NFL finds “insufficient basis” to discipline Johnny Manziel
November 17, 2015The Cavs have lost two straight. Does it matter? While We’re Waiting…
November 18, 2015Cleveland Cavaliers (8-3) 99
Detroit Pistons (6-5) 104
It was only a few days ago that the Cavaliers were boogieing down the highway, doin’ the mess around to eight straight wins and their best start in decades. But they lost sight of the road lip-syncing to the radio and playing the dashboard piano — and swerved onto the wrong side of the highway. So, after a fantastic start to the season in which they were proficient on both offense and defense, the Cavs are suddenly on a losing streak and going the wrong way like John Candy and Steve Martin on their ill-fated drive in Planes, Trains & Automobiles.1
“He’s drunk!” perhaps you’re telling your narrator. “How would he know where the Cavs are going? What a moron.” Maybe you’ll make a boozing gesture with your hands.
The Cavs will, inevitably, be fine. They’re too good. But it’d be in their best interest to turn the car around soon, before they find themselves sandwiched between two speeding Eastern Conference foes in the standings, with sparks from the media flying all around and a facsimile of Lucifer sitting alongside them cackling, “Fire Blatt! Fire Blatt! Hahahahaha!”
Anyway, let’s go behind the box score and see how the Cavaliers lost a gimme on the road against the Detroit Pistons.
12-of-20 – This was the Cavs undoing on Tuesday nigh: 12-of-20 on free throws. In the first three quarters, they were 8-of-14 from the charity stripe, which they misconstrued as a place to donate missed baskets to the Pistons’ cause. Instead of taking a 10-point lead into the fourth frame, they amassed only a six-point lead, a margin slim enough that the Pistons thought they could overcome it.
The free throw troubles were amplified by the Pistons’ success on the line: 25-of-31 (80.6 percent). Reggie Jackson made six free throws in the last 21 seconds of the game. Hell, even Andre Drummond made 3-of-4 free throws in the last three minutes! And he makes free throws at a lower rate than Stephen Curry makes threes! At least LeBron James made 4-of-5 of his free throw attempts on Tuesday (he entered Tuesday shooting 60.5 percent on the season). The Cavs have now shot 29-of-47 from the line in their last two games, and if you want to be as lazy as possible analyzing it (and OH I DO!) you could blame both losses on free throw shooting. If the Cavs want to win on the road, they can’t shoot 60 percent from the free throw line. Simple as pie. (Which, if my grandmother’s Thanksgiving prep is any indication, is actually fairly demanding. But you get the point.)
Kevin Love spoke about free throws following the game, stating that they’re 1) all mental, and 2) not a concern.
19 – LeBron James moved into 19th on the NBA’s all-time scoring list with his 10th point on Tuesday night. He now has an unfathomable 25,213 points. He ought to pass Reggie Miller within the week, and needs to play only until he’s about 50 to pass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most points all-time. Actually, it’s conceivable that he could do it in eight seasons. Whether he can actually do it is worthy of its own debate — that’s basically asking James to play an entire second career at a high level.
If you’re a Cavs fan looking for positives from Tuesday’s game, it’s that James has reattained hyper-efficient nuclear James scoring status: 11-of-21 from the field, 4-of-7 from three (where he looked like he had lost his shot at the start of the season), 4-of-5 from the line, totaling a true shooting percentage of 64.7. James finished Tuesday with an easy 30 points, six rebound, and three assists. Easy for him, anyway. Kind of like how it’s easy for James Bond to karate chop 30 anonymous henchmen to death.
15 – J.R. Smith seemed to break out of his shooting slump on Tuesday with 15 points on 3-of-6 shooting on three-pointers. The Cavs desperately need backcourt scoring without Kyrie Irving and Iman Shumpert. So … 15 points is good. This is the good thing.
-15 – Despite scoring 15 points while on the floor, the Cavs were minus-15 when Smith was on the floor. This was nine points worse than any Cav on Tuesday. This is a bad, bad thing.
11 – Reggie Jackson scored 11 points on 5-of-8 shooting in the first quarter. I’m really using this as the entry point to my rant, that’s filled with both constructive and destructive criticism of the Cavs. The Pistons lost the last four games on their west coast road trip before returning home sometime Monday after a tough back-to-back loser. The Cavs allowed them to feel comfortable early — and it started with Reggie Jackson and the high pick-and-roll.
It was like Mo Williams got caught in a bear trap on every high screen Andre Drummond set — which is basically the only effective play the Pistons have. Granted, it’s a damn good one. But guards like Mo need to fight through the pick to not only slow the ball-handler, but to give the big behind them a fighting chance. Reggie Jackson operated with ease early, the Pistons became comfortable, and he finished with 23 points and 12 rebounds looking like Russell Westbrook Lite in the process.
It wasn’t a great team performance for the Cavs on Tuesday. But Mo only played good defense for one quarter on third, when he leaned into screens and gave Mozgov a chance, Mozgov had no idea where to be on the pick-and-roll and got destroyed by Andre Drummond (Drummond beasted for 25 points and 18 rebounds), J.R. was frequently lost on defense, Kevin Love over-helped or sagged way too far off Ersan Ilyasova (who made four of his six threes), Tristan Thompson was characteristically useless on offense and only had one offensive rebound (Drummond had five), no one on the bench added any offense (Matthew Dellavedova went 1-of-6 shooting).
But there’s the thing: J.R. Smith and Mo Williams shouldn’t be starting. They’re not great defenders (well, they’re mostly bad defenders). They don’t test defenses enough to justify their blasé defense. The free throws were emblematic of what happened tonight, but the Cavs need to remain committed to the playing style they played in third quarter (high pace and high defensive energy). They’ll turn it around soon enough — preferably sooner than later. It’s more important that they’re doin’ the mess around and just messing around.
- It might be a little premature for the Planes, Trains & Automobiles reference as it’s still over a week before Thanksgiving. But it’s one of my favorite movies, so too bad. [↩]
12 Comments
YUCK! The Drummond led Pistons abused the Cavaliers inside and Reggie Jackson delivered a case of whiplash to Mo Williams all night. All three losses have now come against division opponents. Not good. Hopefully a day off and being back home can get the Cavs straightened out because they owe Milwaukee one.
Smith is better off the bench plus he is not 100%. Start Delly with Mo. Delly plays better D than JR and will fight through the pics. Great point that none of these guards are NBA starters. KI was glaringly missed last night.
2 things I have noticed that may end them in the playoffs.
Free Throws – Cmon man, make some free throws this is embareassing
“One on One Offense” – Not moving the ball around, just giving it to one guy and having him make a couple of fakes and ultimately take a contested jumper.
Would we consider starting Mo, Kyrie, Love, Lebron, Mozgov?
Six points from the bench. Siiiiiiiiiix. :/
Can’t blame this on Mo playing D like Mo. Or on unpredictable J. R. being unpredictable (J. R. essence in a nutshell moment : great steal for a breakaway, then blows both free throws to immediately reverse the momentum he created).
Last night was mostly our bigs’ refusal to do the dirty work against Drummond. Moz kept floating mentally, Love wasn’t boxing anyone out and Tristan reverted to the night-off Tristan we haven’t seen in nearly a year. This season, every night there will be opposing players with the date circled. When it’s this sort of big, they can’t just lazily rummage through the toolbox in the fourth quarter. Do the work early, take the crowd out, preserve the star you’ll need fresh in May. In other words, time to start growing up.
The free throws more then anything are an example of what LBJ said about this team not playing hungry or for me at least pissed off. I think the early success against lesser teams may have contributed to the feeling of being hungry. Mind you it is just 11 games into an 82 game schedule and the Cavs are 8-3.
The one on one stuff is a directly related to not moving the ball I agree 100%. As the game was ticking down the Cavs looked like the team we saw a lot of last season LBJ with the ball and his four teammates spread standing around waiting. This led directly to a bad pass from LBJ to Mo as LBJ drove the Pistons collapsed and when LBJ looked to kick the ball back out it was 8 feet to the right of where Mo was standing. This also happened on the last shot Mozgov took to tie the game.
Another resemblance to last season. It’s not just one thing in these losses it’s a number. Bad free throw shooting. Turnovers. Lack of contribution by bench. Terrible defense. Being out rebounded. The worst part is the three losses are within the Cavs division. They need to refocus and get back to TEAM basketball.
Watching Thompson and seeing the boxscore all I could think was, “This is what all that $$$ got?” But to be fair as you mentioned all of the Cavaliers big men struggled.
I’d say KI, Shump, LBJ, Love and Mozgov are your 5 starters when healthy. Let Mo, JR, RJ and TT head the second unit.
And who is scoring off the bench?
At any given time you should not have 60% of your starters off the floor.