ECF Game One Numbers and Words

For the first time in these playoffs, the Cavaliers suffer the bitter taste of defeat, falling in a nail biter, 107-106. And just like that, the sky is falling, the other shoe has dropped, and panic and pandemonium has set in. Just one day ago everyone seemed to believe that because Orlando lost a couple games to Philly and Boston that somehow that meant the Cavaliers should have no problem with them. Now, today, it’s as if the series is over. The truth lies where it always does, somewhere between the extremes. Orlando is an incredibly good basketball team and one that creates a lot of problems for the Cavs. The series, however, is anything but over, and the Cavaliers will look to do their thing in Game 2 and see if they can make the proper adjustments. You can read Craig’s recap of the game here, but what follows is my analysis in numbers and words.

– I realize a lot of people feel like the Cavaliers played a bad game, and want to blame the stagnant offense for this loss. However, had you told me before the game the Cavs would shoot 48.9% from the field, have an A/TOV ratio of 23/5, and score 106 points, I would have taken it. The offense was not stagnant for the majority of this game. The problem was the timing. It was during key stretches in the 2nd half when the Magic were making their runs that the Cavaliers seemed to slow down and just defer to LeBron. If you could tell me the Cavs could have this exact same offensive game in Game 2, though, I would take it again. Which is not to say they can’t play better on offense, but that we’ve seen them play far worse than this in past games this season.  

– One other thought about the offense. In talking to people about this game, I’ve heard a couple of them say things like, “Well, the only reason the Cavs scored 106 is because LeBron was hitting everything. Had LeBron not been knocking down shots, the Cavs would have lost by 30 with the way they played offense tonight.” Well, I suppose that’s true, but had LeBron not been making his shots, the Cavaliers offense would have played much differently. We’ve seen it before, when LeBron’s not hitting his shot, he goes into distribution mode and he starts setting up his teammates for easy shots. We saw it early in this game, as LeBron decided to facilitate early rather than dominate, and the offense was clicking. It was only when LeBron started hitting all his shots that the offense stopped operating. And that is Mike Brown’s paradox. When LeBron is going 20-30 from the field for 49 points, do you ask the offense to swing the ball out of his hands so as to keep the motion alive, or do you ask LeBron to keep dominating the ball? It’s important to maintain perspective about this offense. The Cavs really played only one bad quarter of offense….the nefarious 3rd quarter. On the list of things to blame this loss on, the offense ranks pretty low, in my mind.

– Mo Williams simply has to be better. 2 of 8 from beyond three and 6 of 19 from the field overall simply isn’t good enough. He had plenty of good looks in this game and he was just missing a lot of shots he normally makes. A decent number of them were missed pretty badly, too. The floater was off, the pull up wasn’t fluid, but looked stiff and rigid, and his 3 point shot was well off the mark. I don’t know if his confidence is shaken right now, or what the problem is, but even beginning toward the end of the regular season we saw Mo start missing a lot of free throws, and now it has spread to his long range shot. No amount of coaching is probably going to fix it. Mo just needs to have one good game to get himself going again. Rick mentioned Mo’s importance to this series yesterday, and he couldn’t have been more spot on about that point. If Mo Williams is going to shoot like this all series long, the Cavaliers will indeed lose this round.

– Before we get to the main culprit, I have to point out the bench, or lack thereof. Joe Smith played some solid minutes and made some memorable defensive plays, but the Cavaliers really should try running some sets to get Beast some looks, because they are underutilizing his ability to knock down some 15-18 foot jumpers. Beast ended up with 5 points, and those were the only 5 points the Cavaliers’ bench scored in this game. Wally Szczerbiak came in, missed a couple shots and picked up 3 quick fouls. Ben Wallace only played 10 minutes and was of course not a factor on offense, and Daniel Gibson only picked up 3 minutes, as he seems to have completely lost all of Mike Brown’s trust finally. I wouldn’t have minded seeing Sasha get some minutes to see if he could spark some points off the bench, and that’s an adjustment I’d like to see Mike Brown make for Game 2. Beyond just his offense, Sasha is also the only perimeter defender other than LeBron who possesses both size and strength to go along with decent enough quickness. All year long Mike Brown has liked to use Sasha against bigger teams, so I found his DNP-CD to be curious. The Magic bench outscored the Cavaliers’ bench 25-5, a disturbing stat for Game 1.

– For this first time in his NBA career (and this absolutely kills me to have to write), Zydrunas Ilgauskas has become a complete liability to the Cavaliers. There are no adjustments Mike Brown can make with Z when it comes to defending Dwight Howard. Z simply can’t guard him, and he’s nowhere near quick enough to guard Rashard Lewis if Mike Brown wanted to switch him off of Howard. This is a major, major problem for the Cavaliers. The Cavs could probably live with it if Z was still knocking down shots like he used to, but now it’s gotten to the point where I’m shocked when one of his shots go in. Z continues to recklessly shoot threes despite the fact he’s average-at-best from there (38.5% on the season). His post game has been non-existent for the most part this season, and in the playoffs I can only remember a select handful of times when he actually received the ball down low and made a decent post move. I will give him credit for correcting some early lapses in boxing out Howard, and Z ended up with 10 rebounds while being part of the reason Howard ended up with “only” 13 rebounds, but beyond that, Ilgauskas really isn’t offering anything to helping the Cavaliers win at this point. It was rough to watch him play last night, because he’s one of my favorite players of all time, and it’s just unfortunate that his decline has to suddenly be so obvious now.

– The biggest problem for the Cavaliers in this game, however, was unquestionably the defense. Giving up 107 points on 55.1% shooting from the field, particularly after giving up just 19 points in the first quarter is insane. The Magic went 29-30-29 in the 3 subsequent quarters and the Cavaliers defense seemed to just take it, for the most part. Again, as I’ve been saying all along leading up to this series, it’s not really the perimeter shooting that concerns me. Yes, the Magic were insanely hot in the 2nd half of this game, but that’s what they do. The Magic were 2nd in 3P made, 2nd in 3P attempted, and 7th in 3P% this season. It’s who they are and nothing the Cavs do is going to change that. The Magic made some pretty tough shots with guys all over them in this game, and that’s a testament to how dangerous this team can be. What is worrisome, though, is the efficiency of their pick and roll game. Some teams have given the Cavs fits this year with an effective pick and roll game, and once Orlando found their rhythm with it, the Cavs defense was toast. The Magic had 50 points in the paint, with 10 dunks and 10 layups. Just entirely too many easy points. Some of them were lazy mental mistakes on the Cavs’ part, too. How many times do the Cavs’ big men have to take their eyes off Howard and free him up for an easy, uncontested alley-oop before they remember to always keep a body on him at all time? How many times do they have to watch the Magic roam freely through the lane after a switch on the pick and roll before they decide to start anticipating their rotations a little quicker? Mike Brown and Mike Malone have a lot of work to do today in preparation of getting this defense finely tuned for Game 2 tomorrow. Frankly, they were adjustments I had hoped they would have made in the 9 days they had off before this series.

– It’s not all gloom and doom, though. The Cavaliers are fine. The Orlando Magic are just a great team, and they’re going to have some games like this where they frustrate you and seemingly hit every shot they throw up. Despite how poorly the Cavaliers played on defense, they still lost by 1 point on a contested three. Some minor adjustments, and the Cavaliers will be ready to roll for Game 2. They showed in spurts that when they are clicking, they are better than Orlando. It’s just a matter of putting it all together. Remember, there’s a difference between being rested and being conditioned. The Cavaliers were well-rested, but they were not conditioned at all to play a tough 4 quarter battle like that. It showed as LeBron wore down as the 4th quarter went on, and the Cavs defense as a whole looked more and more lethargic and slow as the game wore on. The Cavaliers may be tired today, but that’s a good thing….it means their bodies are being conditioned. This is the first battle of the postseason for the Cavaliers. They weren’t ready for it in this game. I trust in LeBron James and the rest of this team, and I refuse to believe they will let this happen again tomorrow night.

Thoughts From Loudville

In a slight change of pace, rather than paste quotes from other sites here like we normally do, we instead will turn to our own TD, who was at the game and who offers us some perspective from inside the Q. So with that, I turn the reigns over to TD:

-To me it seemed obvious coming in, but why Mike Brown refused to play small in the second half, with LeBron at the four eats at me. The biggest advantage the Magic had in this series coming in was the matchup problems at the 4 & 5. I wrote about it in my preview yesterday. Rashard Lewis takes Anderson Varejao away from the basket and can not only take him off the dribble, but knock down jumpers. Dwight Howard is way too quick and athletic for Zydrunas Ilgauskas. So what happened last night? Howard abused Z and got whatever he wanted, while in the second half, the Magic, Lewis in particular, hit their outside shots when they needed to. Lewis was 7-8 in the second half, including 4-4 in the fourth with Andy guarding him. Wouldn’t the Cavs have been better served by putting LeBron on Lewis, considering he was the hot man?

-Ben Wallace cannot be on the floor in this series. Whether he is too hurt or just old, he can’t stay with Dwight Howard, period. I was stunned to see him on the floor when the Cavs needed their one big stop at the end of the game, especially considering had Lewis missed that shot and he got the board, fouling him would be the best thing Orlando could ask for. Don’t be surprised to see Darnell Jackson in game two getting some minutes.

-Delonte West and Mo Williams were horrific last night, other than each one hitting a big shot down the stretch. The one thing I liked about them last night was that even though they were a combined 10-32, they weren’t afraid to shoot it late in the game. Reality is, this slump won;t last.

-Nobody, and I mean nobody, can say they played well other than LeBron. All he needed was a little help, and he didn’t get any. The offense was so stagnant and fell right back into the bad habits of watching LeBron dribble and hope he does something. I was in Loudville last night and had a good view of this from my perch. I saw a ton of standing around. Way too much of it. The crisp ball movement that we saw in the first quarter disappeared, particularly in the fourth quarter.

-LeBron James is amazing. Pure and simple. He was exhausted physically and mentally, yet came up with one big play after the next down the stretch when everyone in the building knew he had to do it all on his own.

-We are in for a long series folks. This Magic team may not be as talented as the Cavaliers, but they present matchup problems that other teams don’t. We saw that last night with the big front line Hedo Turkoglu (6’10 – 14 assists), Rashard Lewis (6’10 – 22 points), and Dwight Howard (7’0 – 30 points, 13 rebounds). They are all in their prime, quick players. It’s got to be a worry spot.

-The Cavs bench has got to offer more. Wally Szczerbiak didn’t score in his 13 minutes and Joe Smith had just five in his 15. Mike Brown has clearly lost faith in Boobie Gibson. Dare I call for a Sasha Pavlovic sighting in the small lineup for game 2 at times?