Kyrie Irving to participate in third straight Three-Point Shootout
February 2, 2015Super Bowl items galore and more Ohio music, While We’re Waiting
February 3, 2015Philadelphia 76ers (10-39) 84
Cleveland Cavaliers (30-20) 97
[Box Score]
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The Cleveland Cavaliers’ revenge tour continued Monday night with a 97-84 win over the Philadelphia 76ers. One of this season’s low points came a few weeks ago when the Cavaliers lost to the Sixers. In that game, the Cavaliers were depleted by injury, sure. But they still had enough talent that they really shouldn’t have lost that game. With guys getting healthy and bolstered roster this time, the Cavaliers were looking to continue their recent trend of saving face.
For a while this one looked like it was going to be an easy coast to their eleventh straight win. But the Sixers have been a little spry lately, and they used some hot shooting along with some careless Cleveland turnovers to turn a 20 point deficit into a close game into the fourth quarter.
Early in this game the Cavaliers’ defense was stellar. Everyone was moving well and helping out, leading to some nice breaks and good movement on offense. In the third quarter, however, something kind of strange started to happen. The Cavaliers’ offense slowed down and the energy levels dropped. As the offense began to struggle, the defensive intensity deflated as well. The Sixers were eager to take advantage and they made this a ball game.
Down the stretch, though, the Cavaliers just had too much talent. Kyrie Irving recovered from some bad turnovers and made some big baskets and Matthew Dellavedova hit some timely three pointers as well. The Cavaliers went on a late run to put this game away. For the Cavaliers, this was their fifth gave in seven days and sixth in nine days, so a let down in energy late in the game isn’t an unforgivable offense. Quite frankly, they looked like a tired team playing a young team that has been playing really hard lately. In the end, the win is all that matters, and the Cavaliers now have eleven straight.
Now let’s look at some numbers…
- 34.1% / 45.9% – In the first half the Cavaliers held the Sixers to just 34.1% shooting from the field. In the second half, however, the Cavaliers gave up 45.9% shooting, including 8 of 18 from three point range. Some of that surely was just the Sixers getting a little hot in the second half, but a big part of it was the loss of intensity on defense by the Cavaliers. The help rotations got a little slow and they stopped challenging the outside shots as a result. Again, I don’t mean for this to sound overly negative. The Cavaliers have played a ton of games lately and they haven’t had much practice time as a result. These things happen in the NBA. What’s important is that the team recovered in crunch time and secured the win.
- 1 of 7 – Kevin Love continued his shooting woes in this game. He was 1 of 7 in the first quarter, and he never attempted another FG for the rest of the game. On one hand, it’s scary to think that the Cavaliers are on an eleven game winning streak while Kevin Love is really struggling. If he can get his shot back and recover his confidence, this team could really be even better. On the other hand, there are no guarantees that happens. In the second half when the offense was stalling, the Cavaliers were more or less settling for outside jumpers with little movement on the inside. This was where the Cavaliers could have really used Love in the post to get some easy baskets like he used to get with Minnesota. Yet Love was mostly standing around outside the perimeter, and when he got the ball with a good look, he was passing up the shot. I really don’t know how much of this is the system and how much is Love’s struggling confidence. What I do know, though, is that Love stayed on the court after the game to work a bit on his game. I will never be too hard on any player that is putting in the work but still struggling. I refuse to believe that we won’t see Love make a major impact on this team beyond just his rebounding at some point in this season.
- 22 to 18 – The Cavaliers had a rough assist to turnover ratio of 22 to 18. The Cavaliers have been pretty good with turnovers lately, so the 18 individual turnovers (20 team turnovers) felt like a bit of a setback. The sloppiness wasn’t limited to one person. Kyrie Irving dribbled himself into double teams a coupe times and lost the ball, LeBron had some bad passes. LeBron had 6 turnovers in this game, and if there’s one criticism that could possibly be thrown in his direction since his return from injury, the turnovers would be it. Kyrie has been great with protecting the ball lately, so his five turnovers were rather surprising as well. The turnovers probably played into the offense becoming stagnant, and that led to the low assist tally. The Cavaliers just weren’t super sharp in this game.
- 28 – The Cavaliers got a nice boost from their bench tonight as the second unit contributed 28 points. Delly led the bench unit with 12 points and Iman Shumpert added 11 points of his own. Delly in particular was huge down the stretch hitting a couple timely threes when the team really needed them. I still think the Cavaliers could use a little bit more production from their bench, and another trade for more depth could really help, but tonight, the team got what they needed from the bench.
- 1 of 9 – The Sixers’ starting PG Michael Carter-Williams finished this game with a 1 of 9 mark from the field for just two points. Again, the Cavaliers continue to make life extremely difficult for opposing PGs. This is noteworthy because of how atrocious the team has been at defending opposing PGs over the last few seasons. Kyrie Irving deserves a large share of credit, but it’s not just Kyrie alone. The Cavaliers have added upgrades in perimeter defense in JR Smith and Shumpert, and Mozgov is still a massive upgrade in interior defense if for no other reason than his size.
There’s not a lot of takeaways from this game. The Cavaliers looked like the recent stretch of games was finally starting to catch up to them. The team at least now has two days to get a little rest and to get some practice in to clean up some of the sloppiness and breakdowns in the system. They could certainly use it, because Thursday night they face a tough task when they host the Los Angeles Clippers on national television. It should be a great game.
36 Comments
Bonus number:
3 – The number of losses of the top three teams in the East last night. Inch a little closer; just 3.5 behind Toronto for second place in the conference.
Right now that would setup a 1st round matchup with Miami. That would be fun.
I think the Cavs have a reasonable chance of finishing second in the East. Third is obviously more likely, but I think we’ve yet to see this team play their best basketball.
A few quicks:
– The Philly coach is doing a good job, getting those scrubs to play so hard on the road against good teams. There may be a ton of wasted motion, but there’s a lot of motion and every time boredom got the best of the Cavs that team was grabbing all the loose balls and was right back in it. The coach will probably get fired anyway but hey, there’s a finite number of HC jobs in the NBA so stick that on your resume, pal.
– We debated a lot around here as to what sort of player Nerlens Noel would be. Understand he’s young and he’s been hurt, but right now he looks a far cry from being an impact player.
– Interesting look and tone of voice from Blatt in the post-game presser regarding Love taking no second half shots. He’s clearly not happy about it at all. Unclear who he blames but he mentioned welcoming some practice time this week and will be interesting to see if Love gets force fed against the Clippers on Thursday.
#1 is an exceptional point. Particularly when you juxtapose that to the level of effort (or lack thereof) that Byron Scott and Mike Brown squeezed out of a Cleveland roster that had more talent than this Philly team has. Brett Brown is a really good coach and I truly hope Philly lets him stick around through the rebuild.
Unfortunately couldn’t watch the game, but followed along online and saw Noel had 2 blocks in the first quarter (can’t remember what he ended up with). That’s at least a little impact…in one quarter…of one game.
Don’t in any way absolve Byron or Mike but I thought that their veterans, with the exception of Andy, did them no favors with sometimes comical lack of effort. I’m thinking Jamison, Mo Williams, Alonzo Gee after he got his contract (he may have been the worst offender). Last year Tristan and Kyrie dogged numerous games. These Sixers played like Gee before he got his guaranteed money, like they had 5 Dellavadovas bouncing around..
I still have Cleveland winning the conference.
Atlanta has Golden State twice, San Antonio twice, Phoenix twice, Washington twice, and two against the Cavs. They finish with Chicago. They’ve still got Houston, Memphis, Dallas, and OKC.
Their schedule is going to be rough over the second half.
Cavs have the Clippers, Golden State, Houston, Memphis, Dallas and the Spurs once each. They get to play Indiana and Boston 3 times each (and Brooklyn twice).
I think the boredom you speak of is Noel’s adversary right now. And he’s only slightly removed from a serious injury. However, I thought he showed some true athleticism, and I’ll refrain from making my analysis until next year, when the effects of his injury are behind him. The attitude is on him, though, and that may hold him back.
I know Delly had a good game, but I do not like him getting this much PT. There was one time in the 2nd quarter where he tried to drive, and it was crazy embarrassing. DON’T DO THAT STUFF!
Also, I recognized 2 players on the Sixers. That team is awful.
I don’t think it matters. The Cavs are built for the playoffs (better starting unit), while the Hawks are built for the longer haul of the regular season (deeper lineup). The risk for the Cavs setup is that 1 major injury can derail the season whereas Atlanta is better protected if an injury happens.
I chucked to myself whenever someone left the paint to guard Noel. He is not hitting any shot from more than a few feet away.
He is shooting 14% from 10 feet and beyond. So, there is a chance he’ll hit one eventually 🙂
I didn’t get to see this particular game, but have watched Noel a few times this year. He is incredibly gifted athletically and once he figures out how/where he is supposed to move on defense, he is going to be an absolute force on that end. I don’t know that he’ll advance past the JaVale McGee on the offensive end. He is just so bad with his shot and I feel a bit embarrassed for him when he tries to put the ball on the floor. He needs to improve one of those 2 things a ton to be an effective offensive player.
not so sure i agree with that assessment. If Atlanta loses Horford, Millsap, Korver, or Teague, they’re in deep doo-doo. Those guys are all playing out of their minds.
Basically, I don’t always understand the crazy, tight-context Hawks love. It’s like the stat geeks have all of the sudden forgotten about what they preach. The Hawks are playing at their peaks right now. They will fall back to the mean.
his shot is comical, so i should have prefaced my comment with a disclaimer that i was only talking about his defensive potential.
Read somewhere that he leads all rookies in blocks per game (forget the number), and steals at 1.5. Big man that creates turnovers can have some impact. He’s apparently the first rookie to average at least 1.5 blocks and steals since the Admiral. He’s no Robinson, but he’s a still young guy coming off a major injury while playing for a team trying to lose. Hopefully he can learn to transcend the losing soon, and not become a stat stuffer on a bad team.
Yeah but you are also assuming the Cavs win every other “easy” game, and we all know Lebron is going to get another week off before the playoffs.
Cavs are probably going to finish 52-54 wins due to the bad start. Where that places them is anybody;s guess.
I think that they can afford to lose any of those guys other than Horford and still be okay (obviously, there’d be a dropoff, I just don’t think it’d be as big as say the Cavs w/o Irving). And, the reason that Horford is so important is that his play is what lines up with their defense catching up to their offense.
But, the main reason I also say that they are built for the regular season is that right now they are running teams off the floor with their 2nd units (well, they stagger their starters, but the same idea). They have enough depth that they can keep a relatively minimal dropoff in efficiency throughout the game.
In the playoffs, that advantage gets neutered because the starters are going to have their minutes cranked up.
His offensive game will need to grow, I think everybody likes his defensive instincts, etc. He’s going to add some pounds and fill out, but he needs to get that body right to handle that bulk.
Hawks have Shroeder and Antic who could both add a lot of minutes, and the Carroll guy could take some of Korver’s time. ATL could handle a loss to anybody on their rotation for a 2-week period and do fine, IMO. Season ending injuries are rough and would hurt anybody, anyteam, naturally.
I thought his defensive instincts and second leap were supposed to be off the charts yet I thought he was maybe the least aggressive of the sixers last night. But I get all the caveats: hurt, inexperienced, young, road trip. Mozgov was beating him up like a little brother quite a bit of the time. This was just my firstimpressions. Will be curious how he looks next year – the Philly Grand Plan depends on it.
no idea why Delly played so much of the fourth quarter. He hit crucial threes but Shumpert, the way he was playing, looked much more capable of stopping the sixers nonsense defensively, and could have hit some threes himself. Blatt was asked this and gave a “going with the flow” sort of response.
and Shump is still relatively newly-returned – meaning he’s probably only just getting his game legs. Maybe Cavs are still limiting his minutes?
To bad the Bulls didn’t play and lose too!
I didn’t mind him playing so much I mean it was the Sixers after all. I agree he’s tough to watch when he’s running the offense. I think this might be why there are rumors of the Cavaliers seeking a veteran backup PG.
I was hoping Shumpert minutes were the reason. But not what Blatt said. He played 21.
Mozgov goes down and it’s …
http://www.quickmeme.com/img/27/273ce8c99f971a4414b0212a17ca59598b19beef767f025ff24a41d57023ea89.jpg
I thought Brett was given a 4 year guarantee through the build, and agree he should definitely get all of it.
I know Delly had a good game
I know Delly made two nice 3 point shots.
…there, fixed that for you.
Oh and yes, the now trending #dellydribbledrive is a sight to behold.
C’mon man if this happen you better run whitey ‘cuz I’m coming for ya! Btw awesome flic and love me some Bill Paxton.
He was or at least that’s what Fred McLoud said during the game.
hmmmm…. and i agree with you – i thought he played well, and with energy. And his shot was there.
C’mon man don’t kill the Legend of Dellavedova!
http://img.bleacherreport.net/img/images/photos/001/611/995/140740974_crop_north.jpg?w=630&h=420&q=75
good fix! i approve.
He was so happy then, so free.