While We’re Waiting… Magic’s defense on the final shot, Mo’s (Non)Technical Foul, Joe Tait’s Call
May 23, 2009LeBron James: Where Amazing Happens
May 23, 2009If you think that shot was huge last night, just imagine how history will view that shot if the Cavaliers are able to achieve their goal this season. It happened in a flash. It was a moment that has a chance to alter destiny. It was a singular shot that changed the mindset of an entire city. It was the difference between despair and hope. Between desperation and redemption. It was simply everything that is great about sports, and even if for one night only, LeBron James gave us all a sense of optimism and belief that the Cavaliers can somehow fix their defensive issues and overcome the Magic in this series. The 96-95 victory was a moment that none of us will ever forget. You can read Craig’s recap of the game here, but what follows is my analysis in numbers and words.
– I can honestly say that I have never been so unsure how to feel about a series. This series could easily be 2-0 Cavs, 2-0 Orlando, or the 1-1 tie that it is. Any of those scenarios are not only plausible, but likely. The Magic are a contested 3 from Rashard Lewis/missed wide open 3 from Delonte West/missed touch jumper off a tipped jump ball from Mo Williams away from being down 0-2. On the same note, the Cavaliers are a miracle shot from LeBron away from being down 0-2. Two games, two one point victories for teams decided on last second shots. Both games it was the Cavs who had to take the last shot trailing by 1 with just 1.0 seconds left. Wednesday it was Mo Williams who took the shot after LeBron won the jump ball tip back to him, but that shot just missed going in. Last night, it was LeBron who took the shot off the inbound pass from Mo, and it was LeBron who once again saved Cleveland from itself. Just a remarkable series so far.
– I was very much pleased by the Cavaliers improvements in their interior defense. At least early in the game. The Cavs outscored the Magic in the paint by a 44-28 margin. They were quicker to double team Dwight Howard, and they used their smaller guards to slap the ball out of Howard’s hands every time he brought the ball down low to the ground (something he actually seems to do a little too often for a big man). It was an effective strategy for the most part, and it seemed to take Orlando out of any kind of inside-out game. I was appalled with the Cavaliers’ perimeter defense, though. They looked like they’d never seen a team run a pick on the perimeter before, and the Magic just turned the corner after every single pick and were able to either drive the lane pretty much unimpeded or else they were able to swing it outside for a good look. The Magic’s spacing has just been tremendous in this series, and they are moving the ball very well, consistently using the extra pass to get good looks. And most importantly, they are knocking down the shots.
– Speaking of knocking down shots, you know the Magic were the best 3 pt shooting team in the NBA this year, don’t you? No, you don’t know that, because it’s not true. The Magic shot 38.1% from distance this season, which was 6th best in the NBA. The Cavaliers shot 39.3% from beyond the arc this year, which was 2nd in the NBA. That’s right, the Cavaliers were a better three point shooting team than the Magic. Yet in this series, the Magic have been unreal. Simply unbelievable. The Magic shot 45.0% in Game 1 and 43.5% in Game 2. The Cavaliers shot 32.0% in Game 1 and 26.3% in Game 2. For all the talk about how great the Magic have been playing, it shouldn’t be lost on anyone that the Magic are playing above their heads right now while the Cavaliers, outside of LeBron, have simply just not played at their normal levels of success. Mo Williams has seemingly lost all of his swagger and confidence in his shot. He’s missing everything right now. I still feel that if he gets his shot back and gets back to playing his usual level of basketball, the Cavaliers will still be fine in this series.
– Gotta give some credit to Sasha Pavlovic who played a good game coming off the bench. He gave the Cavaliers some offensive spark off the bench, and his size on defense was pretty effective early on as well. His 9 points were key in this game, because once again they otherwise only got 5 points off the bench from Joe Smith. The Cavaliers’ bench looks like a joke right now, and Wally Szczerbiak got the rare DNP-CD in this game. Mike Brown has really shortened his bench for this series, as Pavlovic and Wallace were the only guys to play more than 10 minutes. I’m not sure that opening up the bench more is any kind of plausible solution for the Cavs, but it just goes to show how hard it has been for Mike Brown to find matchups that work against Orlando. The Cavaliers all season long have typically been a team that could use its versatility to match up with just about any team. Against Orlando, though, nothing is working right now. The Magic are wearing the Cavaliers down, and in the 4th quarter last night they were able to get just about any shot they wanted. Using Pavlovic was a good idea, but Coach Brown needs to not just stop there. If you want to use a bigger lineup against the Magic, you might as well give Szczerbiak some minutes as well. Wally’s lack of speed is an issue against Orlando, but when you only use 2 or 3 guys off the bench, you’re giving up the versatility that made you such a dangerous team in the first place.
– I thought Ilgauskas looked much better in Game 2. They finally started going to him in the post a little bit, which was something I was angry they didn’t do in Game 1 at all. Big Z finished with 12 points and 15 rebounds, pretty much matching Dwight Howard tick for tack in this game. It was probably the best overall game Z has played in the playoffs this year, and it was just huge in getting the Cavaliers their big lead.
-At this point, I don’t know what else to even say about LeBron James. I wonder how many people were confident when the Cavs were inbounding the ball with just 1.0 seconds left. I know I wasn’t. But I should have been. According to 82games.com, nobody has hit more game winning shots since 2003-04 (including playoffs) than LeBron. Defining “Game Winning Shot” as “24 seconds or less left in the game, team with the ball is either tied or down by 1 to 2 points”, they point out that LeBron has made 17 Game Winning Shots on 50 attempts (for comparison’s sake, Kobe Bryant has 14 Game Winning Shots on 56 attempts). We’ve seen LeBron do the unthinkable in the playoffs time and time again, and yet I let myself be filled with doubt. Shame on me. 10 games into the playoffs this year, the Cavaliers are 9-1 and LeBron has a 41.59 PER. The highest PER in a single season in NBA history was Wilt Chamberlain’s 31.84 in the 1962-63 season. The highest postseason PER for a single season ever was 38.95 by Hakeem Olajuwon in 1988. There’s just not enough adjectives in the English language to describe what we are witnessing this year.
– Finally, to put this all into a little perspective, lets think about where the Cavs stand in this series. Last night, after the shot, I was initially more relieved than anything else. I wasn’t happy because I felt in my heart that the Cavaliers deserved to be in an 0-2 hole heading to Orlando. As Brendan pointed out in WWW this morning, Brian Windhorst expressed a lot of doom over this series, and it was a sentiment I fully agreed with. However, throughout the course of thinking about this further, I have come to the realization that LeBron’s shot wiped the slate clean for the Cavaliers. Sure, the Cavaliers could easily be in an 0-2 hole, but thanks to LeBron, they’re not. It’s a 1-1 series, and now all the Cavaliers have to do is split in Orlando to regain home court advantage. Yes, the rest of the Cavaliers have played awful in this series, but the Cavaliers have still been able to have a chance to win the first 2 games. If Mo can find his shot, and with LeBron James paying the best basketball I have ever seen, the Cavaliers have a chance to be ok and survive this series.
13 Comments
Sasha made some good plays, but that foul at the end was as boneheaded as anything Drew Gooden ever did.
Also, Mo actually had a nice 4th quarter. He missed a wide open 3, but he went 3-5 with 8 points in the 4th. Hopefully, that will give him some confidence heading to Orlando.
I know it is a scary proposition, but if the Cavs want to boost the effectiveness of guys like Delonte, they might actually want to decrease the dude’s minutes.
Delonte played about 34 MPG during the regular season and in the past two games he has played 47 minutes and 46 minutes respectively. That is more than LBJ in each game.
You just can’t expect him to be a lightning rod for this team with so many minutes on him at the end of games.
Great point, Craig. I don’t like how they’ve shortened the bench, and we risk tiring out our most reliable players. I say go with the guys who have brought us to this point, including the bench players. I agree with Rock about Wally, too. I know there are concerns about the effectiveness of this or that player, but getting one-dimensional only makes it easier for the other team to defend you. The Sasha experiment for Game Two only confirms that point.
@jcm: that was a pretty harmless reach. 7 times out of 10 that doesn’t even get called. I hated the timing of that foul, but the act itself wasn’t that bad. I’m not gonna dog the dude for that at all. Had the refs not called it, we wouldn’t even be talking about it. In fact, we’d probably be crediting Sasha for his great defense on that play.
Thought this might help, especially since WFNY (one of my favorites by the way) is a site for the common man created by the common man. Enjoy.
http://slawdiesel.blogspot.com/2009/05/where-amazing-happens.html
I think we need to push the ball. I think we can push the pace of the series, without turning it into an up-and-down contest. Make the get back on defense faster. They are the team that’s played 15 playoff games to our 10.
Push the ball, set-up-the-offense, maybe a few easy baskets… tire them out a bit.
I disagree Rock. He got beat and swiped at a guy going by him. That gets called a ton. Heck, it gets called a ton on Pavlovich. Once Turk got past him, he needs to know not to foul with the clock that low. If Turk scores on a layup, the Cavs get the ball back with 12 seconds left and have time to get off a higher percentage shot.
jcm: I’m going to agree with Rock. The refs were allowing a lot of contact on drives, and in end of game situations, they usually let stuff go (because this is the NBA, where bad officiating happens). Normally, that favors an aggressive defense. This time, not so much. But in the NBA, how can you ever know?
Eh, maybe you guys are right. I’m probably not always fair when it comes to Sasha – he’s my least favorite Cav by a lot. Anyway, I’m going to spend my day enjoying the feeling of Cleveland winning one of these games. I’ve spent 30 years watching things happen *to* them. This is new for me.
Orlando is probably thr worst matchup in the leauge for the Cavs (as we found out in the regular season) They have a 6’10” point forward who knocks down clutch shots, a 6’10” wing player who shots the lights out, the most dominant center in the leauge right now, and a reliable, athletic, deep bench. But like Rock metioned, Cavs arent even playing thier best ball, for 48 minutes anyway, So if Mo and Delonte find thier shot, and our bench can wake the hell up!! (ahem Big Ben and Bobbie who is MIA basically) I think we will win the series still. O yea LBJ is on a different planet right now… the playoffs are where legends are born, and I think LeBron just added about a chapter to his book of legendry
Rock nailed it right here:
“That’s right, the Cavaliers were a better three point shooting team than the Magic. Yet in this series, the Magic have been unreal. Simply unbelievable. The Magic shot 45.0% in Game 1 and 43.5% in Game 2. The Cavaliers shot 32.0% in Game 1 and 26.3% in Game 2. For all the talk about how great the Magic have been playing, it shouldn’t be lost on anyone that the Magic are playing above their heads right now while the Cavaliers, outside of LeBron, have simply just not played at their normal levels of success.”
Going back to Orlando for games three and four only help bolster the Magic’s confidence, but there is something about this Cavs team, man. Don’t stop believing. (Oh crap, I think I just quoted Journey. This series is making me crazy.)
Obviously, the series is wide open.
But, I have very little faith that the Cavs can win it right now. How do you stop doing the things you did to build a 23-point lead? And how do you do it two games in a row?
I am ashamed that Mike Brown is getting outcoached by Stan Freaking Van Gundy.
[…] LeBron saved everything with his memorable last-second three. But even after this game, our very own Andrew had this to say about the series: Last night, after the shot, I was initially more relieved than anything else. I wasn’t happy […]