The Cavs March to the playoffs, the Delly problem, and homemade luge: While We’re Waiting…

Happy Tuesday WFNY!

And happy March to you all as well! We can finally say good riddance to February and prepare for the inevitable thaw that is around the corner. March Madness, Shamrock Shakes, corned beef and cabbage, and all that good stuff that comes with March.

In the NBA, March is moving month. It’s the last real chance teams have to make a surge to improve seeding or in some cases just to get into the playoffs. While the regular season doesn’t end until mid-April, most teams only play a small handful of games in April, with some teams resting players and others shutting down their players for the season. But March? March is where teams make their moves.

For the Cavaliers, this is potentially problematic. Cleveland plays fifteen games in March, with only five of those being at home. Those road games include last Sunday’s Houston game along with upcoming matchups in Toronto, Atlanta, Dallas, San Antonio, Miami, Milwaukee, and Memphis. The timing is perhaps a bit unfortunate with the Cavaliers being a bit banged up at the moment. But you know what? Every team is banged up right now. This is the NBA, and with the brutally compact schedule these teams play, everyone is hurting and tired to some degree.

That’s why this road-heavy schedule is the ultimate test of this team. If the Cavaliers can come together and work as a team to overcome it, it just might be the catalyst for a Championship run. If they continue to let the offense devolve into standing around and watching LeBron James play isolation basketball.

I know a lot of people felt pretty good about that Houston game. After all, the Cavaliers went into Houston and, without Kyrie Irving, lost by two points in overtime mostly because LeBron missed a bunch of free throws. So it makes sense to say “Well, with Kyrie back in the lineup and LeBron shooting even close to his 73% average from the line, the Cavaliers would have won.” And that’s probably true, even if it does overlook that Houston was without Dwight Howard themselves.

But that’s not the point. The thing that concerned me the most about that game was how far backwards the offense moved. When you compare and contrast the way the offense played in the Golden State game with the Houston game, the results are staggering. The Cavaliers played pretty good team offense against the Warriors, the NBA’s top defense in terms of efficiency. For whatever reason, against the Rockets the Cavaliers slowed themselves down as the game went on and by the end it was pretty much LeBron going one-on-five again. Some of that is probably due to Kyrie being out. Some of it was probably due to the game feeling like a playoff game.

And that last sentence is the scary part. NBA playoff games almost always slow down to halfcourt offense with a lot of isolation plays. On the one hand, this sounds pretty ok for the Cavaliers, seeing as how they have two of the best isolation players in the NBA. On the other hand, though, the Cavaliers have seen most of their success this season come when the offense is moving the ball with guys working off the ball to setup the extra pass situation.
It’s not worth worrying about one or two games. For the most part, the Cavaliers offense has been excellent since LeBron came back from his injury break. The team simply needs to avoid falling into the isolation trap when playing good teams on the road. A month of bad basketball in March will eliminate any chance of moving up to the two seed in the East.

*****

What to do with Delly?

Is Matthew Dellavedova a problem for the Cavaliers? It’s funny. On a horrible team last year, everyone loved Delly. There were no shortage of people saying ridiculous things on Twitter such as “I would trade Kyrie before I’d get rid of Delly”¹ Now this year, on a Championship contending team, Delly seems to be public enemy #1 while everyone is back on Team Kyrie. Funny how that works, I suppose. Losing makes people say and do funny things.

But is Delly really that big of a problem? I suppose that depends on who you ask. If you ask Coach David Blatt, he must not think so. In Kyrie’s absence, it’s Dellavedova who gets the bulk of the replacement minutes. And multiple times when members of the media have asked questions about Delly, Coach Blatt has scoffed at any notion that he’s not good to play for this team.

If you ask seemingly anyone else, though, Delly is at least to some degree a problem. While I personally don’t terribly mind Delly as a backup PG on this team², I understand why there is growing pessimism toward the second-year undrafted free agent guard. The stakes are a lot higher now, and the margin for error is ever shrinking.

William Bohl wrote an interesting piece for Fear the Sword which tackles the Delly situation. He writes:

A few things stand out. First things first, he’s not good at finishing around the basket whatsoever. In fact, no player in the league who has taken at least 25 shots within 8 feet of the rim is worse at converting them. Secondly, he’s clearly more comfortable shooting from the right side of the floor than the left. In fact, if you tally his three-point attempts from the right corner, right wing and straight ahead, he’s a 48% shooter. From everywhere else, though? Just 27.9%.

Despite the fact that he’s a very good catch-and-shooter from the right side of the floor, hunting for his own shots isn’t really his modus operandi. In fact, only a handful of players have a lower usage rate than Dellavedova. That fact is not an indictment in and of itself; there are plenty of ways to bring value to the offensive end without shooting the ball.

The problem is, Delly doesn’t really do any of them. He attempts just 0.6 free throw attempts per game, one of the lowest rates in the league. He doesn’t rebound at a high rate, isn’t an exceptional passer (5.0 assists per-36 minutes) and ranks in the 10th percentile as a pick-and-roll ball handler, per Synergy Sports. Nearly a quarter of the possessions he uses off pick-and-roll action end in turnovers, as a matter of fact.Cleveland’s offense is nearly three points better per-100 possessions when he’s off the floor entirely.

The whole piece is definitely worth checking out. It certainly opened my eyes a little more to just how ineffective Delly has been this season. Baron Davis is starting to sound better and better.

*****

And now for something fun

And what could be more fun than a homemade luge track? The answer is: “Practically nothing!”

I seriously want to try this sometime. Now I can’t wait for the next winter and big snowstorm! Right?

*****

New album(s) of the week

It’s a tie this week. Sort of. There’s a big part of me that wants to give the nod to Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. Oasis is one of my absolute favorite bands. Or, well, I guess I have to say there “were”. Volatile brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher just couldn’t put their differences aside for the greater good, and so the band splintered apart. Now Liam is releasing solo music under the High Flying Birds moniker. As someone who loved Oasis, I like his new album “Chasing Yesterday” quite a bit. There are moments that I can feel the Oasis spirit in the songwriting. But, it’s just not the same. Noel simply doesn’t have the same heart and attitude in delivery that his brother Liam had.

But alas, I’m giving the nod to Swervedriver’s new album, “I Wasn’t Born to Lose You”. This band was part of the early 90s British shoegaze scene, and widely considered one of the more influential artists in the genre. The band broke up sometime around 1998, reunited in 2008, and now have released their first album since 1998. The sound isn’t quite the same as those early 90s shoegaze records, but there are still plenty of lush tones and serene songwriting to excite anyone who appreciates this niche genre of music.

I definitely recommend giving the album a listen.

*****

That’s all I have. I’ll see you fine folks next week!

1. Yes, that is a real thing that was frequently, and I mean FREQUENTLY stated on Twitter. Everyone loved Delly and couldn’t wait to get rid of Kyrie. [↩]
2. The way I see it, if Kyrie is out for any reason whatsoever, it really doesn’t matter anymore who the backup is. [↩]