – Friday night was a prototypical Kyrie Irving performance, one both his supporters and detractors could point at and say, “SEE, that’s what I’m talking about!” Irving shot 9-of-18, scoring on some miraculous layups at will. His nifty ball handling even provoked a few “oohs” and “ahhs” from Wizards fans, the mark of some real special play. Irving’s seven assists was actually above his season average of 5.7, enough so that it’s hard to even complain about. But even I became frustrated with Irving’s turnovers on Friday, and I wrote an exhausting 3000 words this week vehemently defending Irving from his critics. He directed plays away from Kevin Love screens, wouldn’t dump it to Love or Mozgov in the post, and often dribbled aimlessly without knowing where he was going or what his teammates were doing. At the end of the first half, when the Wizards still realistically could have sparked a comeback, Irving committed a basketball sin that guards commit far too often. With 33 seconds remaining in the half, he allowed the ball to roll around for an eternity on an inbounds pass, under the pretense of saving time to run a play. There weren’t five seconds left, mind you, but 33.3 Irving let the ball roll ten feet into the Wizards side of the court, when John Wall pounced on it, stole the ball, and called timeout. Things like that must infuriate coach David Blatt. But then you see Irving make dazzling layups like the one below, and shrug your shoulders. That’s what he is: a gifted scorer and a guard who’s still learning how to see the court better. Lot’s of great, with an annoying bit of bad.
14-of-33 to 1-of-16 – The Cavaliers dominated the Wizards in the three-point game, sinking 14-of-33 treys compared to the Wizards’ 1-of-16. That’s a 39 point disparity from three-point range. Many times have teams shot as poorly as the Wizards did from three-point range in a game, but none recently.4 Before Friday night, it hadn’t happened since 2010, when the Knicks went 0-of-18 on three-point field goal attempts. As great as John Wall is, his inability to shoot threes at an elevated rate limits the Wizards in today’s NBA. Bradley Beal was out on Friday, a huge blow for Washington, causing the floor to shrink a lot when the rest of the team was unable to make any threes. This forced Nene and midrange jumpers to be the entire Wizards offense. Meanwhile the Cavs hit 14-of-33 three-pointers. LeBron James, J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert, and James Jones each added three long range buckets. When the Cavs are moving the ball and making threes (especially when someone off the bench like Shumpert is pitching in), they’re not going to lose often; and Friday’s game was open-and-shut for this reason.
+42 – Timofey Mozgov had a plus/minus of +42 in only 29 minutes on Friday night. In Basketball-Reference’s records, which only date back to 2000 for plus/minus, only 70 other times has a player had a plus/minus of +40 or more in 30 minutes or less.5 Mozgov added only eight points, but contributed with four rebounds, two assists, two blocks, and two steals. The Wizard of Gov and Kevin Love deserve credit for going out and doing the dirty work without receiving much glory or acknowledgment for doing so, except from maybe Marcin Gortat.
Gortat on why Mozgov’s been good w/Cavs: “His size. He’s 7-2. He’s European. He’s coming from a different culture. He’s super white.”
— Jorge Castillo (@jorgecastillo) February 20, 2015
13 of 19 – The Cavs follow up Friday’s game with 13 of their next 19 games on the road, a brutal stretch. They’ve been playing great of late, but most of it took place in the safe confines of the Q. The Cavs are 21-9 at home thus far this season, but a mediocre 13-13 on the road. The Cavs are going to learn a lot about how good they are over the next 19 games, and how well the A.B. Cavs respond to some potentially tough losses may dictate how the rest of the season unfolds. Will the Cavs be emboldened or falter in response to the upcoming road challenges? We’ll see.
- That simile could have gone another, more unwholesome direction. You’re welcome. [↩]
- According NBA.com’s team offensive ratings and defensive ratings. [↩]
- It’s possible that Irving was thinking of firing off a quick shot and going for the two-for-one. But Irving routinely botches the two-for-one opportunity — so much so that it doesn’t even seem like he considers it — making it unlikely that was the case. [↩]
- According to Basketball-Reference, a team has attempted 15 or more three-pointers and made one or zero of them 136 times. [↩]
- Three really bizarre Cavs entries are on that list: Bryant Stith and Brian Skinner in 2002, and Dion Waiters earlier this season. On second thought, it’s not the best list for Mozgov to be on. [↩]
4 Comments
Really great thoughts on why, contrary to an article I had read elsewhere, Beal’s absence was a big factor.
This season, for me, has now gone from ‘frustrating’, past ‘fun’, and has officially entered’ exciting.’
Last night’s game looked very physical, for a regular season game, and showed the Cavs can take it and dish it out.
So much fun to watch, on both ends of the floor. The Cavs defense led to a lot of easy baskets, and the Cavs were getting the ball to the hot hand when facing the Wizard’s half court defense. Loads of talent, hard nosed defense, and unselfish play = > championship.
When the Cav’s play like that, they can beat any team in the league.
Washington is struggling. I actually would rather see them than the Bucks as Milwaukee is becoming the new Pacers.
Re your first stat on limiting opponents to 100, I think you’ve missed the important link: it’s not only that defensive effort on top of the efficient offense is so powerful, it’s that the defense leads to the offensive efficiency. The Cavs set up, space and score (and, duh, run) better after a miss than a make. That’s what the players say, that’s what wee see watching.
Kyrie is not perfect. But not sure what other PG I’d want playing next to LeBron right now. His vision is never going to be 360 degrees while he’s in motion like a Magic or LeBron because that’s not how he’s wired – he’s a scorer who is learning to be unselfish as we watch, right now. But what we’ve learned this year is that he is still improving rapidly, and probably can train himself to look for other teammates in an offense. He’s constantly looking to set up teammates when he does see them on fast breaks, and that’s a great sign of where his head is at.
I now join others who suspect something’s up physically with Love, which would be bad news after a week of rest. Two plays Friday night: one a point-blank put back that he boinged off the bottom of rim like Eric Snow; he didn’t want to jump or even raise his arms fully. That turned into a dunk the other way. The other was LeBron’s steal and dunk in the first half, where Love literally turned his back when he saw it rather than pound down the floor and help on the break. He’s not lazy when it comes to potential points, and it looked like he just needed to save himself.