Tribe trade, Johnny Manziel and the Serial Podcast – WFNY Podcast – 2014-12-08
December 8, 2014
NBA stars, Anthony Davis, and half court shots, While We’re Waiting
December 9, 2014
Cleveland Cavaliers (12-7) 110
Brooklyn Nets (8-11) 88
[Box Score]
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So far this season, the script for the Cleveland Cavaliers has been to jump out to a good start in the first quarter. Then, as the bench came in late in the first and into the second quarter, that’s when things get interesting. Against the Brooklyn Nets on Monday night, the Cavaliers flipped that script a bit. The starters got off to a sluggish start and the Nets were hitting shots to build an early lead. But it was the bench unit, James Jones and Dion Waiters in particular, who sparked some offense to get the Cavaliers back in the game.
For Waiters, that early spark was only the beginning. Dion had his best game of the season as he was working hard on defense and seemed to hit almost everything on offense. In the second half the Cavaliers’ defense overall stepped up to another level and the team pulled away in the second half to cruise to an easy win in front of both music (Jay Z and Beyonce) and British (William and Kate) royalty.
The win was the seventh in a row for the Cavaliers and their season is starting to look eerily similar to LeBron’s first season in Miami. That team started the season 9-8 before going on a twelve game winning streak and they never looked back. The Cavaliers started this season 5-7, but now have won seven straight and things are looking like they are finally starting to come together on a bit of a more consistent basis. The defense is coming together and the Cavaliers are really sharing the ball and the scoring load is distributed among several different players with seemingly a different leading scorer every other night.
The best news is that there’s still some obvious areas where the Cavaliers can and almost certainly will improve. We’re only beginning to see glimpses of just how good this team can be if they put everything together.
Now lets get into the numbers…
- 26 – Dion Waiters was phenomenal in this game, leading the Cavaliers with 26 points. If I were to nitpick, some of his shots were less than ideal, but who cares? When you’re feeling it like Dion was tonight, you stand aside and let him keep feeding his confidence and let him fire away. With rumors swirling early Monday morning that Dion might be on the trading block, it was nice to see Dion respond in this manner. It serves as a reminder that for all the headaches he can cause, as well as the up and down play he’s capable of, Dion is still a dynamic scoring option off the bench, something the Cavaliers need. For Dion, it’s just a matter of keeping this going. He’s not going to score 26 every night, but he needs to capitalize on his opportunities to be a top scoring option off the bench. Dion also had four assists and two steals to top off his all around impressive game.
- 40.3% – With 4:18 left in the first quarter, the Nets had a 20 to 13 lead over the Cavaliers. The Nets were shooting 64.3% from the field to 37.5% for the Cavaliers. It was looking like the Nets came to play and the Cavaliers might have a letdown game to end their winning streak. But the Cavaliers defense buckled down from that point on, holding the Nets to just 68 points on 40.3% shooting from the field from that point on. Meanwhile, the Cavaliers scored 97 points on 50% shooting from that same point. It was nice seeing the Cavaliers respond and in particular it was huge for the bench to lead the charge.
- 59 – In last Thursday’s Behind the Box Score after the Knicks game, there were two areas that I was pretty disappointed by. One of those was bench production. In this game, the Cavs’ bench scored 59 points. Obviously Dion was a big part of that, but he wasn’t alone. James Jones, getting minutes for Mike Miller, stepped up big time with 12 points, hitting four of his five attempts from three-point range. Tristan Thompson added a double-double with 14 points and 12 rebounds. Against a subpar basketball team, the Cavaliers can win in a number of ways. But no matter who the team is paying, if the bench is giving them good production, the Cavaliers are an extremely difficult basketball team to beat.
- +22 – The other area that disappointed me last week? Rebounding. The Cavaliers were atrocious on the boards against the Knicks. They were better on Friday night against the Raptors, but on Monday against the Nets they were absolutely great on the boards. They outrebounded the Nets 55 to 33 for a +22 rebounding margin. Kevin Love and Anderson Varejao had 14 rebounds each and Tristan Thompson added 12 rebounds of his own. The Cavaliers had 20 offensive boards leading to 23 second chance points. Again, call me a broken record, but when the Cavaliers get some decent production off the bench and they control the rebounds, they are tough to beat. Add in the level of defense they have been playing and it’s easy to see why they are in the midst of this winning streak and turning their season around.
- 15 – In the first quarter, with the first team really sputtering, it was Kevin Love who kept the team afloat. Love scored 15 points in the first quarter on 6 of 8 shooting from the field, including 2 of 3 from three-point range. The only other Cavs starter to score in the first quarter was LeBron James, who had 7 points. I thought it was huge for the team that Love almost single-handedly kept the team within striking distance. Had the Cavaliers fallen down by ten or more points, it would have been a much more difficult task to rely on the bench to lead a comeback. Instead, the Cavs only had a three point deficit after the first, which put the bench unit in prime position to keep the game in hand. These are the little things that often go overlooked. And while Love didn’t score much the rest of the game, it was still his early offense that allowed the Cavaliers to be in position to win the game in the second half.
The Cavaliers are in the middle of a loaded part of their schedule. This was game two of their current four games in five nights stretch, but beyond that they will have played six games in nine nights at the end of this week. By pulling away in the third quarter and early fourth, the Cavaliers were able to rest their starters for most of the final quarter, something that should pay dividends over the next three games.
Now the Cavaliers travel back home to face the Raptors on Tuesday night before going right back on the road for games in Oklahoma City and New Orleans on Thursday and Friday. So settle in and brace yourselves for a loaded week of Cavs basketball.
18 Comments
Again, why do we need to trade Waiters?
Because he’s moody to borderline team dividing, inconsistent, not rounding all aspects of his game,not playing well in the roles he’s assigned, pouting in the roles he’s assigned….hold on, I need to go get a sandwich and I’ll finish up.
Because, on average, he’s not very good. His only stats that have ever been above average are field goal attempts and points per game. There are some stupid teams out there who focus on points per game, so we should be able to get a player who does a lot of other things well like passing and defending.
He can have good games, but he can’t do that consistently. And everything CB Everett said. Indeed, I’m wondering if one reason he had a good game tonight was because he’s auditioning to play in New York for either the Nets or the Knicks.
you forgot ugly, lazy and disrespectful…
Go fix me a turkey pot pie
No dad what about you?
Lebron was prophetic when he said Dion is going to be the publics whipping boy. I agree he’s maddening but you wont ever get equal trade value out of him, and I’ve given up on ever fixing his shot selection – there are some guys that believe in their soul that an off balance contested 16 footer is no different than a layup – but if he can just learn to do other things like defend or rebound on the nights his terrible shots aren’t falling he can be an effective role player. Now that is how you run on a sentence.
The argument goes something like this: check out the 10 games between last night and the Denver game a few weeks ago when he went for 20: average 5.7 ppg, 31% shooting, pouty face/desultory body language/bad karma and generally being a major reason the bench sucks.
I like Dion, but David Griffin’s question is how long he can wait to see whether Dion can learn to play with the other children as available big men get traded elsewhere.
Kevin Love in the first is why this team can be so hard to beat. It is almost impossible for 3 all-star players to all have a bad day on the same day. Two things I really like right now: On offense the passing has been positively SanAntonian for spurts anyway, and On defense they have really committed to sealing off the baseline. TT, Andy, and Love, all crash to the end line forcing the action back out top. I felt earlier in the year they were getting savaged by guys getting under the basket and dishing to wide open bigs for 8 footers or dunks. Its a work in progress, Amare got 18 and he has been dead for 3 years, but you can see growth. Definitely seems like the players are buying what Blatt is selling.
So Dion = Bender?
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The Nets were hitting early jumpers so i was not worried about their shooting percentage. In fact, i like when teams are hitting J’s early to account for FG% because things will certainly even out as the game goes on. If they were getting all their buckets off layups and dunks then that would be a bigger issue (they got plenty of those, too, btw).
Because the Cavs have routinely been beaten inside this season, and, while Waiters doesn’t play there, he could be traded for a guy who does. I always watch the other team’s telecast and each game the announcers talk about attacking the Cavs down low.
you mean that he had the highlight of his career early and then settled into a bunch of starring roles on mediocre teams?
To be fair, Amare has looked wonderful this season. He’s been resurgent, for sure; although not at 2004 levels, of course.
I’m seeing them run Blatt’s offense 80% of the time now instead of maybe 30% of the time in the first week, and they all look more certain about what they’re trying to do. There was a funny stretch last night when Kyrie, who was ice cold, said screw it and chucked bad shots twice in the same possession just trying to get himself untracked. But that’s the NBA. All teams (except the saintly Spurs) have players who do that.
I thought Tristan was horrible defensively in the first half, slow to rotate and allowing so many layups and dunks. Once LeBron started feeding him on offense he became more engaged on defense.
If you remember the gym scene I think I trust Benders shot selection a little more
Look at those handles! I’d give him that scholarship he’s thinking about tryin’ out for.
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Unless you’re the Wizards announcers… then you talk about how your team should give Andy V open 15-footers all day long (whoops).
Interestingly enough, the Grizzlies (aka John Hollinger) are not one of those teams, so there must be something else he likes about Waiters if he is really trying to trade Kosta Koufos.
Given his size relative to other high school kids? You bet… those handles are gorgeous. No tryout necessary!
So far so good on this difficult stretch of games!