Travis Benjamin on future of Browns: “Hopefully it will be a great 2016 season for us”
February 5, 2016Norris Cole has No. 30 retired with LeBron James, New Orleans Pelicans in attendance
February 6, 2016Boston Celtics (30-22) 104
Cleveland Cavaliers (35-14) 103
Box Score
With less than five seconds remaining and the Cleveland Cavaliers leading 103-101 in Friday’s home game against the Boston Celtics, an Evan Turner free throw careened off the side of the rim. As it descended towards Timofey Mozgov on the left block, Amir Johnson groped at Mozgov’s right arm — hindering it from reaching its full height. Mozgov — fierce yet gentle bear-wrangler — failed to summon the irrepressible rage needed from a team’s rim protector and big man when the game’s most important rebound is up for grabs.
Mozgov feebly deflected the ball with his ensnared arm. The ball seemed to hang in air trapped in stasis, waiting for an intrepid rebounder to come rescue it from its tremendous stillness. The ball practically begged to be grabbed by a Cavalier, so that the game which lingered well past what should have been its decisive moment could mercifully be put out of its misery. Please. Pleaaaaaaassssssssssseeeeee grab me! the ball squealed meekly. No Cavalier heeded its call. The ball deflected off Mozgov’s arm, then off the right hip of LeBron James, who was closing in on the ball from the opposite block, and out of bounds. Celtics ball.
It was a fitting metaphor. The game was sitting there, patiently waiting for someone with only the courage to grab the damn thing. None of the Cavaliers did. The Celtics inbounded the ball with 3.1 seconds remaining, and Avery Bradley hit a game-winning three to steal a game that should have belonged to the Cavaliers. So it goes.
https://vine.co/v/iJl5QxlWhBI
It was about as depressing a Cavalier game in recent memory — and there are a few in recent memory that (unfortunately) were notably glum. The last two games in June’s Finals, a Christmas loss to the Warriors, a December 26 bludgeoning in Portland from the Trail Blazers, a 34-point loss to the Warriors at home, and, oh yeah, the loss to the Charlotte Bees from two days before all immediately come to mind.
But none of those games filled me with quite the level of hopelessness I felt on Friday against the Celtics. Despair and shadows fill my mind. Fortunately, Step Brothers is on Comedy Central as I type this and I have some leftover stuffed peppers in the fridge. So I guess it could be worse.
32 – There are a lot of reasons Friday’s contest against the Celtics was especially infuriating for Cavs fans, but the primary reason was that the team was brilliant for stretches — particularly in the first quarter. The Cavaliers scored 32 points in the first quarter and appeared as if they were going to beat the Celtics by 50. The Cavs shot 57.1 percent (12-of-21) in the quarter and led by as many as 15 points. They pinged the ball back-and-forth like Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy clowning around with a pair of irons at the driving range. They forced eight turnovers. LeBron James (8 points), Kevin Love (8), J.R. Smith (6), and Kyrie Irving (5) each scored more than five points. The Cavs dominated the first quarter.1 Kevin Love dunked again!
https://vine.co/v/iJLjFaja3vP
It was the tenth time this season that the Cavs scored more than 30 points in the first quarter. It was also the sixth time since the start of January and fourth time since Tyronn Lue became head coach (in only eight games) that they scored 30 in the opening inning. That’s why it was so frustrating. The Cavs have looked like Golden State Jr. during their first quarters of late. I guess if there’s a silver lining from Friday’s game, it’s that the Cavs still look indestructible at times. But when they came out looking like world-beaters after a humbling loss Wednesday in Charlotte and they couldn’t sustain it for more than a few minutes — it was demoralizing to the Cavs, when those glimpses at perfection should have been demoralizing to the Celtics.
17 – The Cavaliers scored 17 points in the second quarter. Just as fast as the good Cavs came (err, wrong verb), appeared on Friday, they went just as fast. The Cavs went to halftime with a sliver of a lead.
37.9 – After a hot start (57.1 percent in the first quarter), the Cavs shot only 37.9 percent for the remainder of the game, a smidge below the magical 40 percent barrier of futility. It’s hard to find the one statistical defect in how the Cavs played after the first quarter. Other the 37.9 percent shooting, the numbers weren’t terrible. Their assist numbers weren’t awful (21 assists — just below their season average of 22.2), the turnover numbers were okay (14 — just above their season average of 13.7), 14 steals-plus-blocks (well above their season average).
But the bad shooting number (25-of-66 on field goals after the first quarter, 5-of-23 from three) were a reflection of the qualitative things that went wrong — mostly a general malaise on offense (well, both ends really) and a lack of purposeful ball movement. The Cavs went from beautiful psycho-connectivity in the first half to total unfamiliarity. It was weird, uncomfortable, and awkward to watch, like watching some inspired wife-swapping gone terribly wrong.
21-of-35 – The Cavaliers shot 35 free throws on Friday (good!), but made only 60.0 percent of them (baaaaaaaaad!). In fact, if one removes the fourth quarter, when James and Kyrie Irving went a combined 11-of-13 from the free throw line, the Cavs were only 9-of-18 (50.0 percent) on freebies, which were free in name only on Friday. If the Cavs made their season average (72.6 percent, which is already pretty lousy), they theoretically win Friday’s game by three points, and Cavs fans are only mildly annoyed instead of incredibly bummed.
Zero – The amount of concern shown by the Cavaliers bench when Kevin Love went down with a hip injury in the third quarter. Well, in their defense, it’s hard to express sympathy for a teammate when using all your mental energy on not playing defense and not running the offense. That anti-focus is mentally draining.
Luckily, it appears (for now) that Love will be okay. But, for my health and his, let’s never play Kevin Love against the Celtics ever again before he gets impaled by a churro in the front row diving for a loose ball.
Extremely – J.R. Smith fouled out on Friday after scoring 20 points. Of Wednesday’s game against the Hornets, WFNY’s Will Gibson said: “Very — That’s how J.R. Smith-y J.R. Smith was.” Well, J.R. Smith was extremely J.R. Smith-y on Friday. Smith was good (20 points, 5-of-10 on threes), and oh so bad (three turnovers, a total ball-stopper on offense, fouled out). It all culminated on the bad foul call when Evan Turner drove to the hoop with ten seconds remaining, which led to the free throw attempt mentioned at the top of the post. It wasn’t a foul, but we all know how it goes for J.R. Smith — the cops always find him holding a knife over a puddle of red liquid. Maybe it’s spaghetti sauce, but he’s going to get handcuffed before he can explain himself. Smith should have let Turner go to the hoop unimpeded. Anyway, J.R. was one flagrant foul and one bong hit away from this being the quintessential J.R. Smith game.
+8 – Mozgov is going to catch flak for not securing the rebound at the end that should have won the game. But he had the best plus/minus of any Cavaliers on Friday with a +8. Mozgov brought some much needed energy, and had the play of the night on a thunderous dunk in the third quarter that should have energized the Cavs. But he’ll only be remembered for the missed rebound and the bad help defense a few plays earlier, when him and James screwed the pooch on a simple side pick-and-roll.
https://vine.co/v/iJlrxLWrHnb
13 – LeBron James scored 13 points in the fourth quarter. It was encouraging because it kept the Cavs in the game when it looked they would cave. But James, like the whole team, looked “off” in the last few quarters. James finished with 30 points, seven rebounds, four assists, and six turnovers in an emblematic, disjointed game.
4 – Iman Shumpert finished with four points on Friday. Shumpert hasn’t scored in double digits since January 18 — not a great sign when he’s supposed to be a key component off the bench and plays 24.4 minutes per game. Over his last 10 games, Shumpert’s shooting 34.0 percent, shooting 32.0 percent from three, scoring less than five points, and playing less impressive defense than fans are accustomed to. He also didn’t exactly contest Avery Bradley’s game-winning jumper. Maybe he was worried about fouling? Maybe he wasn’t. In either event, James was “noticeably pissed.”
LeBron James said Avery Bradley shouldn't have been that open on that shot. Iman Shumpert was guarding Bradley. LeBron is noticeably pissed.
— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) February 6, 2016
It was a disheartening loss for the Cavs for a February game. Things shouldn’t matter this much before the All-Star break, and I think it would be a poor decision to make any drastic roster moves. But the team and front office have done everything to express their urgency about this season — except play like it on a consistent basis. It felt like last Saturday’s win against the San Antonio Spurs was a breakthrough, but less than seven days later it’s back to the drawing board.
When Cavs fans see how spectacular the team played against the Spurs and in the first quarter of Friday’s Celtics game, but the team can’t sustain that for more than brief episodes, it’s reasonable to wonder if the team has a prayer at defeating a hyper-focused team like the Spurs or Warriors. You could hear the defeat and resignation in Fred McLeod’s voice after Avery Bradley hit the game-winning shot on Friday. I’m not sure why it felt that way for a February game for a really good team, but it did.
There are only so many roster moves, coaching changes, wake-up losses, and players-only meetings a team can have before you’re left with the firm reality. It’s like Ray Liotta said in Goodfellas. “Then finally, when there’s nothing left … when you can’t borrow another buck from the bank or buy another case of booze. You bust the joint out. You light a match.”2 After all the shakeups and desperate moves the Cavs have made in the last season-and-a-half, if they can’t play inspired basketball at home after a loss against a team that they should despise, lighting a match feels like the only thing left to do.
8 Comments
Cleveland fired the head coach that lead them to two Finals victories and a first place record the following year. They deserve every loss they get.
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Lue’s rotations are terrible. TERRIBLE.
Why does he insist on inserting bench players when the current lineup is building leads and momentum.
Keep your foot on the gas. You see how well it works for a certain team out west.
Okay, everybody, step away from the ledge. Nice and easy.
http://img.ifcdn.com/images/2177bfed4edf9e16e534dbdaed613c9d556de004dfe5e3bb1bf81c2bf8befe0c_1.gif
Is something up with the site? Main page is blank.
I drove up to Cleveland for this game. It was really rough with the exception of the first 3 minutes and the penultimate few. The only thing saving my hope is how last season’s trajectory started, stalled, and finished. The most revealing moment: Lebron at the corner of the key, standing straight up, pointing to the corner and yelling at Kyrie while Thomas dribbled up to and around him for an uncontested layup; Lebron looked like a coach, not a player. Runner up moment: Coaches now huddle together aside from the players on timeouts and draw up plays, then approach the players and dictate them, very interesting.
I was the biggest Cavs fan that I know. I watched most games even when they stunk. However this cast of players, lead by LeBratt sickens me. Took all the joy out of rooting for a contender.