Cleveland State loses to 3-18 Illinois-Chicago in foul-riddled OT affair
January 30, 2016WFNY on WWE: Sorting out the post-Rumble scene
January 31, 2016San Antonio Spurs (39-8) 103
Cleveland Cavaliers (34-12) 117
Box Score
Every once in a while the Cavs have one of those games where it all just works. Everything clicks into place. Penetrators penetrate, shooters shoot, rebounders rebound, and on and on. Saturday night’s game against the San Antonio Spurs was such a game. The visitors were without Tim Duncan, still an essential cog in his 19th season, which takes a touch of shine off of the win. On the other hand, the Cavs played — and won — in Detroit 24 hours prior. Adjust the sliders however you please. A 14-point win over the Spurs surely counts for something.
But you know what? To hell with the narratives for a minute. This was a helluva fun basketball game, and not just because the Cavs won. These two teams bring out a lot of good in each other, and it manifests itself in aesthetically pleasing ways. Whereas last season’s showstopper was chiefly a shootout between Kyrie Irving and Tony Parker and the matchup a couple weeks ago was more of a LeBron James vs. Kawhi Leonard affair, this one was more about whole-team expression. Both teams played with remarkable balance, and on this night, the Cavs were better.
Every Cavalier that you’d want to get involved was. Kevin Love led the way early with 14 first-quarter points on 5-of-7 shooting. LeBron dominated the third quarter, scoring 16, and Kyrie scored 10 in a highlight reel fourth. Tristan Thompson worked the boards, while J.R. Smith hit some threes early and Matthew Dellavedova hit some late. Iman Shumpert was solid in relief and Timofey Mozgov even had some nice moments (albeit a bad one or two as well).
Both teams shot well, both teams took care of the ball, and the result was a delightful Saturday night ballgame. Let’s look at the numbers — but first, let’s look at Kyrie slicing through the whole of San Antonio.
https://vine.co/v/i5IbwxLVbFH
37-30 — We had ourselves a 37-30 game on our hands at the end of the first quarter, which accurately foretold what sort of game we were in for. It was high-scoring, fast-paced, well-played ball all around. The Cavs and Spurs combined to shoot 54 percent in the first frame, including 55 percent on threes and 100 percent from the free throw line. Only three turnovers were committed, and 17 of the 26 total baskets were assisted. It was beautiful.
71, 17, and 16 — In the spirit of balance and togetherness, let us lump LeBron James, Kevin Love, and Kyrie Irving together. The three combined for 71 points, 17 rebounds, and 16 assists. (They went for 77, 19, and 13 on Friday.) LeBron led the scoring with 29, with Love and Irving each notching 21. The trio shot 27-of-47 (57 percent), with Love’s 8-of-13 effort the most efficient of the bunch.
As he was Friday night in Detroit, Love was involved early and often. He scored 11 of the Cavs’ first 23 points, and in a variety of ways. He knocked down a couple open threes — please please please keep knocking down open threes — and that seemed to embolden him to be more aggressive inside.
While Love controlled the action early, James took his time getting into the game.1 He scored a relatively paltry eight points in the first half — Kawhi Leonard surely had something to do with that — but dished out six assists. It was in the third quarter that he made his presence felt. Kawhi be damned, LeBron scored 16 points in the third quarter on 6-of-9 shooting. He was flying around like young LeBron, including a good old-fashioned chasedown block on Manu Ginobili. (The block was enabled, it should be said, by J.R. Smith forcing Ginobili to slow down.)
https://vine.co/v/i5Iz3ZTBaAd
Kyrie, meanwhile, did his Mr. Fourth Quarter thing. He scored 10 in the final period on 5-of-7 shooting, and it felt like each bucket was highlight-worthy. Irving was running downhill all night, and many of the Cavs’ pretty passing possessions started with his penetration. Others were just Kyrie being Kyrie. Take another look at him Shammgod-ing his way through the defense.
https://vine.co/v/i5Ih5BvMlgg
26 — Just so it’s stated for the record: LaMarcus Aldridge only played 26 minutes due to foul trouble. He picked up two in the game’s first six minutes, and then his third when Gregg Popovich left him on the floor. He played pretty well while he was out there (offensively, anyway), scoring 15 points on 7-of-11 shooting.
14-7 — The Cavs won the battle of fast break points by a 14-to-7 margin. The Spurs allow an average of 11 such points per game and the Cavs allow 10. It wasn’t an enormous part of the game, but it is an excuse to show LeBron James tossing Patty Mills aside en route to an and-one.
https://vine.co/v/i5IdbAUUPDW
6 — Not to disparage future opponents, but the Cavs have six winnable games ahead of them before All-Star Weekend. They play at Indiana and Charlotte, then come home for Boston, New Orleans, Sacramento, and the Lakers. They scored 114 or more in each of the past four games, all wins. Let’s see if they can keep that going and fire off a nice midseason run.
- Part of that may have had to do with his starting the game wearing the wrong shorts. He changed during an early timeout. [↩]
33 Comments
Psychologically, the Cavs had to have this game, and they played like it. Love nailing all those early shots took the pressure off everyone and the cheapo third foul called against Aldridge really stopped the Spurs cold. (Speaking of fouls, how was West’s intentional elbow to Love’s head after he scored a basketball play, and why was he not ejected?).
LeBron looked gassed by the end of the third quarter, as did Kyrie by the mid-fourth but man, some of his moves were just sick. And if Delly’s going to both score and do his pit bull defense thing I don’t know how, barring injury, Mo’s ever getting off the bench until garbage time.
If they didn’t come out and punch an elite team in the mouth the murmurings would have just lingered even as they rolled through the next week or two. This was good, and very necessary.
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Yes, this was must-win game for the Cavs, making it that much sweeter. Delly continues to impress this year. Love that guy.
I read this after every game, comments and all, and figure its time to get in the fun.
After watching the warriors dismantle the spurs earlier this week I have to wonder if this is the rubric to beating this spurs team. They just don’t have the speed and stamina with an aging roster to handle young players coming at them full speed in transition for 48 minutes.
Another note, Jason Lloyd of cleveland.com pointed out the cavs changed their approach on pick and roll defense to more of a hard show and long recover for the big man. This is more in line with Boston and the Clippers approach. I bring this up only to say that of all the teams in the west, the Clippers have given the warriors the most trouble this season.
I love the way this team seems to be finding roles in the halfcourt and finding their places in the game. Love gets the first quarter, once he spaces the floor and gets defenses worries about him on the pick and pop the floor is wide open for Lebron and Kyrie. Kyrie pointed out after Lue’s first game that more passes doesn’t always equal better shots, which had me scratching my head about whether or not he was on board with the new system, but I think this game shows you that both isolation and ball movement can work together. You saw the cavs using the isolation to beat the original defender, then making extra pass after extra pass until magically finding delly everytime for the wide open 3.
Great day to be a cavs fan.
This was the win a lot of fans were looking for.
Thanks for being a loyal reader and welcome to the fray.
It means nothing, but I find it humorous that the Cavs offense has ratcheted up since the defensive assistant took the main job.
For some reason this made me think of this old ad campaign.
Offense has gone up while the defense has gone down but hey as long as the players are happy right?
Either Kevin Love is really pissed he wasn’t named as an All-Star or he’s really happy David Blatt was fired. Maybe it’s both.
Brian Windbag I mean Windhorst reported after the game that “reportedly” the Cavs are aggressively seeking a wing defender as an upgrade for Richard Jefferson. I’m in favor of this. Ideally I’d like a guy who could play both SF and PF for lineup flexibility.
Btw saw Love at the 5 last night. This needs to happen as often as match-ups allow.
Windhorst used to be a good reporter. ESPN must have changed him.
Having a better boss helps in any job
Couldn’t agree more about this team finding their roles. I was reluctant about this team speeding up their PACE, but it plays into the strengths of Kyrie, Love, and JR. Those guys are able to get in a better rhythm in this style of play because they are offensive minded guys and don’t have to take huge hits to their numbers this way. Focus on ball movement/getting Love involved in the first quarter, have Kyrie be the closer, and let LBJ spread his aggressiveness out during the entire game. LBJ has been playing like he was in his mid 20s.
Kyrie’s one on one ball works a lot better once everyone else has already gotten involved, and I think everyone else can collect themselves and focus more on the defensive end when Kyrie goes on one on one spurts in the second half. It lets Kyrie be Kyrie, but within the structure of the team’s best interests.
Love played with a different physicality/aggressiveness/mindset last night, which was also good to see. He’s never going to be a great defender in one on one situations on the block (although I would argue he is a significantly better overall defensive piece than people give him credit for), but it’s a good sign when he battles with guys like Aldridge.
On a final note, not to take anything away from this team, but the Spurs didn’t have Duncan for this game. This may be his last go around with this team, and I think last night will be motivation for him to show that he is still extremely valuable to this team.
Mo is valuable as insurance to Kyrie, but he’s in a tough spot because his game is so similar to Kyrie’s game, except at this stage in his career it’s not nearly as good. I’d rather have a healthy Kyrie get more shots/minutes than Mo get 10-15 minutes in every game. Mo can sort of serve as a wild card if the Cavs go cold.
I don’t necessarily see Delly as taking Mo’s minutes because they do such different things. Delly has been lethal as a spacer this year, and can serve as a facilitator who looks to move the ball as well. He’s a great compliment to Kyrie/LeBron when he’s in the game because of his ability to hit a wide open three pointer and almost function as a shooting guard when Kyrie or LBJ dominate the ball. I also think he has done a better job than anyone guarding Steph, although he may struggle defending more explosive guards.
Good point on Duncan, I don’t know how his lack of mobility would have fared in a game with this much pace. I was scratching my head at points during this game looking at the spurs roster and wondering how they have such an impressive record. Solid defense and taking care of the ball I supposed, but its nothing like golden state which is bringing player after player off the bench who could start on most other teams in the league.
Duncan can’t move like he used to, but he is still one of the best defensive centers in the game, and the Spurs are a substantially better defensive team when he is in their lineup at center as opposed to Aldridge or West.
Always, always feel like Popovich is playing mind games with other teams. He wants them to feel overconfident going into a series so he can steal one from them when they come out flat.
I’d like to as well. Jefferson started out ok, but now looks like a slightly fresher corpse than Shawn Marion. Would be nice to see someone with something left in the tank ala Andre Iguodala.
PS. Careful…according to some in these parts…Windhorst is a trusted “insider” whose word is gold. I tend to agree with you…he’s become a typical ESPN windbag. Let’s hope there’s some truth to this rumor of an upgrade though.
Not sure if it means nothing, but it’s certainly a fun twist. Let’s hope there’s something to the increased offense and new rhythm of play…and that when they need to ratchet up the defense come playoff time, they can do it.
Teams tighten up defense in the playoffs. They should be fine.
If the team’s scoring faltered when Delly enters – as it did his first 1 2/3 seasons here – Mo would absolutely be getting those minutes. They signed Mo to make sure there were still multiple effective scoring options when Kyrie sits. But Delly has turned that upside down by so quickly developing offense that meshes with his teammates – the scoop/Delly-oop option, the catch and shoot three. Two years ago he looked slow-footed and overmatched. If he develops a couple more things, maybe a transition pull up J like Mo’s and a mid-range shot using glass, the Cavs are screwed. He’s a restricted FA after the season and someone will offer him starting PG money.
Very true. He looks like he got in better shape this off-season (he looks slimmer to me) and worked on his game inside the three point line. Also, he doesn’t get a lot of credit for it, but it’s difficult to find anyone who hits 44% of their threes in this league.
Austin Daye is available…and cheap.
LBJ is an SI guy, so Windy is screwed now. 😉
Great points but I think Jason Lloyd writes for Akron-Beacon Journal.
Cleveland Sports Talk Radio reacts to a great win over the 2nd best team in the league.
“BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CAVS DEFENSE!!!!!”
Better huh?
I believe the Cavs have over $10M in exceptions. I’m hoping for someone better then Daye.
If the Cavaliers are going to play the Warriors at their game then Love better play the way he currently is at center and Griffin better find at least one more frontcourt player who can move offensively and defensively. Draymond Green is the key.
Do you feel Lue has shown himself to be a worse coach than Blatt? That the team is responding less to his style of leadership?
Now that things have cooled off, may be time to start letting go of the emotion and getting back to objective reality…
It’s four games you can’t say better or worse. At least I can’t. That’s called reality!
It’s ok to let yourself enjoy the Cavs again 🙂 https://media4.giphy.com/media/Dvw2lJqlTuJmo/200_s.gif
It’s a charade ya know just like Johnny Manziel out of college. But just like that you watch and see what happens. Golden State will be like Michael Jordan’s Bulls. Current Cavs will be like Craig Ehlo on the ground holding his head in disbelief.