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October 13, 2015The Cleveland Cavaliers’ preseason tour brought them to Ohio State’s Schottenstein Center Monday, where they lost a very preseason-y game to the Memphis Grizzlies, 91-81. It was an ugly affair plagued by turnovers, whistles, and some apathetic stretches. The loss drops the Cavs’ preseason record to 0-3, with four games left to play.
Again, it’s preseason, which is to basketball what manual stimulation is to intercourse, and thus isn’t anything to get too excited about. Still, that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun.
A few notes on Cavs-Grizz at the Schott:
47 combined fouls, 36 combined turnovers. There were a bunch of fouls called off the ball — moving screens and the like — which effectively coated the game in molasses. The Cavs scored 13 fast break points, per ESPN’s box score, but it felt like less. Referee Tyler Ford has officiated just 10 NBA games in his career, so perhaps he was a little overzealous.
The Cavs don’t have any true power forwards with Kevin Love injured and Tristan Thompson unsigned, which led to some two-big lineups straight out of the 1990s. Anderson Varejao and Timofey Mozgov started up front Monday, with Sasha Kaun sharing the court with one of them for stretches. The Cavs’ offense suffered from the lack of spacing that one might expect, and things were generally clumsy for the wine and gold. I would bet one of my limbs that we don’t see such lineups when the playoffs roll around.
The Grizzlies’ cohesion showed. Memphis started its likely opening day lineup of Mike Conley, Courtney Lee, Jeff Green, Zach Randolph, and Marc Gasol. That bunch has played loads of minutes together, and the Grizz looked sharp running their basic sets. Gasol is especially a delight to watch; not many NBA players can score 10 points without their feet leaving the floor.
Richard Jefferson could be a darn nice fit. He scored 11 points and grabbed 6 rebounds, knocking down 4-of-8 shots (3-of-6 three-pointers). He’s played in a reserve role long enough to look comfortable spotting up in the corners or on the wings, and he cleared the 40-percent mark from deep in four of his past five seasons. There’s reason for cautious optimism with RJ.
Sasha Kaun looks semi-competent. He didn’t make much of a mark on the stat sheet (3 points, 2 rebounds in 27 minutes), but he’s an experienced player and he doesn’t look lost out there. There are worse 7-footers in the league, and he’s nice insurance to have up front.
J.R. Smith and Mo Williams both sat this one out, making an already thin Cavs team a little thinner. Williams was out just to get some rest, while Smith was resting a sore left hamstring. With those two, Kyrie Irving, and Iman Shumpert all absent, there were plenty of backcourt minutes to go around.
J.R. bought cotton candy. Remember that athletes’ bodies are finely tuned machines.
https://twitter.com/BConnoisseur/status/653718896562831360
Jared Cunningham got plenty of run with Smith and company out, and he was mostly impressive in his 29 minutes. He scored 13 points on 3-of-8 shooting and got to the free throw line 10 times. He has now scored 54 points in three games, highlighted by 25-of-31 from the stripe; that’s a ton of free throws. He was active defensively Monday and drew a couple fouls fighting around screens. He also looks to be one of the Cavs’ more athletic players and threw down a big dunk in transition. He might just mess around and make this team.
Quinn Cook and Austin Daye were the other roster hopefuls to see playing time. Cook had a solid little line of 5 points, 2 rebounds, and 2 assists in 18 minutes, while Daye was extra aggressive, scoring 7 points in 8 minutes. The reserves pulled the Cavs to within 76-75 with five minutes to go, but couldn’t quite close the gap.
Mo spent some time with Austin Carr and Fred McLeod on commentary, which was arguably the most entertaining portion of the broadcast. Topics discussed while Mo had the headset on included:
- The proper form for putting up the goosey three-point celebration. One starts with the standard “ok” hand gesture, with thumb and index finger forming a circle, but the trick to making a goosey is to squish those fingers together a little bit so as to resemble a goose’s beak. Mo gave credit to Jamario Moon for helping with its creation.
- When asked about his return to Cleveland, Mo simply said, “It’s beautiful.”
- Fred and AC gave Mo some guff about Ohio State beating Alabama in last year’s college football playoffs. Mo was a good sport, calling himself an honorary Buckeye who roots for OSU any time they’re not playing Bama. Otherwise, it’s Roll Tide in the Williams household.
- Jared Cunningham caught Mo’s eye. “He’s making a case for himself,” Mo said of the 24-year-old.
- Mo did a live read for a Fox Sports Ohio ticket giveaway promotion, and then Fred handed him the play-by-play reins for a couple possessions. Mo’s performances were endearing, if not evoking memories of Vin Scully.
No one got hurt! Boring as it is, that’s the most important thing.
5 Comments
“Again, it’s preseason, which is to basketball what manual stimulation is to intercourse,”
–I’d say that’s even being generous.
More like “let’s just cuddle.”
Memphis is a terrible matchup for everyone.
We don’t need to be concerned about crafting a roster to beat them unless we think there is a possibility of meeting them in the Finals.
So, unless we antipiate them winning the West, who cares if we lose to them a couple of times during the regular season.
Blatt is tinkering that’s why you didn’t see Mo or JR play. Tonight they’ll play while someone else sits most like LBJ/Mozgov. Things will change as soon as we see Kevin Love able to play. I’m hoping he is cleared for the last couple games although I’m sure the last exhibition game nobody of note will play.
The duo of Randolph/Gasol is a beautiful thing the problem for Memphis is other then Conley all they basically have is Green and he’s shown how undependable he can be especially when it matters most.