Browns to meet with Josh Cribbs’ agent
February 20, 2013Rob Chudzinski to speak for Browns at combine
February 21, 2013The Cleveland Cavaliers made their ESPN debut with Kyrie Irving tonight, and Kyrie did not fail to deliver a performance worthy of the event.
The New Orleans Hornets (who I will refer to as Pelicans from here on out because I can’t wait for it to be official) aren’t a good basketball team, but for most of the evening, the game was a back and forth affair. It started out sloppy and the teams played evenly through the first half.
In the 3rd quarter, the Cavaliers built a 10 point lead before their typical late quarter collapse allowed the Pelicans to tie the game before taking the lead after 3. After some sloppy back and forth play in the 4th quarter and with the Pelicans defense stiffing the Cavaliers offense, Kyrie came back in with 7 minutes left.
The rest of the game belonged to Kyrie. Irving did a little bit of everything, distributing to teammates, grabbing rebounds, taking charges, and yeah, scoring. A lot. And in often spectacular fashion. Irving scored 20 points in the 4th quarter en route to finishing with 35 points, 7 assists, 5 rebounds, and 2 steals.
Dion Waiters picked up where he left off toward the end of the first half of the season with 16 points on 60% shooting from the floor and Tristan Thompson came 1 point short of another double double. But this evening belonged to Kyrie Irving. The night began with Bill Simmons saying he thinks Kyrie has a chance to be the best pure PG of all time, and it ended with Irving putting on a show for everyone in the country who hasn’t seen him play a Cavaliers game yet. The hype keeps growing and growing for Kyrie, and so far he’s lived up to it. This was just a really fun night for Cavs fans.
New Orleans
Starters | Pos | Min | FG | 3Pt | FT | +/- | Off | Reb | Ast | TO | Stl | BS | BA | PF | Pts |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Greivis Vasquez |
G | 38:49 | 5-13 | 1-5 | 2-2 | -7 | 0 | 4 | 8 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 13 |
Austin Rivers |
G | 30:55 | 5-11 | 1-1 | 0-0 | -6 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 11 |
Robin Lopez |
C | 15:33 | 5-9 | 0-0 | 5-6 | -18 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 15 |
Al-Farouq Aminu |
F | 35:37 | 1-2 | 0-0 | 2-2 | -1 | 2 | 10 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
Anthony Davis |
F | 29:13 | 2-7 | 0-0 | 8-8 | -4 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 12 |
Bench | Min | FG | 3Pt | FT | +/- | Off | Reb | Ast | TO | Stl | BS | BA | PF | Pts |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Totals | 37-76 | 7-15 | 19-22 | 11 | 39 | 16 | 13 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 28 | 100 | ||
Percentages | .487 | .467 | .864 | Team Rebounds: 6 | ||||||||||
Ryan Anderson |
28:10 | 3-11 | 1-4 | 0-0 | +9 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 7 |
Jason Smith |
23:04 | 5-9 | 0-0 | 2-4 | +3 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 12 |
Roger Mason |
20:46 | 4-5 | 1-1 | 0-0 | +5 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 9 |
Brian Roberts |
10:56 | 7-8 | 3-4 | 0-0 | -2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 17 |
Xavier Henry |
6:57 | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0-0 | -4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Eric Gordon |
DNP – Coach’s Decision | |||||||||||||
Darius Miller |
DNP – Coach’s Decision | |||||||||||||
Lance Thomas |
DNP – Coach’s Decision |
Cleveland
Starters | Pos | Min | FG | 3Pt | FT | +/- | Off | Reb | Ast | TO | Stl | BS | BA | PF | Pts |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Kyrie Irving |
G | 36:40 | 13-22 | 2-5 | 7-7 | +2 | 0 | 5 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 35 |
Dion Waiters |
G | 28:54 | 6-10 | 0-1 | 4-4 | +10 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 16 |
Tyler Zeller |
C | 22:06 | 5-7 | 0-0 | 0-0 | +6 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 10 |
Tristan Thompson |
F | 32:54 | 2-8 | 0-0 | 5-12 | +2 | 5 | 13 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 9 |
Alonzo Gee |
F | 28:01 | 3-7 | 3-4 | 1-2 | -2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 10 |
Bench | Min | FG | 3Pt | FT | +/- | Off | Reb | Ast | TO | Stl | BS | BA | PF | Pts |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Totals | 38-77 | 5-14 | 24-34 | 12 | 34 | 20 | 8 | 6 | 3 | 6 | 18 | 105 | ||
Percentages | .494 | .357 | .706 | Team Rebounds: 12 | ||||||||||
Wayne Ellington |
23:52 | 1-3 | 0-2 | 6-6 | -1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 |
Marreese Speights |
18:26 | 2-7 | 0-0 | 0-2 | -10 | 3 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
C.J. Miles |
18:10 | 5-7 | 0-2 | 1-1 | +1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 11 |
Luke Walton |
17:39 | 0-2 | 0-0 | 0-0 | +11 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
Shaun Livingston |
13:18 | 1-4 | 0-0 | 0-0 | +6 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 2 |
Omri Casspi |
DNP – Coach’s Decision | |||||||||||||
Daniel Gibson |
DNP – Coach’s Decision | |||||||||||||
Kevin Jones |
DNP – Coach’s Decision |
20 Comments
kyrie took over in the 4th.
we had to survive due to
defensive lapses. i mean, why would we give wide open 3’s on 3-4 consecutive
possessions? and then, Ellington bails us out with a heads up grab of a loose
ball.
none of it mattered in the end as Kyrie got buckets and we hit our
FTs down the stretch, but i’d sure like to just lock a game like that up.
Tristan’s free throws…cringe.
Selling jerseys
Look at that… Luke Walton was +11… -shudders- I hope this doesn’t mean we have to keep him… do we?
Kyrie look at these pelicans fly! C’mon pelicans!
He competed in the Rookie-Sophomore game, 3 point contest, and All Star game. He put up 35 yesterday. Kyrie is not human.
2nd unit offense was….challenged. I only saw the second half…but, yeesh.
he made them when he needed to at least.
it was another good game for him. kudos to all those that saw it coming before I did.
however, I think the answer is still no on keeping him.
For whatever reason, Speights phoned it in last night. It seemed like he got some bad calls/non-calls from the refs early on and it put him in a funk.
He shot the ball well, but it was a bad game for Zeller. He got absolutely worked down low… no defense whatsoever and he always seemed to be in terrible position to grab rebounds. On the flip side, solid games for Kyrie, Waiters, and Gee. It’s nice to see the 3-point shot coming around for Gee. I know Austin Carr has not been able to talk about 3-G service at the Q as much as he would like.
Also, Brian Roberts and Roger Mason combined to go 11-13, 4-5 on 3-pointers. Come on now.
Luke has been effective for quite a while and I would not be opposed to resigning him for the vet. min. Hes sort of a player/coach and quite an adept distributer. The ball moves fairly well when Luke’s in the game and his high ball IQ puts him in spots where he can do the little things that will help win games. KI was obviously fantastic tonight in the fourth quarter but we shouldn’t and can’t always rely oh hero ball to bail us out. When he’s on it looks great but when he’s off it comes across eerily similar to Kobe ball hog style. There needs to be a balance. Nice thing about Kyrie taking over games is his fearlessness. LBJ seemed reluctant to go to the rack late in games due to his struggles at the line. That does not seem to be a problem with Kyrie at all. A nice win and if we make free throws and grab more rebounds we easily win by ten-fifteen points.
Speights got demolished taking a charge in the 4th quarter, and got a no-call. The announcers were speculating he flopped until they saw the replay and saw him get blown up. Terrible non-call.
I think it’s possible Speights is coming back to earth and we’re perhaps seeing why he didn’t get minutes in Memphis.
if we don’t want hero-ball to end games, then we might need a new coach. there are basically 2 styles that seem to work:
1. Staying within your system no matter the situation and trusting it to help find the right call. San Antonio is the example here. They will pass to Kawhi Leonard for the corner 3 if you sag off him late in the game or midway through the 2nd quarter. Always within the system.
2. Give your best player the ball and let him work magic. Kobe is the best example here but LeBron is another good one. Dallas and Miami’s 1st title also followed similar tactics late in games.
I don’t see a consistent offensive system with the Cavs. so, we have to default to the 2nd option.
i would argue that the only things he’s really doing that much better here is getting to the FT line more and fouling less on the other end (both important advances in his game).
other than that, he’s just getting more minutes.
i would argue that the only things he’s really doing that much better here is getting to the FT line more and fouling less on the other end (both important advances in his game).
other than that, he’s just getting more minutes.
I dunno. For a while there he was knocking down some crazy shots that I’ve never seen him make in Memphis.
at the end of the day, he shot 42.9% on FGs in 40 games for Memphis. he has shot 42.9% on FGs in 11 games for us. his career FG% is higher, so we should actually expect it to rise over the rest of the season.
yeah, his first 6 games he was hitting shots like crazy, but that is such a small sample size.
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