NBA to Cavs: The Q needs upgrades
May 26, 2015Kevin Love cleared to travel with team
May 26, 2015So are the Cleveland Cavaliers the bad guys of the NBA now? It wasn’t enough to have LeBron James, the biggest baddest big bad in basketball. Now their play is defined by an undrafted Aussie who only stuck in the league because he never hesitated to dive into the muckiest of on-court muck? Now their most important forward is not sweet-shooting Kevin Love, but gung-ho Tristan Thompson? Now the Cavs are the team that plays too hard, that plays too reckless, that prioritizes getting to the ball above all else? And this is a bad thing?
On the contrary: it seems to me that the Cavaliers have stumbled upon an identity. They have been forced to re-invent themselves thanks to injury. No longer can they rely on individual offensive brilliance. They still do that in stretches, but with LeBron James’ burden growing with every bump and bruise, others have needed to contribute more. In lieu of an offensive phenom like Kyrie Irving, the Cavs’ play is increasingly informed by the play of guys like Tristan Thompson and Matthew Dellavedova.
Folks from the Bay are sure to disagree, but these Cavs may be the toughest bunch left in the NBA Playoffs.
The focus is generally, and rightly, on the game’s more tangible elements – shooting efficiency, turnover percentage, usage rates, and the like. But let us not think that the growing basketball-wide interest in and understanding analytics means intangibles don’t have their place. Team identities are largely intangible. They are informed by stats and analysis, yes, but also by the feeling that we get watching a team. They’re the things we remember, and they are often tied to numbers, but not always. The 1987 Lakers are remembered for being the premier uptempo Showtime outfit, but they played at just the tenth-fastest pace in the NBA that year, barely ahead of Lenny Wilkens’ 31-win Cavs.
The Cavs lost their most handsome star. They have made up for it by playing ugly
The Cavs lost their most handsome star. They have made up for it by playing ugly
For much of this season, I didn’t know what the Cavs’ identity was. It was hard to figure out when they have had at least three different identities in the same season. They rode the struggle bus early in the season, with rumblings of discontent hanging over the proceedings like a stale fart. Then they became a post-bowling trip bulldozer, fulfilling some of that prodigious offensive potential and looking borderline unguardable. All was looking swell, at least on the offensive end, until Kevin Love went out.
The Cavs lost their most handsome star. They have made up for it by playing ugly. Out with pristine floor spacing, in with attacking the glass like piglets after the mother teat. They’ve swapped out Love’s shooting for Tristan’s ‘termination and Irving’s creativity for Delly’s doggedness. They’ve even stopped whining about calls.
(Okay, they haven’t totally stopped whining about calls. LeBron failed to get back on defense in the final minute of Game 3, before a Tristan Thompson block saved the day. It’s silly to focus on one lackluster effort when he put together such a terrific all-around performance, but it could have been really, really bad. Perhaps I grade LeBron on an unfair curve.)
But still. These guys are tough. They play basketball how I imagine Woody Hayes might have liked it — three-pointers and clouds of dust. The way they own the paint and attack rebounds brings to mind what Stan Love told his son once upon a time. A young Kevin Love wanted to play football, especially quarterback, but he was over the weight limit and his parents were worried about him getting hurt. Kevin wanted an outlet for his aggression, so his old man took him to a court, pointed to the paint, and said,
This is your football. You don’t need any pads down here; there’s no weight limit. So you can really take your anger out down there. This is going to be your football.1
Kevin has been out of the lineup for what feels like months, but the Cavs have done right by Papa Love in their fierce protection of the interior and pursuit of loose balls. They have become the sort of team that Cleveland fans yearn for on the gridiron. It isn’t the cleanest comparison, but there are at least some similarities between, say, offensive rebounding and offensive line play. Whether a ball is fumbled away near the goal line or the free throw line, the objective is the same: get the damn thing.
It probably goes without saying that I have no problem with Matthew Dellavedova’s floor-diving tactics (WFNY’s Craig Lyndall covered the Aussie’s alleged dirty play nicely). It’s unfortunate that Kyle Korver got injured, but I think it’s a large leap to suggest that Delly did anything wrong.
No, I think Delly and the Cavs are playing the game how it should be played. Some will surely disagree, favoring the ball movement of the Hawks and Warriors, or perhaps the analytics-driven threes-and-frees approach of the Houston Rockets.
If that leaves the Cavs to be the bad guys, fine. Make way for the bad guys.
11 Comments
So…
Delly is our Bruce Bowen
Shump our Tyronn Lue
Tristan Thompson our Dennis Rodman
JR Smith our Steve Kerr/Robert Horry
Mozgov our Duncan (defense-only…only on the defensive side…not Timmah on offense, okay?)
Yeah, I’m okay with it going that way.
“…with rumblings of discontent hanging over the proceedings like a stale fart.”
“…attacking the glass like piglets after the mother teat.”
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I like to think of he Cavs more as Tempered Steel than “Bad Boys”. When asked what the Cavs will do against the Hawks I said “they will sweep and the Hawks won’t know what hit them”. Baring some injuries and some variation that couldn’t be predicted, I think that has been true. The Cavs became tough against Boston and were tempered by Chicago (also a tough, tempered team). Atlanta is a very good team, but they have not had to dig deep for anything this season. They don’t know adversity while the Cavs have been dwelling in it for a few weeks.
We’ll see where things stand health wise on June 4th, but I suspect the Warriors are in for a shocking experience when they take their best swing at Cleveland and the Cavs respond with a “Is that all you have?” attitude.
P.S. I guess Atlanta now has a clue what truly tough means, but it’s 3-0 and it’s too little too late.
I smell somethin’ burnin’ roast ’em up Cavs and Chef Delly!!!
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LeBron James is our Michael Jordan!!!
Just win, baby.
It’s not just the rebounding and 50/50 balls. This team has not had more than one quarter per playoff game when they weren’t bringing it defensively. And those few quarters always seem to be the first quarter. A lock down defensive team is not what we could have imagined in November.
Also, how bout a little love for the 3rd quarter dominance of every game, and the halftime coaching adjustments that implies? Wasn’t so long ago that we had every right to suspect that someone was spiking the gatorade with quaaludes. Now the opponent is lucky to get 20 points out of the break.
Let’s face it, run and gun teams hate contact and physical teams. That’s why Atlanta is whining.
And this is what will make for a great finals match-up if it’s Cavs v Warriors.
LeBron James is our MJ defensively and scoring, but Karl Malone in the post and Magic with his distribution and … well, there is no one else that ever played to even compare what he does on fast breaks.
Too much?
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