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January 16, 2009Open Thread: What Could Have Been?
January 18, 2009New Orleans 78 Cleveland 92 [box]
It wasnât always pretty. It certainly wasnât easy. It was anything but conventional. But in the end, the one thing it was, was a win. On Friday night, the Cavaliers fought through all of their issues and circumstances to knock off the New Orleans Hornets 92-78. The win allowed the Cavaliers to remain the only team in the NBA to do 2 things. First, theyâre the only team in the NBA who has not lost 2 games in a row yet, and second, theyâre the only team undefeated at home. The Cavaliersâ 20-0 start at home marks the first time a team has won their first 20 at home since the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, a team that went on to win the NBA Championship. Â
The Cavaliers wonât be winning a title this year unless they get healthy, though. That much is clear. The win against New Orleans did a great of masking a lot of bad things about the way they played. Make no mistake, though, the Cavaliers were facing adversity. Sure, they were playing at home against a team playing the 2nd game of a back-to-back on the road, but the Cavaliers suffered 2 emotional losses the night before (one was the game, one was in personnel), and so the travel made this a de facto road game in terms of travel. Furthermore, Ben Wallace was back, but he was weak, lacked energy, and hardly played at all. Delonte West got the news that heâs going to be out up to 6 weeks. Zydrunas Ilgauskas was still out. LeBron was suffering from a cold still. It added up to a ton of affliction, and it was great to see the Cavaliers find a way to win.
I hate criticizing the team after this win, but the offense was exceptionally atrocious. For the 2nd game in a row, the Cavaliers shot less than 43% from the field. Despite the poor shooting from the field, the Cavaliers were able to ride some red hot shooting from the outside. They were 10 of 22 from three as a team, led by Sasha Pavlovic (4 of 4) and Wally Szczerbiak (4 of 5). The problem is, the Cavaliers are not a 45.5% shooting team from long range. On the season, they are just 36% from three, which ranks 17th in the NBA. If they continue to shoot so many 3âs while Delonte West is gone, they are going to eventually run into some big problems when those shots arenât going down.
The reason for the outside shooting was two fold. First of all, with Sasha filling in for Delonte, the teamâs spacing was pretty awful, and they were really struggling to get any movement off the ball because it seemed like none of the backside screens were happening, and when they were, they were either late or in the wrong place it seemed. There just seemed to be a lot of confusion and standing around, which is pretty unacceptable for this stage of the season. The second thing that happened was New Orleans was really sagging down into the lanes to cut off any penetration with extremely quick double teams. And rather than rotate to the shooter, the Hornets seemed content to let the Cavs take the outside shots. Again, this was great for the Cavaliers tonight because they were making their threes, but in the 2nd half when they werenât going down, the Hornets were able to get themselves back in the game.
The Cavaliers defense, however, was another story. This was one of their absolute best efforts of the season on that end of the court. They were able to hold Chris Paul to just 18 points and only 6 assists, with 3 turnovers. They even managed to frustrate him to the point of getting 2 technical fouls called for arguing and he was thus tossed out of the game. The Cavaliers forced 13 turnovers, and had 6 steals and 5 blocks. In the end, the Cavaliers held the Hornets to just 37.3& shooting from the field, and were it not for a handful of questionable calls giving the Hornets more free throws (they were 23 of 28 from the line) and thus some easy points, this game wouldnât have even been quite as close as it was.
The Cavaliers bench far outplayed the Hornets bench as well. They limited the Hornets reserves to just 10 points, 4 less than Wally Szczerbiak had alone. Overall, the Cavaliers bench 21 points, although to be fair, 20 of those 21 came from just Szczerbiak and Daniel Gibson, with rookie JJ Hickson scoring the lone remaining point.
Cleveland was lead by a tough and gritty performance by LeBron James. One night after having just an awful night shooting from the field, LeBron had the midrange jumper working tonight. LeBron finished with 29 points (12-24 from the field, 0-2 from 3, 5-6 from the line), 14 rebounds, 7 assists, 3 steals, and 1 block. He was aided by 19 points from Sasha Pavlovic and 17 from Mo Williams. Ben Wallace also chipped in with 8 rebounds and a steal in just 16 minutes.
Weâll have more this weekend on what the Cavaliers are doing well without Delonte and areas they need to improve on, but for tonight we will just enjoy this win which, combined with the Pistons loss to Oklahoma City, now has them 9 games clear in the Central Division. But suffice it to say, despite the win, there is much improvement to be had, which is probably expected when you have to adjust to losing such a key contributor.
28 Comments
LeBron’s starting to fall in love with the jumper again…
Nice write-up, RockKing.
LeBron’s jumper sealed the deal in the 4th. It was almost as if he had wanted to reestablish it after an off-game the night before. Memories of Jordan all over again…
Is it the case that Wally cannot dribble with any confidence? With ball in hand, he stops dead at times — mistake — or just seems to dump the ball off in a panic, especially when he’s mid-court. I really don’t like this part of his game, but his shooting is often stellar.
Given all our injuries, LA is going to be a difficult game, to use a little understatement.
I think it goes without saying that this is test time for the Cavs. Are they as diverse, flexible, and adaptable enough to pull out wins without teammates? While I agree their offense has declined, lets realize from what level it has declined. This is by no means an excuse, but I believe the Cavs can pull out of this and impress everyone if they want to.
Wally sometimes dribbles directly off of a rebound rather than securing it, thinking and then passing it to a guard. It drives me insane. This was a pet peeve of my 9th grade basketball coach and he was right. Wally needs a refresher. It isn’t like he is capable of starting the break very often. He isn’t fast or anything.
Anyway, if he continues to shoot like that, then I guess I am ok with it.
RockKing,
I usually LOVE your writeups, but come one man, you are being a little harsh here. The Cavs were playing, as you even noted, basically a road game, with 2 1/2 starters out, after an emotionally and physically draining loss less than 24 hours earlier. All they did was shut down and frustrate the best point guard on the planet and a top 6 NBA team that has beaten them at least 3 straight (may be more but that is as far as my memory goes). As much as we all lvoed the 30 point beatdowns in December, that was unsustainable for ANY NBA team. I will take an ugly win like this any day of the week, especially since Cavs teams of winters past would have rolled over and lost this one before the opening tip. The offense might have been (too) jumper based, but that will happen when you play four guards and a small forward at center.
@Adam: Thanks for the feedback. I hear what you’re saying, but the big picture is that as great as the win is, they can’t consistently win playing that style of basketball. They are not a good 3 point shooting team (especially without Delonte), and if they’re going to live and die with the outside shot, I’m afraid they’re going to die more than live.
I’m ecstatic with this win and I’m really proud of the effort they gave. The defense was out of this world. I’m only trying to point out that they will have to play better going forward if they want to keep it up.
#1 I totally agree. He has been settling for the J the last couple of games. Especially the last possession of regular time in the Bulls game. He can just about get by anyone at will, and he has started to settle for long 2s. He makes himself and his teamates a lot better when he forces the D to stop the drive first.
Hopefully we fix our stagnant offensive woes and make it through these next couple weeks w/o dropping too many
On our D tho, I think Wally actually did a pretty good job on DWest. Dude is an All-Star, and Wally pretty much held him in check, and even got into his head, throwing him off his game. If it weren’t for all those questionable FT attempts later in the game, West’s number wouldn’t have been all that good.
If Wally can keep giving us D like that, it will go a long way to helping us ride out this storm.
Who was left on the bench to score?
I personally think the Hornets are one of the rare teams the Cavs can throw the 4 guards + LeBron lineup in for. The Lakers will test their front court depth and you better hope LeBron and Big Ben rest up and get their fluids during the cross country flight, because both will need to play minutes above their season norm. Anyone have big man on the FA list that the Cavs could maybe sign to a 10-day contract? Maybe Michael Doleac? Maybe we bring back Lance Allred or Allen Henderson?
JJ please don’t bring up such names. Going out and getting joe smith would be great but if we can’t get him yet then I would rather ride out this stretch with the rooks and wright. The last thing we need is a washed up center screwing up our teams chemistry. And i like lance but he really doesn’t bring much to the table.
Reuben Patterson or Austin Croshere would be my top two FAs…
Zoss…are you implying that a deaf, red-headed author that lived in a mormon polygamy camp isn’t “bringing anything to the table?” đ
Austin Croshere got picked up by the Spurs yesterday. He would have been helpful tothe acvs right now.
dang, I really need to check my typing before I hit ‘submit’
Zoss-
I really don’t see what chemistry can be lost in a 10 day contract. Or two 10 day contracts for that matter. It would basically be like renting players till others come back. I also would think the Cavs would do enough research on a guy to where he couldn’t wreck a team in only 10 or 20 days. Any front office that inked a guy for just 10 days and he damaged a team, needs to be canned.
Rock:
“they were playing at home against a team playing the 2nd game of a back-to-back on the road”
No they weren’t. That was the first game, the Hornets play the Pistons tonight.
I am starting to keep a running track of LeBron’s minutes at the PF position. Last night, Varejao, Wallace, Hickson, Wright, and Jackson combined for 52 minutes and 20 seconds of playing time. Over the course of the 48-minute basketball game, I team thus has 96 minutes of playing time from their two tallest players. This means that for almost 44 minutes, someone other than these players was the tallest or second-tallest player on the court. This shows how not only LeBron played the sheer majority if not all of his 42:59 last night as the PF, but also someone else picked up some minutes at this position.
I made a statement last night that LeBron is surprisingly more efficient at the PF position, because his size is more valuable in the paint that out at the three-point line. This showed tonight as his 12 rebounds and much more efficient shooting stood out on the box score. Sure LeBron still was 6-13 from the outside, including 0-2 from three’s, but his eleven shots inside the paint led to 12 points.
First, the Cavs don’t need to improve on anything, They are playing wounded. Their only concern should be to wait it out without receiving too much damage.
The Cavs will shoot better from the outside than what their percentage is because Sasha is a better three point shooter than west, plus gibson will get more minutes.
Finally, we cannot discount the hornets defense. They only give up 92 points per game. They are surprisingly stout on the defensive side.
So, I think the Cavs won’t have to rely on the outside shot against teams like the Lakers because they don’t play defense well, and when Cleveland does take the outside shot, Gibson and Sasha will actually be able to hit at least forty percent of the time.
Just survive till the All-Star Break. Just survive till the All-Star Break.
I hate to keep harping on this but part of surviving is bringing in fresh bodies to replace the wounded. I know a lot has changed since just last year but why not bring back Lance Allred, Allen Henderson, or even Dwayne Jones. All are available and at least somewhat familiar with what the Cavs run these days. Heck Allred and Jones played with Wally, Ben, and West last year.
NOTE: Joe Smith was excluded from the list because he’s technically not available yet. Maybe in time. Maybe in time.
Note to Rock: You said “Sure, they were playing at home against a team playing the 2nd game of a back-to-back on the road,”. New Orleans didn’t play the night before. They do play tonight however. Just clearing that up, because New Orleans was on fresh legs, it was the Cavs who had to pick it up from a game the day before.
Games like this make me hope we pull out the number one seed. As banged up as we are we still beat a good team at home. If we are healthy we could easily win every game at home and thats all its takes to win a championship.
After watching Orlando, I think they may be the team to beat. If they stay healthy, I’m not sure they don’t win it all.
@24
yeah, but we didn’t see them play a good defense.
They beat San Antonio twice.
We play them 3 times, twice in Orlando. Hopefully we’re healthy for those games.
Orlando scares the tar out of me.
First, thanks to those who corrected me on the Hornets’ schedule. I was thinking they played the Mavs the day before, but I guess it was Wednesday. My bad.
Second, whipjacka, what do you means we didn’t see the Magic play a good defense? The Lakers are 5th in defensive efficiency and 5th in defensive rating. Don’t be fooled by ppg, which are heavily influenced by pace. The Lakers are a very good defensive team.
And as for this statement: “The Cavs will shoot better from the outside than what their percentage is because Sasha is a better three point shooter than west”, I don’t know how you can possibly think that is true. Sasha is a career .358 shooter from three while Delonte is a career .378 shooter. Yeah, Sasha’s percentage is higher this season, but he’s only taken a third of the attempts that Delonte has. As his volume of threes goes up with his increase in minutes, it’s only logical to assume his percentage will plummet back down to his career average.