Deflategate, Cleveland Indians, Super Bowl ads and more – WFNY Podcast – 2015-02-05
February 5, 2015Good Browns thoughts, Car navs, and These Knees… While We’re Waiting
February 6, 2015Los Angeles Clippers (33-17) 94
Cleveland Cavaliers (31-20) 105
Thursday night’s game between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the visiting Los Angeles Clippers had all the enticing qualities of a potentially great early February NBA game. The Cavaliers entered with an 11 game winning streak, just outside striking distance of the longest winning streak in franchise history. The Clippers came to Cleveland tied for fourth in the Western Conference, coming off the halfway point in a brutal eight-game road trip. Both teams were looking to assert their alpha-ness against one of the best teams in the NBA. Billed as a great game, Clippers-Cavs was the showcase of TNT’s Thursday night programming.
Fast forward a few hours later, and everyone at Quicken Loans Arena and in homes around the country were anxiously waiting for the game to mercifully end. It was one of the most boring fourth quarters in recent memory, which isn’t unusual at all for Cavs fans familiar with the 2011-2014 versions of their team. In seasons past, long stretches of boredom defined an era of ineptitude. But on Thursday night, mind-numbing boredom was a great problem to have for Cavs fans.
Spoiler alert: the Cavaliers won Thursday night. But let’s talk about the box score behind its back.
10 – No, not 10 as in “the gymnastics judge from France awards a 10 to the Cavs for their perfect routine and sticking the landing,” but 10 as in “the Cavs have held 10 straight opponents to under 100 points.” That ties the Charlotte Hornets for the longest such streak in the NBA this season. The Cavs permitted the Clippers to only shoot only 41.8 percent from the field on Thursday and score 94 points, and the Clippers have the best offense in the NBA from an efficiency standpoint with an offensive rating of 110.6. Funnily enough, the Cavs’ sub-100 streak began on the third game of the winning streak, after stealing a victory in Los Angeles despite allowing 121 points to the Clippers. That’s right, the Cavs allowed a bothersome 121 to the Clippers immediately before improving by 22 points for the next 10 games. That’s an entire quarter’s worth of points improved. The defensive effort has been relentless, never allowing consecutive easy buckets. During the sub-100 streak, Cavs opponents have shot a combined 341-of-845 on field attempts (40.4 percent) and scored an average of 92.1 points. Holding a team below 42.0 percent shooting is difficult to do for one game, and the Cavs are holding teams to that average over a fortnight. Oh, and the Cavs are 22-5 when allowing less than 100 points and 12-1 when holding teams below 42.0 percent shooting. Whoa.
88 minutes, 25 seconds – Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, and LeBron James played only a total of 88 minutes and 25 seconds Thursday night, only 61.4 percent of the available time for all of them. The three of played 31, 28, and 27 whole minutes, respectively, well below their averages of 37, 37, and 35 minutes. That adds up to nearly 22 minutes of added freshness, yo! Although it’s premature to start conserving energy for the playoffs (wait until the last few weeks of the season) any bit of wear coach David Blatt can spare his most important tires can add miles to how far this team can go. The more games where Irving, Love, and James can have minute totals in the high 20s and low 30s, the better.
44 to 20 – The Cavs were able to rest their starters during the fourth quarter despite having 19 field goal attempts less than their opponents primarily because they dominated in free throw attempts, attempting 44 freebies to the Clippers’ 20. Teams are 27-9 over the last two seasons when they shoot 23 more free throw attempts than their opponents. This wasn’t Irving and James lowering their shoulder and barreling into the lane, but the Cavs earning contact by gifting their teammates with great passes and high percentage looks. Kevin Love, LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, Timofey Mozgov, and Tristan Thompson all attempted at least five free throws. But the main reason the free throw disparity shows how the Cavs imposed their will on the game and also how it became such a large difference was that the totals reflected each team’s collective poise. While the Clippers quickly unraveled in the second half, engaging in frustration fouls and technical fouls protesting said frustration fouls, the Cavs never retaliated and remained even-keeled despite the provocations, such as when Clippers point guard Chris Paul put Mozgov in a flying headlock. You and your team should fight back when necessary (and it nearly reached that point), but when your team is up 25 and thoroughly dominating, wipe the blood off your cheek, shake your head, and go back to whooping ass. Cavs fans should be proud of their team for shaking off the nonsense and going back to their business with an icily cool and imperturbable demeanor after every hard foul.
16, 8, and 2 – Kevin Love finished the first half with 16 points, 8 rebounds, and 2 assists. The roller coaster of Love this season has been a source of consternation for Cavs fans. But we’re all on the ride now, so forget your fantasies about Wiggins (they won’t make you happy!) and enjoy it. Love has been wildly inconsistent, but when he’s riding high on offense he takes the Cavs to the upper levels of the atmosphere. Thursday night, Love backed down Matt Barnes and Blake Griffin in the post, knocked down three-pointers, and made several great passes, earning three assists and two secondary assists. In the second quarter, Love caught the ball at the elbow whilst backing down his defender, when a Kyrie Irving pin down screen set up a Love-to-James handoff and curl that ended with an uncontested Mozgov dunk. It was one of the most beautiful possessions of the year, and all set up by Love’s ability to operate in valuable real estate.
74.2 percent – It’s hard to find one number that encapsulates how splendid the Cavs played Thursday night, but their 74.2 assist percentage is a qualified candidate. Over 74 percent of Cavs field goals tonight ended an assist from one teammate to another (23 of the team’s 31 field goals were assisted). The Cavs also had five secondary assists and two free throw assists, all of which helped to a 60.0 field goal percentage in the first half and an insurmountable 23 point lead.
The Cavs won’t play this good every night, and it’s not a reason to panic when they don’t. But they were were locked in on Thursday night, dominating an extremely competent foe. I professed my love for the dancing sharks in Katy Perry’s trippy halftime show of the Super Bowl Thursday morning, but I adore the dancing sharks so much that I’m going to again. The left shark in the Vine below is awesome—he dances with such little care and so much style.1 Left shark represents everything awesome in the world. Left shark is independent, confident but not cocky, keeps it 100, “smells ya later,” and is probably super good at guitar—and even if he’s not, he doesn’t care. Left shark must become a noun, an adjective, a verb, everything. And the Cavs were left shark all night on Thursday. Kevin Love left sharked in the first half, and Kyrie Irving was left shark, as was LeBron James. J.R. Smith was left shark. Even Matthew Dellavedova was left shark. Have a good laugh and enjoy the victory, Cavs fans, and may the Cavs continue to left shark on Friday night in Indiana against the Pacers.
- Nobody seems to have noticed that left shark is technically stage right, but whatever. [↩]
43 Comments
Mike Miller’s late plea to rally himself into the 3-pt contest did not go well.
YOU GET A TECH AND YOU GET A TECH AND EVERYBODY GETS A TECHNICALLLLLLLLLL!!!
http://i2.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/012/809/oprah-free-car.gif
Do you mean the viewer’s left or Katy Perry’s left?
But Kyle you’ve had left shark all along (well a couple of months now), his name is Earl Joseph Smith. He runs the Left Shark Dojo in the offseason. He is sort of a combination Splinter, Yoda, and Morpheus, for aspiring Left Shark types.
So, is ok to say “Wham with the right hand!” about Timo?
The Timonator! My new favorite Cav.
You can, but Joe Tait wouldn’t know who you’re talking about 🙁
http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2014/12/22/tait-broke-dont-fix-him
Seriously. He was gawd-awful. I just hope he hits his career percentages by the end of the year. That’ll mean he went on a real tear over the end of the season.
Was anybody else annoyed with Barkley RELENTLESSLY talking about Kevin Love needing to be in the post? I realize it was a boring game at this point, but I felt like saying “THE CAVS ARE UP 29! Maybe what they are doing is working?”
In the first half, they looked like the Harlem Globetrotters. The passing, the dunks, the fun. It was amazing. After the last week with the Browns, we NEED this Cavs team.
Any chance of trading Miller, Marion, Jones, Haywood’s contract and a bag of doughnuts for Hibbert?
……Any? Guys? Fellas?
I miss Joe. 🙁
I do too, and that article made me extremely sad. Obviously I feel bad for their health issues, but the thought of just cutting off something that I was so heavily invested in for so many years…I can’t even fathom.
Player interviews are usually useless, but Love spilled the beans to TNT about what adjustments we knew were coming after Blatt’s last post-game presser: they kind of yelled at me to position myself inside and they’d get me the ball. So there it is. Finally.
“It’s not fair!”
“What’s not fair, honey?”
“You give them everything and I’m better and I get way less!”
“Did you ask? Mommy and Daddy are busy, you have to ask if you need something.”
“J.R. is worse than me and stupid and you give him everything. He doesn’t have to ask.”
“No, he goes right to where everyone can see him and then he gets what he needs. Stop pouting. Do what J.R. does and see if that works.”
“J.R. uses bad words, you should hear what he says in the locker room.”
“Stop that, no one likes a tattletale.”
“And Timo gets plays even though he eats everybody else’s food and you don’t even care.”
“None of you children are hungry. Let’s try this: tomorrow night go in there and ask your brothers to play with you. If they ignore you then we’ll all talk. Will you try that?”
” … … ok.”
It is really an interesting dynamic with Charles on the broadcast team. I notice that when Reggie and Charles are together, their announcing style is a bit more ‘casual conversation’ as the game is happening. This sometimes limits the calling of the game by Marv Albert because Charles is still rambling (about K Love posting up) while plays are occurring.
I don’t mind it typically as it can be interesting. Charles just needs to move on from topics a little sooner.
5 – The number of technical fouls handed by the referees to the Clippers last night. I don’t know what it was exactly, but those refs really did not want to hear a peep from the Clips. I was happy that the techs didn’t really affect the result of the game. There can be no complaining from the Clippers and their fans about the refs deciding the outcome. The Clippers suffered a true beatdown and had a snowball’s chance in hell at winning that game.
Obviously a great game, just beautiful. What’s best is that it doesn’t feel at all like Cavs are at peak efficiency, that this is a high point. Clippers didn’t expect getting punched in the mouth with defensive intensity right from the jump, and the Cavs never let up. Best part was Kyrie giving up the breakaway points to Love; Kyrie is not inherently generous with a clear path and that was obviously a message to his teammate.
Yet another word about Blatt: he’s integrated 3 key players in mid-season with little practice time. All 3 look like they went through training camp here. Credit the players, but credit Blatt as well.
My only negative (shoutout to Sham): exactly who does Little Joe Harris have to pleasure to get a minute of PT these days? They take the oil can to creaky James Jones’s joints and send Tin Man out there first, just wow. I mean, Joe doesn’t have to play 20 minutes like in early season but man, if not when you’re up by 30 in the fourth quarter, when?
They would have to be REALLY good donuts.
Didn’t see the post game, so thank you. Man, it would be a big relief if the issue was Love just choosing to not post up or feeling out of place. That’s inifinitely better than this being by Blatt play design. I think people are generally freaking out for no good reason about his scoring avergae, he’s fine for now. My biggest concern is the playoffs. I think the Cavs are going to need his post presence in the playoffs when the pace slows down.
Yeah, and I have to give credit to Barkley pointing out how much they complain about every. single. call. That made me look fondly upon all the techs 🙂
I also feel bad for Joe’s health, but disagree with the author that his slipping health caused his disgust with the game presentation. He threw sarcastic bits into broadcasts about that for years, from opponents’ arenas long before those decibel levels and antics came here. And maybe we’d be tired of the NBA if we were immersed in it for 4 decades like Tait, the immature athletes and everything else w can’t see from here.
Twenty years ago he was smitten with a tough but very mediocre small forward named Winston Bennett. Talked about him, and his “yes sirs/no sirs” respectful demeanor, like he wanted him as a son-in-law. Struck me than that he is a top of the line play by play man whose big gig was NBA (he did Tribe games for a while, and very well). He was not a NBA lover.
I never really thought about that with the Clippers, but I was listening to CBS Sports’ Eye on Basketball podcast yesterday and they had a Clippers beat writer on the show, and he happened to mention the complaining about every single call as a reason that people might not love the Clips. You could certainly see that last night… even after a couple of techs were already handed out, they still couldn’t stop themselves from barking at the refs after every missed shot. DeAndre Jordan’s GD was so loud that I couldn’t believe TNT replayed it twice.
I didn’t realize Joe was no longer in Canton (first game I’ve been able to watch in a while). Totally agree, he needed to be in there – unless the only plan was to see how many terrible shots Mike Miller can throw up in a quarter. Joe would probably be an obstacle to that. I just hope Joe is getting minutes wherever he is.
I just want to see his efficiency go up. There’s no reason that Love should be missing so many open shots… hopefully he just needs the All-Star break to rest and regroup.
Chris Paul is apparently furious about his T, saying ref said “uh-uh” to him as he brought ball up, he responded “uh-uh what?” and she gave him the tech. He told the press maybe this is not a good job for her, or something like that.
I agree she had a quick trigger but this lady is a trailblazer and I know I saw Clipper reactions to her calls that they would not give a male ref. Jordan especially was way out of line in showing her up. She’s got to enforce respect, even at the cost of a few ticky-tacks in a blowout.
I suspect we’ll see a full court press for Ray Allen after the All-Star break.
Agree with your disagreeing about the cause of disgust. But it’s not the NBA that I’m shocked he quit cold turkey, just the Cavs. I understand not liking the over-the-top cake the game has turned into, but he was the whipped cream on top of just a slice (ok so I can’t analogize like you…but I’m still gonna make up words and you can’t stop me!). I’m just saying he could quit the NBA without quitting the Cavs.
Speaking of turkey, I didn’t realize Hedo Turkeyglue was still in the league. Seeing him guarding Lebron at the top of the key brought back baaad memories…
I want to make sure my new favorite Cav (Moz) gets his due. How about that (half) coast to coast dunk? That guy is amazing. We have a few guards/small forwards on our bench who couldn’t do that – and I would pay good money and laugh really hard to watch TT or Brenden Haywood attempt it.
I also want to make sure BLATT gets some love too. He gets huge credit for keeping his head high and not freaking out when things started so bady and the vultures were circling. On top of that, things clicked once the team got used to his system and bought in. There will bebumps in the road, but I see this just getting better and better.
Joe rides the I-77 shuttle more than some Tribe relievers ride the I-71. As I have no knowledge of the Charge sked, I don’t know if they played yesterday before the Cavs game, but I’m pretty sure I remember hearing Joe did actually play a double header when he first got sent down a few weeks back.
Admit it…you yelled “Wham with the right hand!” when he threw it down.
We all did.
Get Delonte to approve them
I wanted Hibbert before we traded for T-Mo. However, I am currently eating my words on this. I agree, it would be nice to dump a contract for Hibbert but I’m not sure how likely that would be. Fun to think about though. Also, throw in Andy into that trade and you may have something. Wouldn’t need his injury prone self if you had Hibbert, T-Mo, TT, and Love roaming the post.
Indeed I did.
Obviously my proposed trade scenario is stated tongue-in-cheek, but with that being said this team is one Mozgov injury away from a playoff exit.
We need additional bigs and I hope Griff is working on that and not just sitting back enjoying the current view.
See, I’m saying maybe Tait was a pro announcer, not a Cavs fan or a NBA fan.
Agree about Hedo. He was so great in that series and I can’t believe he didn’t become a star after that. Of course both he and Rashard Lewis were later suspended for juicing so maybe that contributed.
“…I’m saying maybe Tait was a pro announcer, not a Cavs fan…”
That would be a shame.
Nev loved the Brownies.
He’s no Jon Barry that’s for sure!
I’d still rather have any TNT broadcaster then almost every ESPN/ABC.
Nev. If there’s such a thing as a play by play guy underrated by local fans, he’s it. I still have some of his big game calls in my head.
Yeah, I heard that quote from Chris Paul. For some reason I’m betting that it didn’t occur exactly like that. Knowing Chris Paul, he probably shot her a hateful look that triggered her saying “uh uh”. And he probably didn’t respond in a kindly “uh uh, what?” it was probably more like “uh uh, WHAT??” It strikes me as similar to the Josh Gordon situation in that after you create ill will for a certain amount of time, your leash is going to get drastically shorter. The Clippers have dug their own graves with their incessant complaining.
seems like yesterday (ok, maybe day before yesterday) when the young Z did the same with a ball-behind-the-back move. Back when Z could run, many coaches and surgeries ago.
and Jordan flat out lied to the LA papers about what he did to earn his. He claims he just yelled “yeah” after scoring. http://www.latimes.com/sports/clippers/la-sp-clippers-cavaliers-20150206-story.html
But the TNT mics picked up him screaming “G-dd-mn And 1!,” obviously directed at the ref who didn’t call a foul.
That’s hilarious! Wow, somebody should have tipped him off about the TNT mics… you could hear it clear as a bell. Now he just looks like a liar.
That Kyrie-to-LeBron alley oop was beautiful. It’s a shame that Kyrie was probably the only person in the building to not see the dunk.
If Amare Stoudemire gets bought out, do the Cavs want him?