Cavs vs. Jazz Behind The Boxscore: A single triple double!

If the Cavaliers have done one thing consistently this season, it’s give fans anxiety with their inability to handle any sort of success. They came out in this home matchup against the Utah Jazz incredibly flat on offense and slow on defense. Then, the Utah Jazz started missing and they never stopped for the rest of the game. In the process of pulling away from the Jazz late in the third quarter and early in the fourth, Kyrie Irving inched closer and closer to a triple double. He finally got it, marking the first Cavalier to do so since LeBron James in 2010. With the 99-79 win, the Cavaliers have won two straight as they prepare for a trip to Memphis tomorrow night while still incredibly short-handed. Here’s a look at some of the easy on the eyes stats from this big win.

48 – Irving was the star of this game, but the Cavalier frontline deserves equal credit. Those two elements combined to the tune of 48 points in the paint for the Cavs, completely dominating that category 48-22. Tyler Zeller continues to confidently cut to the basket and finish strong, and Spencer Hawes’s spacing has opened up more driving lanes for Kyrie (more on Hawes in a second). No one has confused the Cavaliers for being a team that consistently takes it strong into the paint, but that improved spacing is reducing the number of blocked shots (just six for Utah tonight) as the defense collapses. The 22 points allowed in the paint (on 11-of-25 shooting) is probably even more impressive with the Cavs closing off the paint and making the shots that did occur in there a higher degree of difficulty. Which leads quite well into….

14-of-29 – The one thing the Jazz did was stroke the three ball. Though they shot just a stunningly terrible 27% inside the arc, they were hot and shot plenty from long range. That included a scorching 6-of-7 from three in the first quarter. Gordon Hayward, who did not play when these two met in Salt Lake City, had four triples along with Richard Jefferson. It goes back to how suffocating Mike Brown’s defense can be when you don’t have the personnel or the execution to break it by cashing in on open three point attempts. Plenty of times, the team’s defensive system of overhelping and doubling on even average players in the post burns them. Tonight, it did not.

18-of-61 – That’s sub-30% shooting from the Utah Jazz in the final three quarters of this game with just 52 points. Some shooting rates after the first include Hayward’s 3-for-10, Alec Burks’s 2-for-10, Marvin Williams’s 0-for-6, and Trey Burke’s 1-for-5.

16 – Luol Deng added 16 points to the cause tonight in 30 minutes with 10 of those coming in the first half. More importantly, he did it on 8-of-12 shooting while playing like his former self with more backdoor cuts and drives to the basket. Deng’s given up a lot of his game in Cleveland, and it’s hard to tell if it’s because of injury or not. However, the additional space and offensive movement is only going to help a guy like Deng as he looks for gaps to fill in the halfcourt.

56-31 – The Cavaliers smashed the paint too with double-doubles from both Tristan Thompson and Spencer Hawes with Tyler Zeller missing joining the trio by just one board. In the last nine games without Varejao, Thompson has had at least 11 points and 9 rebounds in every game, averaging 15 points, 11.9 rebounds, and shooting 57.6% (h/t to Jacob for that stat following the Thunder game). Zeller meanwhile in his last eleven games is averaging 9.2 points and 6.1 rebounds. The frontcourt of Derrick Favors, Enes Kanter, and Marvin Williams never had a chance tonight.

21-10-12 – That will go down as the line from Kyrie Irving’s first triple double as a Cavalier. He did have some head-scratching turnovers earlier (five in the game), but he directed the offense while also running the floor with authority. He had another perfect 6-for-6 night from the line, and he didn’t let the ball stick one bit in isolation. Every dribble seemed to have a purpose tonight, and most of his passes were on target and led directly to an easy hoop. Kyrie seems to really be dialed in the last few nights, and the Cavs will need it in this upcoming grueling slate.

4 – The wine and gold were up to four rotation players on the injury report due to Anthony Bennett’s late scratch due to right knee soreness. He’s traveling with the team tonight to Memphis, but the team ended up playing Irving 38+ and Hawes 37+ minutes when normally and without triple double consideration for Irving, they could have been pulled much earlier. Sergey Karasev played the final three and a half minutes while Arinze Onuaku made his NBA debut in the final minute of the game.

The Hawes Effect – I’ll be diving into this soon in a future Cavalier film room, but the passing of Spencer Hawes is completely changing the way the Cavaliers operate on offense. Hawes has scored in double digits in his last four games (15.8 points overall in his five games). The center is 9-for-19 beyond the arc, and he’s shown an ability to well alongside fellow 7-footer and center Tyler Zeller.

3 – Tonight was the third fan-related incident at Quicken Loans Arena in the last year. The man apparently sprinted up to Kyrie and told him “I love you, man.” I think we need to start levying harsher penalties against these punks including lifetime NBA arena bans, fines, and jail time.

(Photo: Joshua Gunter/The Plain Dealer)