Shaquille O’Neal, Charlie Sheen offer advice and help to Johnny Manziel
February 8, 2016When we don’t talk about sports, we talk about Manziel: While We’re Waiting
February 9, 2016Sacramento Kings (21-31) 100
Cleveland Cavaliers (37-14) 120
Box Score
People all over the world celebrated the Chinese New Year on Monday. According to the Los Angeles Daily News, the Chinese New Year is “intricately tied to home and family,” which it contrasted with the American New Year as being about “parades and football games,” which: A. I think is a slightly unfair stereotype; and B. Does a huge disservice to making out with strangers and throwing up in the back of an Uber, other indispensable New Year’s traditions in this country.
What does this have to do with the Cavs? I’m not totally sure. The Cavs gave out Chinese New Year t-shirts at The Q, the NBA shared some “dope graphics” they made for Chinese New Year on Reddit, and there was a creepy, self-aware panda wandering Quicken Loans Arena looking for hugs.
The coming of the new year begins the Year of the Monkey in Chinese culture. But while celebrations of the Year of the Monkey will be temporary and fleeting in Cleveland, the Cavaliers are celebrating the Year of the Pipe all season long; named in honor of J.R. Smith and his most famous indiscreet leaked text message. J.R. continued to knock down threes on Monday against the Sacramento Kings, surpassing a career milestone in the process. He’s playing some of the best basketball of his career and giving the Cavs a huge offensive boost.
So let Monday be remembered as a celebration of the Year of the Monkey and the Year of the Pipe! I suspect the preceding three paragraphs failed to treat an important holiday with the proper reverence reserved for it in Chinese culture; I sincerely apologize to everyone I’ve offended. Anyway, the Cavs won by 20. Let’s check out the box score.
1600 – With his fifth made three in the second half, Pipe-King J.R. Smith became the 17th player in NBA history with 1600 three-pointers.
https://vine.co/v/i1jDrtJrWZx
So what if Stephen Curry’s going to pass Smith in like two weeks and then lap him three times? That’s a significant accomplishment for the volatile Smith, who’s career is never more than reckless moment away from doing something worthy of league banishment. Smith should pass Jason Richardson soon, and is a hair off-pace to catch legend Steve Nash by year’s end, while still-active Dirk Nowitzki should remain out-of-reach. Smith followed up a 22-point evening (on 6-of-13 from three) by creepin’ for some bonus airtime.
J.R., steady creepin. pic.twitter.com/s9MOo5Moc1
— Scott (@WFNYScott) February 9, 2016
Beside his career accomplishments, Smith is one of only 12 Cavaliers to make more than 250 threes, a list that he’s rapidly ascending. Kevin Love isn’t far behind Smith (248, trailing Smith’s 257), but Love’s making them at a slower rate per game (2.1) than Smith (2.6). Smith already has the most games with six made three-pointers in Cavs history with 13, and the second most such games in NBA history with 49 (behind only Curry). Though he’s slightly off pace, Smith could pass Boobie Gibson by the end of the 2016-17 season for third most threes in Cavs history, trailing only Mark Price (802) and some guy named Le’bron Jameis (942) … hmm, never heard of him. What is that — French?
54 to 15 – J.R. Smith is only half of the Cavaliers starting backcourt, though. Kyrie Irving, following up a strong 29-point outing against the Pelicans, dropped 32 on the unsuspecting, err, well, suspecting-but-still-unprepared Kings. The Cavaliers guards combined to bombard the Kings with 54 points on 21-of-39 (53.8 percent) shooting and 11-of-21 (52.3 percent) three-pointers. Meanwhile, the Kings’ starting backcourt of Rajon Rondo and Marco Belinelli mustered a meager 15 points total. Both Irving and Smith deserve some credit for satisfactory defense. Granted, Rondo had 16 assists and is so bad at shooting that defenders can sag into the lane and yawn until he passes the ball — but it’s not like you can blame Smith and Irving for not out-scoring their opposing unit by more than 39 points.
https://vine.co/v/i1jjhlVZl0K
12 – Obviously Irving’s scoring was appreciated (his 32 points tied a season high), but the number of the night was Irving’s 12 assists, which tied a career high. Before Monday, Irving hadn’t had a double-digit assist game all season, and I’ve often lamented his current career low in assists per game (by a wide margin) this season. Monday was only the third 30-point, 10-assist game of Irving’s career, and the first since 2013. It’s been a confusing exercise watching Irving this season, who’s often passed it only as a last resort once he realized he didn’t have anywhere to dribble, or made neutral passes to teammates that didn’t put them in an advantageous scoring position.
On Monday, Irving established his offense early (eight points in the first quarter), but moved the ball to teammates all night. Most of the assists were either of the “keep swinging the ball around the perimeter” variety or “drive-and-dish to the perimeter” variety, which is fine. Kevin Love, LeBron James, J.R. Smith, and Iman Shumpert each had two made field goals assisted by Irving, and Richard Jefferson had four. Irving still needs to work on his pick-and-pop (particularly with Kevin Love) and pick-and-roll passing (particularly with Tristan Thompson) games, but any way Irving wants to involve his teammates in the offense besides panic-passing is welcome. Hopefully Irving will realize after Monday that when he moves it to his teammates, the ball tends to find its way back to him — because the ball is a preachy jerk who likes to set positive examples for generosity.
1 – LeBron James recorded his first triple-double of the season against the Kings, which is remarkable in that he came within one rebound or one assist three different times entering Monday. James’ command of the offense is complete and effortless at times — and I hope contrasting how James plays (which occasionally veers into aimless dribbling) and Irving plays (which constantly veers into aimless dribbling) is instructive. It was the 40th triple double of James’ career. James finished with 21 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists despite sitting the fourth quarter. He did what, ‘Cube?
https://vine.co/v/i1jniQDYvBa
105 – The Cavs reached 105 possessions on Monday, well above their near-slowest in the league pace (according to NBA.com) of 95.12 possessions per game. Whether the increased pace was a triumph of scheme by the Cavaliers, or a byproduct of playing the fastest and worst defensive team in the league.1 Given that we found out less than an hour after the game that the Kings are firing coach George Karl soon (according to ESPN’s Marc Stein), it’s probably the latter. Do what you want, Kings, but Cleveland was hastily firing its coach before it was cool. You and the Knicks be stealin’ our beats next.
100 – The percent chance Timofey Mozgov is a finalist Thursday on “Shaqtin’ a Fool” (after making the cut last week) after this missed dunk. We got a streak! Timofey Mozgov … come on dowwwwwwwwwn!
Extremely – How excited I was to see the Red Panda lady performing at halftime of the Cavs game. If you don’t know the Red Panda, she’s a lady on a unicycle who flips bowls on her head while the tackiest music every plays at an obnoxiously loud volume. If you think that it doesn’t sound that cool, then you’d be dead wrong. From what I can tell, she does 400 NBA halftime shows per year. Is it semi-racist that the Cavs promotional subsidiary or whoever schedules halftimes circled Chinese New Year as the date she had to perform at the Q? Unclear.
There were rumors the Red Panda was retiring last year, but she’s kind of a legend. I’d suggest you watch a low quality Youtube video of her performance, but it really won’t do her talents justice. Like Springsteen, you haven’t seen the Red Panda until you’ve seen her live. #RedPandaForever #Legend
- Before the season started, when discussing playing styles across the league, I wondered, “Is this [fast pace/post-up hybrid] a deliberate style adopted by the Kings, or are they losing the ideological battle? How does Rajon Rondo fit into this? If they want to play with pace, is DeMarcus Cousins, a dominant post presence, compatible with that choice?” Hmm. [↩]
4 Comments
“James’ command of the offense is complete and effortless at time”
The most notable time being when he is the roll man in the PnR.
Happened once last night, needs to happen about 35 more times than that.
Also, Fire Blatt has now officially turned into Fire Moz.
What is wrong with Moz this year, man?
Red Panda is kinda hot, no?
He got his knee operated on, unbeknownst to Cavs. Basically showed up to camp a month out. Didnt cooperate with team in aligning rehab.
He’s had no explosiveness and been in a fog. His mental makeup doesnt handle adversity well either.