Cleveland State outshoots Wright State, back on top of Horizon League
February 7, 2015Dog Days of Winter, Sports Fans, and The 2015 Grammys: While We’re Waiting…
February 9, 2015Los Angeles Lakers (13-38) 105
Cleveland Cavaliers (32-21) 120
It was fitting that the Cleveland Cavaliers would host the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday afternoon after the Indiana Pacers terminated the Cavs’ 12-game winning streak on Friday night. Although it was terribly disappointing that the Cavs didn’t have an opportunity to play for the franchise’s longest winning streak on Sunday as they would have had they escaped Inidanapolis unscathed, Sunday’s game was a promising chance to start a new winning streak. For one, the Lakers are a D-League team doing a not-so-convincing impersonation of an NBA team.
But more importantly, the Cavalier’s recently-expired 12-game winning streak began against the moribund Lakers in Los Angeles on January 15th, on a day that—depending on how the rest of the season unfolds—may be remembered for having the bowling trip and the inbounds play that turned the Cavaliers season around.
The Cavs entered Sunday’s game against the Lakers going one direction—having won 12 of 13 games, ascending the Eastern Conference power rankings, and showing viability as a title contender—and the Lakers going the opposite—having lost 12 of 13 games, missing its best player (which is somehow still Kobe Bryant), and showing only sporadic signs of life. Each team would continue on its respective trajectory. But let’s go behind the box score.
32 – The Roller Coaster of Love was on one of its peaks on Sunday afternoon, as Kevin Love netted 32 points, his career high as a Cavalier (adding 10 rebounds). Although he occasionally scored in the post (Love was 4-of-10 on two-point field goals) he was shooting flames out of every orifice from three-point range, shooting 7-of-8 from deep. Sunday may have simply been the case of a Love’s shooting progressing towards the mean against a lousy defense—a roundabout way of say Love “was due.” In the previous 17 games, Love had shot 27.9 percent (24-of-86) on three-point field goals, nearly eight percent below his career percentage. It’s unclear if Love shoots his jumper with confidence because he’s making shots or he’s making shots because he’s shooting his jumper with confidence. But Love wanted the rock on Sunday, and that was not the case on Friday when Love shot 2-of-8 from the field and reacted to the ball as if someone was throwing him an 8×8 Rubik’s Cube. May Love prosper and show a greater level of confidence and comfort going forward, but Love slumped after a 5-of-7 three-point shooting performance against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday afternoon two weeks ago. The only certainty is that when Love is performing at a high level, the Cavaliers offense is practically unstoppable. So … more good, less bad please?
Zero – Perhaps the most surprising thing about Sunday’s victory was that Kyrie Irving, LeBron James, and J.R. Smith all went scoreless in the second quarter while the Cavaliers extended their lead by 11 points. Irving, James, and Smith went hitless on a combined four field goal attempts, choosing instead to focus on distributing to teammates. All of them stoked the flames Love was generating from his limbs, often passing up open looks to find the Cavs power forward that scored 17 in the quarter on 6-of-7 shooting. As a result, the three prominent yet scoreless Cavaliers created 10 assists in the quarter. Yeah, even “dare me to shoot it from here” J.R. Smith made the extra pass on multiple occasions. Twenty-six of the total 32 points in the quarter came from Love or Iman Shumpert, who added nine and was hyper-aggressive in the best game of his young Cavalier career.
-2 – After 10 straight games allowing less than 100 points, the Cavaliers are now starting a trend going in the opposite direction, as both the Pacers on Friday and Lakers on Sunday scored over 100. Don’t be totally fooled by the “hard” 100 number, though. Indiana needed a fluky 39 quarter to crack 100, and Sunday’s game was out-of-reach when the Lakers went on a run at the end of the third quarter before a summer league game broke out in the fourth quarter. The Cavs did hold the Lakers to 41.0 percent shooting, improving their record to 14-1 when holding opponents below 42.0 percent from the field. Shumpert and Timofey Mozgov demonstrated what they add defensively, as Kalashni-gov pitched in with four blocks and Shumpert wreaked havoc with four steals. The Cavs can afford to allow 100 points and have a defensive rating of 109.0 (which is pretty poor) when they have an offensive rating of 121.5 (which is fantastic), as they did on Sunday. But when the Cavs’ ability to consistently hold teams under 100 is the difference between being boring, plain old good, and being scary, shit-your-pants elite.
Zero – Yes, I pulled the “zero” gimmick twice in this post. Hack, I know. But this zero is for the number of viable NBA starters on the Lakers roster right now. They have a lot of really nice bench guys. It’s a team of all bench players. The following individuals started for the Lakers on Sunday: Ryan Kelly, Tarik Black, Robert Sacre, Wayne Ellington, Jordan Clarkson. Filling out the roster? Wesley Johnson, Carlos Boozer, Jeremy Lin, Ed Davis, and Nick Young. If I polled the casual NBA fan if the Lakers starters were an NBA starting five, the contestants on an episode of Chopped, or the original Steely Dan lineup, I probably would have equal answers for each choice. Yet the Lakers fans and organization try to entice Kevin Love to go to Los Angeles every time they see him, saying, “Kevin, don’t you want to come to Los Angeles and play with all this?” as they spread their arms around them to show a bunch of mediocre players. Not even Lakers can overcome the stigma of being a poorly run organization anymore. I’m delighted by all of this.
25– The number of times the average Cavs fan felt grateful to have David Blatt coaching on the Cavs sideline instead of Byron Scott. I score the Lakers decision to hire Byron Scott at a 10/10 if the goal was to lose as many games as possible. Since leaving the New Jersey Nets after starting 22-20 in the 2003-04 season, Scott has coached his teams to a 280-420 record (.400 winning percentage) and has only qualified for the playoffs twice in ten years. This isn’t meant to be a “trash Scott,” rant, but he’s a dinosaur in today’s NBA. He hates three pointers, and runs no identifiable offense. Certainly the roster Scott was given in Cleveland wasn’t going to raise any banners, and he did allow Kyrie Irving to grow a bit as a point guard. But he’s a relic—the likes of Gregg Popovich, Rick Carlisle, and Steve Kerr will run circles around Scott as long as he’s in the league, and that the Lakers hired a coach that the Cavaliers had fired within two years for the second time is a hugely underrated storyline from a comedy standpoint. While the evaluation of Blatt as a coach is ongoing, every time the camera showed Blatt stalking the sidelines deep in thought within seconds of a shot of Scott sitting perfectly still, incapable of emoting, it was impossible not to feel an overwhelming sense of relief.
If the Cavs’ current trend of TKO’ing opponents early in the second half continues, it should free up Cavs fans to kick their slippers up in their recliners and doze in and out during fourth quarters. That is, of course, unless Cavs fans are interested in watching Matthew Dellavedova command the pick and roll or watching James Jones chuck up a few token threes while hoping the Cavs don’t allow a backdoor cover. Again, these are good problems to have. The Cavs were full left shark on Sunday, but the dastardly Miami Heat coming into the Q on Wednesday night. Get your boooooooooos ready, Cavs fans.
11 Comments
What I really dig about Byron is that he’s the best unintentional tanker. His players give up in the second quarter and he stands like he’s staring at a video of the ulcer eating at his gut. When he came to the Cavs we were supposed to wait for the “Byron Bounce,” the second year when his players bought in. Obviously the Lakers are talent-challenged, but they play defense with the same intensity as his Cavs. Like. none. It’s like his players ignore him, not even hate him.
My fav play was JR’s one-motion catch and cross-court bullett to Love for the 3 – totally unselfish since he had an open shot himself. Did not expect this sort of stuff from him. Otherwise, Kyrie won’t be the headline but he had about a perfect game, so suddenly comfortable whether he’s handling the ball or playing off it. Crazy how quickly he’s internalized how to mesh with LeBron.
It was cool to see some of the ball movement tonight that led to Love’s big night.
I’d still like to see him get more looks down low though.
Sure Love will leave playing with 2 All-Stars in favor of a worse roster than the one he left in Minny. On second thought, since this is Cleveland and Lakers have an amazing history of lucking into stars, it will probably happen.
the Laker fan think tank is under the impression that Durant and Love will team up in the summer of 2016. cannot say it is impossible, but it sure is improbable at this point.
If the Cavs win a title in 15 and/or 16, I could care less if that happened. Just want one…
If I’m the Lakers think tank, I’d think “tank.” Because if Kobe’s still there Durant would have a problem, and if Kobe’s gone why would he choose the rotting carcass of that roster? I would think the Wizards have a better shot at him if he actually wanted to leave OKC. He could keep his good guy image under the pretense of LeBron’s “Coming Home” theme.
Yep. That is definitely part of it (Kobe retiring). And, they are missing the “Kyrie” part of the Cavs-equation. They need their own young budding star to entice both Durant and Love. Then again, if the Cavs or Thunder win a title in either of these next 2 years, then would those stars even consider jumping?
But, hard to blame a Laker fan for seeing Cleveland’s sudden jump and think “that could be us in a couple of years.”
Amen, brother.
This sounds a lot like how fans of the New York Knicks were absolutely certain LeBron was going to go play for them despite LeBron having absolutely no reason to do so. They have about as much chance of being right as those who absolutely believe the Browns will be the next Patriots.
I think it makes too much sense for Durant to go home for him to consider staying with the Thunder. And I like the Thunder. I like Westbrook, Ibaka, Steven Adams, and the new monster that is Mitch McGary. But I don’t think Scott Brooks is a very good game-day coach. I think Durant would find it much more enjoyable playing alongside a talented young PG who actually passes up the ball in crunch time and can create more open shots for Durant. He gets to be the true alpha dog there rather than being 1 to Westbrook’s 1A. It’s his hometown team, of course, and they play in the Eastern Conference which has an easier road to the Finals. And DC may not be the coolest of destination cities, but it’s a more happening place than anywhere in Oklahoma (sorry OKers, not meant as a dig). Paul Pierce is literally just keeping that spot warm for KD.
Honestly, the NBA needs him to go home too. The West is stacked with many good teams, but the East could have the top-2 players in the NBA. That really helps balance things especially with Chicago, Atlanta, Toronto, and possibly other teams rising up too.