Cavs 113, Knicks 106: Question Marks Arise Despite Historic Win Streak
Written By: Jacob Rosen | Category: Cleveland Cavaliers | Comments: 17
The Cavaliers utilized yet another massive first quarter run and held on for dear life last night in their 113-106 victory over the NY Knicks. The win pushed their current streak of W’s out to 11 games, tied for the best in the NBA this season and the team looks to break the mark Tuesday against the New Jersey Nets.
It was a tale of two Cleveland teams as much as it was a tale of two LeBron’s tonight. The Cavs first came out dominating the paint, including a quick eight-point burst by J.J. Hickson and some nice moves by Shaq to take a 28-21 lead with 3:28 to go in the first quarter. That was the end of the silence however, as just under six minutes later in the ball game, LeBron James had accomplished the feat of providing 24 straight points for his Cavaliers team.
The lead would balloon to as much as 24 during that second quarter and following a jumper by Z with 4:38 left in the third, was still at 23 points. That would be the final high point of the game for Cleveland as the Knicks started to mount their comeback with the help of Nate Robinson. The Washington product who finished with 26 points and six assists made back-to-back threes and then hit three free throws all in the final 100 seconds of the quarter.Just like that, the Cavs lead was already down to only 14 points.
With the Cavaliers offense stagnant as usual in the second half, our favorite team from New York brought the score all the way to 107-104 with 3:47 left in the game. It was an overall 21-point turnaround and the Knicks had out-scored Cleveland 41-21 in the course of just 12:51. That marked an impressive run just as dominant as the first quarter for the Cavs and made it a brand new ball game right down the stretch. Many people over in Twitter-land seemed worried that the Cleveland curse might still be in affect for yet another meltdown.
Fortunately, the hero of the late first and early second quarter finally re-emerged with his famous scoring prowl. A pair of free throws following a sick drive to the hoop as well as a pair of 20-foot jumpers sealed the contest and gave him 47 points for the evening. Unlike the last time these two teams met, the Cavaliers were unable to control the second half of this game. Not using their strengths in the paint and becoming the much slower team, New York almost ran them out of the building in their attempts of one of the most lopsided comebacks in the NBA this season.
In the end however, the Cavaliers did manage to improve to 30 games over .500 at 41-11 with the victory. Just for comparisons sake, the Cavs first reached that same point last season against the Knicks with a record of 39-9. The team would then struggle for a handful of games, bringing them to an identical record of 41-11 that the team has this season.
So there ya have it folks, the Cavaliers this year are finally on the exact same pace as the 66-win team from one year ago. With the gigantic winning streak still intact and another monster performance by LeBron James in the record books, what did we really learn from this game?
- That the Cavs are actually much better with Molante on the court: Many folks had suggested in the comments that based on the extension of the winning streak, the Cavaliers were actually a better team without their two main guards. LeBron had been playing point recently, and continued his streak of masterful statistical performances. The main problem however was that Cleveland went back into the horrible funk of no half court offense, no quality shots in the paint and lots of errant jumpers against the porous New York defense. It was a very bad sign for the team that will have a very difficult schedule following the All-Star Break.
- That when LeBron is good, he is really, really ridiculously good: Just take a look at these beautiful numbers from the first half. How does 35 points, three rebounds, six assists and three steals sound to you for an entire game? Just for fun, I wanted to see how many players had done that in the NBA this season. Entering play last night, such a feat had only occurred 10 times in the league this year with D Wade and LeBron each accounting for three of those occurrences… And LeBron had those numbers all in the first half tonight. Sure, his third quarter and early fourth quarter were not the greatest, but we are certainly nit-picking if we overlook his overall numbers.
- That the Cavaliers still continue to play down to their opponents: Holding the early 20-plus point advantage, this could have been a game where LeBron James didn’t even have to play in the fourth quarter. Unfortunately for the nerves of all of us fans, that was not the case as the lead dropped to as little as three late in the final frame. Continuing with their habits of the past few years, this was an instance where the Cavaliers let up on both sides of the ball against a weaker opponent. Not a great showing tonight as this is just one of those games where everyone is happy to just emerge with the W.
- That the NBA likes scheduling Cavs-Knicks games on the weekend: Seriously, take a look at the recap that Denny linked to last night in the preview. It was written by me in the exact same format as tonight. Man, I’m glad we don’t have to go back to the MSG and the final game of the season between these two teams is on Monday, March 1st.
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(Top photo above by Gregory Shamus/NBAE via Getty Images with the second one from REUTERS/Jeff Haynes.)
Author: JacobRosen
Jacob Rosen is a weekend author for WFNY, the sports editor for the University of Dayton's Flyer News and the current media relations director of the Akron Aeros. Jacob is an Akron native who majors in applied mathematical economics at UD. You can follow him on Twitter @udjrosen or e-mail him at udjrosen(at)gmail(dot)com.Jacob Rosen has written 267 articles for Waiting for Next Year.
They look like BFFFFFs in that picture, wearing the same shoes and everything!
I think my favorite part of that LBJ/Mo/Delonte pic us that they’re all rocking Zoom LeBrons.
The schedule has been very fortunate. Hopefully West is back for this weeks game against Orlando.
11 game streak doesn’t tie franchise record. Ties current season
record. The Cavs won 13 straight last season.
@coacha12 – Duly noted. My bad on that one. Will fix everything up in a bit.
“Cleveland (40-11) is on its longest win streak since a 13-game run from March 7-31 behind James, who has six double-doubles during this span to help the Cavaliers build the best record in the NBA.”
http://www.nba.com/games/20100206/NYKCLE/gameinfo.html
I miss Delonte waiving off LeBron calling for the ball…sigh…
Good notes of caution, Jacob. I personally would not assert that “the Cavaliers (are) actually a better team without their two main guards,” but I thought that our early blow-out wins without “Malonte” playing did beg the question as to what exactly was working well for the team. One thing has obviously been that LeBron is doing everything one could ask a single player to do; but on a five-man team, that strategy can only work so many times before the horse starts to wear down. I think you highlight the main problem the Cavs have here without Mo and Red. There’s too much reliance on LeBron for scoring and too many half-court still lifes presented as offense.
Jacob et al, why can’t JJ get any 4th quarter minutes? As they continued to attack Zhaq, whoever was out there, and hit all sorts of jumpers, why didn’t Mike Brown play Andy and Hix together EVER?
If we are going to hold onto this guy, we need to start letting him play 4th quarter minutes in big situations. When we play the Celts or Raps in the playoffs potentially, we are going to need to play two quicker bigs to cover their shooters because their back-courts really arent going to hurt us as Rondo is really only effective when involving those guys and then opening lanes. It’s scary.
Talk to me Jacob. What’s your perspective?…
I’m not concerned about last night. The fact of the matter is the Knicks are a dangerous team with all of their outside shooting. It was just the classic “wounded bear” you see so often in sports coming out to play. The Knicks had nothing to lose, so they started letting it rip without any fear and next thing you knew they were en fuego. It happens. No big deal.
I can’t wait for playoffs.
@Jack – When looking at our starting lineup, who is our weakest link? When looking at our current big man rotation, who is our weakest link? When analyzing the rotation for when Leon Powe returns from injury, who do you think will be most affected?
The answer to all of those questions is J.J. Hickson. In a nutshell, this can be illustrated by his current 13.85 PER and -11.5 net on/off court rating. For comparisons sake, Powe had a 17.25 PER and -0.1 net on/off court rating for Boston last season. Those numbers were even higher for him the year before.
Hickson is still young. A below-average PER is very typical for a early 20-something-year-old. It is important to get his minutes and get the experience of playing key defense, but he will not be in our most important rotations. Last year, he didn’t register a single minute in the playoffs. If this team acquires Jamison (and keeps J.J.), then that will be the exact same case this year. Even with adding only Powe, I would expect him to play less than 10 minutes per game in the playoffs. He simply cannot be trusted as a key rotation player to a championship-caliber team… yet.
Great write-up Jacob. Last night’s game placed front and center the Cavs’ main weakness this season: their failure to run offense in late game situations. It’s why we’ve seen this team blow several double digit leads down the stretch. Thankfully, they have pulled out the vast majority of these games. No question, missing Molante really hurt, but the Cavs also did a lousy job of utilizing Shaq properly in the 4th quarter last night and settled for way too many jumpers.
A win is a win, but this is why I still think this team needs someone like Jamison to come in and be another reliable scoring option at the end of games. This team is championship caliber right now and arguably the best positioned to win with their current personnel. Adding Jamison would change that from arguably to unquestionably.
Keep Z and everyone else… Best team in basketball should not be making trades.
Jacob, I agree with most of those sentiments. I guess my concern is the notion that we might hold off on a trade because we want to keep Hickson. I think Danny Ferry is still willing to ship him off, but if we really are going to pass on a trade because we want to keep him, shouldn’t we develop him now? Against the Knicks? At home?
How come TS Trade to the Browns doesn’t comment here? Probably to many facts.
@7 Jack Hickson doesn’t play because he’s not of use in the fourth or in critical times of the game it’s as simple as that, not hard to understand. Hickson is fine in the first quarter and first half when he can score on dunks but after that he’s a liability which is why the Cavaliers would benefit in ways the simple minded fans cannot begin to understand from the addition of an Antawn Jamison.
Come playoffs Hickson will disappear and you’ll see the Cavaliers fall in love with the jump shot because teams will pack the lane against LeBron James because he’s still the only penetrator on the team. It’s easy to defend the Cavaliers when the only inside presence they have is still a 37 year old Shaq who is averaging 23.2 minutes a game. It’s a testament to the greatness of LeBron James that this team is 41-11 it’s just that simple. The MVP race is not a race right now what you are all watching is amazing unfortunately basketball is still a team sport and come playoff time I’m afraid this kind of play won’t beat a team approach much like a year ago.
@#11- I totally get your point of view.
But when this team needs buckets in the playoffs when Lebron is resting or when he has 3 guys on him can we really count on Mo or Delonte? They both played like crap against Orlando. Mo played mediocre the whole postseason. We need one more guy that can score on his own. Jamison would be perfect.
@ boogeyman – Nicely done but you are wrong to one degree here. You stated above that the Cavs will fall in love with jumpers in the playoffs. You also state that Shaq is our inside scoring presence and that Antawn Jamison will change that.
http://hoopdata.com/player.aspx?name=Antawn%20Jamison
According to the site above, Antawn actually shoots 8.3 shots per game from 16 feet or further. That is agianst only 8.9 shots from within 16 feet. You are thus correct in stating he would be an awesome second scoring threat but he is certainly no interior weapon like Shaq.
I watch the games. I understand that at times Hix can be a defensive liability, i.e. I understand why he’s not out there in the 4th, or the perspective that keeps him on the bench.
But…he’s still a promising talent. And isn’t last night, a situation where a team is hot, Z and Shaq are incapable of closing on jump shooters and can’t slide over to block the rim (that was the problem during the Knicks run), we are at home, against a sub-par team, but it still sort of matters…isn’t that the best situation for him to develop, to learn? Is he only going to play 2/3 the season and zero crunch time minutes?
How do we expect him to get better? Waiting for next year? I think he would have been incredibly useful in the 4th last night because they Knicks lineup was small. Brown finally countered with LBJ at the 4, but that wasn’t necessary. When Hickson was in, he was taking advantage of the lax weak-side defense unlike Jamario Moon or AP could. AND he would have been a better rebounder/interior defender. There were a few wide open layups and 4s putting up jumpers.
I get the stock answer as to why Hix doesn’t see the 4th. That’s not where my curiosity stems from. I think there are situations where he could be valuable and the same stigma that keeps him on the bench can never be dissolved if he never gets a chance in moments that are conducive to his playing style and weaknesses.
@15 Jacob or should I say “Rain Man” nice stats but actually I like Jamison as a perfect compliment for Shaq largely because of your point that Jamison tends to utilize more of a mid-range game. I think Jamison could score more inside with the Cavaliers as opposed to the Wizards largely because of the presence of LeBron James and Mo Williams.
@16 Jack unfortunately Hickson is on a team that is playing for a championship so if he doesn’t break out and show he can do more I doubt Mike Brown will use him any different especially when Leon Powe is back and provides an option. If you watch any FSOhio games you will constantly hear Austin Carr say how Hickson needs to develop a 15 foot jumper which he hasn’t over the first 52 games.