Indians’ Roberto Perez placed on DL; C Adam Moore called up
May 2, 2016April struggles and April sweeps, While We’re Waiting…
May 3, 2016Atlanta Hawks – 93
Cleveland Cavaliers – 104
Box Score
Cavs lead series 1-0
It seems like ancient history, but the Atlanta Hawks won 60 games last season. For the all the premature penciling in of the hyped Cleveland Cavaliers into the NBA Finals (in sloppy, comic sans-like handwriting, no doubt) it was the Hawks who had the top seed in the conference, who had home-court advantage in the Eastern Conference Finals, and who played with pace and space (and style and grace).
When the Hawks and Cavaliers rendezvoused in the Eastern Conference Finals, it was the Cavaliers who entered the series with a soap opera of a basketball team, Love-less and having struggled against the Chicago Bulls in the preceding series. The Hawks had a golden opportunity to terminate the Cavaliers, detonating visions of the Cavaliers dominating the East for the next five years.
The Cavs proceeded to sweep the Hawks, bludgeoning them to death with a barbaric Mad Max-brand of basketball.
The Cavaliers then won every game the two teams played in the 2015-16 regular season, winning the season series 3-0, including two April contests the Hawks wanted much, much more than the Cavaliers.
The pattern continued on Monday night, the series opener of the second round of the Eastern Conference Playoffs. The Cavaliers coasted to an early lead … coasted some more … and kept coasting — turning on the cruise control and kicking their feet up to take a nap. The Hawks eventually clawed their way to a fourth quarter lead despite poor shooting all night — and promptly fumbled the lead away like a precious vase they knew was too expensive to hold. The Cavs have now won eight consecutive games against the Hawks dating back to last season’s playoffs. The Hawks haven’t beaten the Cavaliers since March 9, 2015, and it’s fair to wonder if the Cavs have infiltrated their psyches a little bit. Let’s go into the depths of the box score and see how the Cavs escaped with a win.
4:10 – With 4:28 remaining in the game, Al Horford made a driving hook shot to give the Hawks a precarious 88-87 lead — the one-point lead being the largest they would have all game. They then went four minutes and 10 seconds without making a field goal. During that time, the Cavaliers went on a 17-2 run, with only two Paul Millsap free throws saving them from a total shutout during the romp. By the time Lamar Patterson made a meaningless three-pointer with 18 second remaining, the Cavs had put the game out of reach and given the Hawks another traumatic episode to relive. The sequence was the result of some anarchic perimeter defense, and was largely sparked by two LeBron James steals that led to attacking possessions. The effort was so inspiring, even Kyrie Irving played defense, blocking a Dennis Schroder layup so thoroughly that I’m going to spell his name without umlauts for the rest of the series.
17 – The Cavaliers attempted 17 free throws in the fourth quarter, the result of aggressive play and some more equitable officiating. The 17 freebies included 10 in the last 4:28, after the aforementioned Horford hook shot gave the Hawks their short-lived lead. The fourth quarter nearly made up for the first three quarters, during which the Cavaliers attempted a meager four free throws. LeBron James and Kyrie Irving attempted a combined ZERO free throws in the first 45 minutes of the game, which seems impossible mostly because it is.
The Cavs and the Hawks each attempted a total of 21 free throws (and the Cavs won), so I realized it’s a tad obnoxious to be offended by the officiating. But, then I remembered the following: LeBron James was not awarded free throws when approximately 10 million people saw Paul Millsap whap him in the face in the fourth quarter; Kyle Korver received three foul shots when he wasn’t even the player who was fouled, under an interpretation of the rules that I’m pretty sure is imaginary; and J.R. Smith was charged with a flagrant foul that probably was a flagrant foul,1 but I’m still annoyed about it because Draymond Green would have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for the same foul. Anyway, I hate to gripe in a win, but I needed to object to get it on the record.2
40, 25, 7, 9, 5 – LeBron James pitched in with a typically superb performance. It wasn’t perfect: he was backdoor cut a few times, and failed to box out Kent Bazemore on a crucial fourth quarter bucket. But he does more than anyone else in the league, and the team looks lost without him on the floor. This is especially reflected in his nine assists, which came from a supernatural ability to know the location of every player on the court at all times, as evidenced by this rifle bounce pass he made to Richard Jefferson the instant he touched the ball.
https://vine.co/v/ixevK1FuJWu
James also added 25 points on an efficient 11-of-21 shooting (including 2-of-4 on threes), and seven rebounds in 40 minutes. There were times he looked like a 31-year-old, laboring for every bucket and forcing a few passes (with the best intentions) that the Hawks snatched away in the fourth quarter. But he made up for it and then some, with five steals to compensate for his four turnovers. Though James shot only 2-of-7 in the fourth quarter, his two steals were crucial, with his and-one sparking the Cavs’ 17-2 run and his killer spin move on Al Horford icing the game. Reminder: A 31-year-old man leads the league in minutes in the playoffs.
21 & 8 – Kyrie Irving finished with 21 points and 8 assists, including nine fourth quarter points. He looked for his teammates throughout the game, not only his own shot — including the dish on the pick-and-roll to James that led to his and-one. He did disappear in the second and third quarters, scoring only two points on 1-of-8 shooting (woof), but he was dynamite in the first and fourth quarters. The highlight of Irving’s game was his miraculous block on Schroder — a rare defensive highlight for Irving.
4-of-17 – The Cavs can’t afford to have Love shoot 4-of-17 (23.5 percent) many more times through the rest of the playoffs. Credit James for continuing to go to Love in the second half even though his shot wasn’t there (Love hit two threes in the third quarter). And though it wasn’t pretty, Love fought for every rebound (finishing with 11 total), loose ball (securing two), and free throw (earning a team-high seven). The Cavs need Love to be truer on this threes, and take it to the likes of Michael Scott in the post with greater success. Here’s the other Michael Scott with my reaction when Love shoots 4-of-17.
27 – Dennis Schroder torched the Cavs for 28 points in Game 1, shooting 10-of-20 from the field and 5-of-10 from three. Considering Schroder entered the game having made 3-of-16 three-pointers this postseason (a whopping 18.8 percent), the Cavs aren’t entirely to blame. The trendy thing to do will be to dump on Kyrie Irving for not staying in front of Schroder, but there were plenty of times he was screened and his other teammates didn’t give him enough help (plus Matthew Dellavedova and Iman Shumpert fared no better).
The real annoyance was the coaching staff’s inflexibility with their game plan. After a series against the Detroit Pistons in which the Cavs had success blitzing the pick-and-roll against a quick guard (Reggie Jackson),(( The guy defending the man setting the screen for the quick guard shows hard to cut off the guard’s path (e.g., Jackson/Schroder), allowing the Cavalier player defending the guard time to recover. )) they should have been prepared to defend the Hawks guards the same way. Instead, even after Schroder made four of his first six three-pointers, the Cavs continued to go under screens, much to my great anguish. The Cavs better adjust how they defend the pick-and-roll, because the horrors are just beginning, as the Cavs now have a confident Schroder to worry about in addition to Jeff Teague, a quick and crafty guard who has given them fits in the past.
4 – J.R. Smith added another four three-pointers in Game 1, giving him 22 in the playoffs despite only five games. Smith has hit some impossible shots this postseason, and has been a huge boost to the Cavaliers. He also added five rebounds and three assists on Monday, and chased Kyle Korver around for what must have felt like hours (Korver only had one field goal attempt as a result). The Cavs are in trouble if teams figure out that J.R. is worse when you don’t guard him.
12 – If the Cavs recent success against the Hawks gives them nightmares, then Tristan Thompson is Freddie Krueger. Thompson turns every rebound into a melee, thrashing for the ball like a man possessed. Thompson finished with 12 rebounds on Monday, including five offensive rebounds. Everyone has an opinion on how much Thompson ought to have been paid last offseason, but every single one of his playoff offensive rebounds is worth a million dollars of Dan Gilbert’s money as far as I’m concerned.
0 – None of the Cavaliers bench players finished with a positive plus/minus on Monday. (There was one neutral player with a plus/minus of zero, if you feel so inclined to count Timofey Mozgov’s seven seconds of playing time.) I thought Richard Jefferson and Channing Frye both contributed good minutes, but the Cavs need more from Iman Shumpert (two points, -9) and Matthew Dellavedova (one point, -5) going forward in the series. I haven’t run the numbers yet, but the Cavs went Big Three-less too much (partially due to early foul trouble), and Coach Tyronn Lue had trouble finding a lineup that worked at the end of the third quarter and start of the fourth quarter, when the Hawks made their run. Nevertheless, the Cavs take a 1-0 series lead, much to the relief of everyone in Cleveland.
- He hit Millsap in the neck with his elbow, albeit accidentally. [↩]
- At least the Hawks didn’t get away with an in-bounds passer elbowing someone in the torso. [↩]
29 Comments
That JR three was so big. I also agree that that flagrant was a JR flagrant.
I am not sure why we are having the calls not go our way these first two series. It may just be the refs trying to keep the other team in the game, just to make it interesting, but it really has to be frustrating for Lebron, to be the best player in the league and get no calls when you go to the hoop.
A native Clevelander who now resides in Atlanta called into Carman’s show this morning and commented that the narrative down there is that they (ATL) have to play against the officials as well. I guess it’s a common theme for any homer to groan about officiating but I find it difficult to imagine that any objective viewer could come away with the impression that the refs had it out for Atlanta. The lack of Lebron free throws, combined with the NSA-level scrutiny on the JR and Shump fouls seemed telling.
Love was hurt on the bench after the foul in the corner in the 4th with less than 3 min left.. Something to keep an eye on.
WINNING!
Although he’ll never a defensive machine, Kyrie picks it up during the playoffs.
Horford whacked Lebron in the face not Milsap. That officiating was total nonsense. It ruins the game as a spectator. That Milsap flop when shumpert was just trying to get through a screen, which somehow turned into 3 free throws for Korver, pretty much sums up the officiating. Someone needs to say something, it’s some bs.
I think Lue said after the game that he was fine.
This is a dumb thing to complain about, but I find Shroder thoroughly annoying. And, it’s only because the last person I saw on a basketball court with his own number bleached/shaved into the back of his head was in junior high school.
Officiating has been BAD during these playoffs. Spurs fans are killing the officials because of Dion Waiters’ shove of Ginobli last night, but what’s funny is the ref actually missed the correct foul call on Ginobli. You have to give the inbounder space to inbound the ball. Ginobli’s arms were so far over the line that he could have blocked a shot if Waiters had tried to take one from the sideline. I get that officials don’t want to be the reason a game is decided for one team or another, but they can’t completely ignore calling fouls… that’s not the right reaction.
Seriously… we see more pure-effort blocks from Irving during the postseason than during the entire regular season.
-JR’s defense on Korver deserved a section of its own. JR was on Korver like white on pipe. It looked like Korver eventually gave up trying to get open because he just knew he couldn’t. HUGE game for JR.
-Mike Gundy may be 40, but Tristan Thompson is a MAN.
-Kyle might have gone The Office Michael Scott, but every time Love missed an open shot, I screamed “KEVIN” like the mom in Home Alone when she finally puts the pieces together. That said, he shook off his bad shooting and still played playoff basketball. So good on him.
-That pass from Lebron to RJ…duuuuude. I was sitting high up at the arena last night and I saw the spin he put on that and immediately jumped on the Tweeter to find a replay because I couldn’t wait for them to show it on the Humongotron.
-Pretty sure Schroder missed his first open shot, at which point I turned to my dad and said I hope they let him shoot all game. Even after a couple makes, I said it’s fine, he won’t keep it up. Obviously, 27 points later, I felt a little dumb, but despite that, I wouldn’t change the defensive plan just yet. Make him do it for multiple games before you react. I think this game was the exception for Schroder, not the rule, and I’d rather let him try to beat us than Teague or Korver. Also, Kyrie is not the main culprit here – Delly consistently got taken to the hole.
-Lebron seemed to check out mentally to start the 4th, throwing some lazy passes, playing some lazy D, and not boxing out (not even lazily). We shoulda/coulda stepped on their throats and put them away to start the quarter instead of letting them back into it and letting think they can hang, because they can’t unless we let them.
-Can’t finish this up without a quick mention on the officiating. The Korver 3 FTs when he didn’t get fouled and the “JR flagrant” were super frustrating (I “joked” that the NBA replay center couldn’t see a proper angle, but they said “it’s JR, soooooo…….”), and the other one that upset me more than the Horford/Lebron face slap was Kyrie NOT getting 3 FTs when he knew Schroder was going to foul him and put up the shot in continuation. But the thing that gets me the most is the weak, non-playoff fouls getting called. I’m not saying it’s one-sided because I’m sure there were some called on the Hawks that I would have liked to seen let go, but I remember Iman and Delly both getting whistled for fouls that should just not be called during the playoffs.
I find Kent Bazemore’s Dirty Sanchez-like mustache annoying as well.
Lue seems to have no feel for the flow of a game.
Time and time again this season, large leads have disappeared because of his perplexing rotations, or his inability to regroup his team.
That fan grabbing Steve Adams was crazy as well.
With that dude in Detroit lunging at JR in the last series, fan interaction is getting ridiculous. I’m surprised I haven’t seen more chatter about it.
NBA officiating is such a joke that it’s difficult to believe it isn’t bad intentionally.
That was wild… I think if TNT actually had a shot from the other side of the court showing the entire incident, it would be top news today. But since it’s kind of tough to see what is happening other than Adams ripping his arm away from somebody, the news gets buried. BTW, just for fun, see if you can spot the two fouls being committed by the Spurs in this photo from just before Waiters’ infamous shove to Manu’s chest.
Millsap flopped twice last night, most egregious when he pretended to get struck in face by LeBron and spun his poor self to the floor in feigned agony. If he doesn’t get fined for that then Varajao should be entitled to full refunds.
As ticked off as I was that the Cavs let the Hawks back into this game after going up by 18 points, I did enjoy seeing the team finish strong. Shump and Delly need to pick up their games tomorrow. Kevin Love needs to take his mind off of Banana Republic photo shoots for a second and I bet the shots will start to fall again.
Kevin Love…you mean like his weak-ass fast break layup that got blocked in the second half?
he whacked his face into shump as well… which of course led to a foul
That was horrific.
I thought he got fouled there, but that might just be my homerism. He needs to sell the foul if his intention was to get the foul call.
Tremendous, Kyle. You are in locked-in playoff mode. Things that also struck me:
– Generally, the Hawks can’t take this past 5 games because they don’t have a closer. Umlaut can be fearless crazy, in a J.R. Smith/Damon Jones way, but those guys can kill you only when they complement the star who draws all the attention. Socialism without bad alphas doesn’t win many playoff series. Korver wilts under heavy harassment, Millsap is a perfect teammate leader but can’t will a road win, Horford seems to carry PTSD from last year’s playoffs.
– Cavs played better defense (until late 3rd quarter) than we’d seen all year. Ok, so all youse advocates of the Bored Theory were maybe right. I didn’t doubt they were bored, but questioned whether they could wait to the playoffs to flick the defensive switch. With opponents like Detroit and ATL, apparently yes.
– More and more Kyrie reminds me of the brilliant, spoiled kid who sulks for no reason and won’t respond to chitchat he thinks is below him. Started the game with ferocious attacks, spent the middle quarters checking his phone, looked up when he heard the crowd get restless and pulled his game back out of his back pack. There’s nothing I can do about this, as he ignores my carping. Atlanta wishes they had him.
– Wither Shump. Not really impacting game in any way. Seems Delly’s defense is down a full notch this year but that’s understandable given how much more energy and detail he’s giving on offense. Shump just looks weirdly tentative when his whole game is aggression.
– Tristan has now fully bloomed into the playoff bully. Not just abusing guys but then marking his territory with post-play shoves and sneers just to mark his territory. Not complaining about fringe calls. Full Charles Oakley, what every opponent fears and exactly what a trophy contender needs.
Good Oakley comparison.
He dropped it like a stack of dimes…
http://pbs.twimg.com/media/CbIMX6oUsAIOx_D.png
This was a great game to watch. Very surprised that Atlanta hung with them that long!
also purple shirt guy talking trash to DWade in that series… basically on the court. these morons are going to ruin the best fan experience in sports, courtside seating.
Don’t really agree with the Irving comment (I feel like they stopped using him much more than he removed himself), but the Thompson comments are very solid. The Shumpert ones, too.
You note that Schroder’s 5/10 line was an outlier as he is a terrible shooter, so I don’t understand why your reaction to that is to demand that the Cavs change their defensive scheme. If Schroder shoots 10 threes every game there will only be three more games, and they will all be blowouts.
I’m curious about your follow request on my profile.
What is your interest in me.