NBA Trade Rumor: Cavaliers ‘shopping’ Dion Waiters
November 27, 2013Happy Thanksgiving from WFNY
November 28, 2013They say box scores don’t tell the whole story. Behind The Box Score is a new series where from time to time we will attempt to look behind the box score and tell more of the complete story of what happened in the game.
LeBron James has played the Cavaliers eleven times now. Ten times he has walked away from the game the victor. The Cavaliers fought hard for four quarters in this one, far from a given in the past few weeks, and they had a particularly spirited first quarter. However, LeBron James and Dwayne Wade were just too much as the Heat took this one 95-84 at The Q. Here’s a look at some of the takeaways.
34.9% – This was the Cavaliers’ shooting percentage for the game. Take out their first quarter and a 11-for-20 effort, and they shot just 29% for the last 36 minutes of the game. The Cavalier frontcourt trio of Andrew Bynum, Tristan Thompson, and Anderson Varejao combined to shoot a pathetic 6-for-26 from the floor, and Kyrie Irving wasn’t much better with a 6-for-19 effort. Kyrie threw in a couple of spectacular shots, but he missed all five three point looks that he had, and he threw a couple of wild, contested shots up at the rim again too. The Cavaliers also got outscored in the paint 50-26. Too much reliance on jumpshots and not enough finishes underneath the hoop are a continued trend with the Cavaliers.
58 – The wine and gold got 58 bench points tonight. Dion Waiters looked as good as he has for an entire game, leading the team with 24 points on 7-of-14 shooting. The on-the-block shooting guard took the ball to the hole with authority, drawing several fouls. He also was on 4-of-8 three pointers, largely neglecting the less-efficient mid-range game. The most pleasing development in Dion’s game was probably kicking out to the perimeter when he arrived at the basket and met heavy resistance. In the past, those looks would result in a clank, no foul call, and a pouting and angry Waiters. Dion also was able to take the lion’s share of the possessions in the fourth quarter and keep the offense flowing. The one blemish? Waiters shot just 6-of-11 from the line, and he’s now down to 64% on the season. Earl Clark and Varejao were in double digits off the bench with 13 and 10 points respectively.
19 – While 19 turnovers for the Cavaliers is not good, it could’ve been much worse. That’s because the Cavs turned it over just once in the fourth. A few of these turnovers came with the Cavs guards having trouble entering the ball into Andrew Bynum in the post. Kyrie Irving and Jarrett Jack have continually showed that they are not even in the same chapter of the book as Bynum is. The Cavs rank 21st in the association in turnovers at almost 17 turnovers per night. This led to 17 Miami fastbreak points. Once the Cavaliers get Bynum the ball in the spots he wants it, they can get him more comfortable and allow him to score or pass out of double teams.
22 – It wasn’t the 28 points, 8 rebounds, and 8 assists from LeBron James that really killed the Cavs on this evening. Rather, it was Dwyane Wade’s 22 points on a very efficient 10-of-14 shooting that the Cavalier wing defenders didn’t have an answer for. Wade scored 8 in the first and 10 in the fourth as Matthew Dellavedova, Sergey Karasev, Alonzo Gee, and Dion Waiters all took turns covering Wade with little success. James was 9-of-19 from the field, and he met some resistance at the rim, missing some looks and whining for a lack of foul calls (he still went to the line 11 times). As for Wade, he got a lot better looks and cashed in on them.
2 Comments
The Cavs just aren’t very good.
If they play like that every game, they beat most teams. The East is so bad this year.