Cleveland Browns vs. Cincinnati Bengals: Behind the Box Score
November 10, 2014Kevin Love will “seriously consider” opt out after season
November 10, 2014The 2014-2015 Cleveland Cavaliers, deemed by many the favorites for the NBA Championship, and deemed by many more to be title contenders, had a less than ideal 1-1 start. Then last week, the Trail Blazers humbled the Cavs in Portland 82-101 and the Utah Jazz escaped at the buzzer on a miraculous Gordon Hayward fadeaway that Hayward makes probably twelve out of a hundred times. The Cavs, the supposed reincarnation of the 1992 Dream Team, were suddenly 1-3 and looking disappointingly mediocre. Cavs fans collectively panicked like George Costanza in a house fire.
But it was a little premature to start plowing children and the elderly making for the exit. The Cavs bounced back on Friday, surviving the Denver Nuggets 110-101 after scoring a bonkers 38 points in the first quarter and allowing the Nuggets to crawl back into the game in the fourth quarter. Cavs fans pulled the perceptions of their team out of the pits of despair and back to level ground. Suddenly, the Cavs were 2-3 despite having only one home game and three games against the rough and tough Western Conference.
Does anyone think that LeBron James, a career 49.6 percent shooter, and Kevin Love, a career 45.0 percent shooter, are going to continue to shoot 41.9 percent and 36.6 percent, respectively?
But points per game don’t tell nearly the whole story. Despite the Cavs’ struggles, the tape and the statistics still hint at a potential offensive juggernaut in the 2014-2015 Cavaliers, especially after the performance in Denver.
Much was made over the Cavs assist totals in the first four games. Kyrie Irving had zero assists against Portland. After Wednesday night in Utah, the Cavs were averaging 16.0 assists per game, thirtieth in the league. The Cavs were also dead last in secondary assists per game and points created by assists per forty-eight minutes.2 Those numbers sound bad; mostly because they are. These numbers indicate a selfish “Im’a get mine” attitude, and a team of players unwilling to share the ball.
But that selfish reputation is slightly undeserved. The Cavs’ 305.3 passes per game through the first four games was sixteenth in the league, right in the middle of the pack as far as passes per game go. In fact, the Cavs were passing the ball more than the Houston Rockets, who led the NBA in assists per game. So, the Cavs’ passes were either not leading to quality shots, or players were whiffing or deferring on shots they could have made.
Before Friday’s game in Denver, it was a combination of both. The Cavs were often not taking shots after their passes,3 and were shooting a low percentage as well. Take the possession shown below, where the Cavs whip the ball around the court with five passes, but Kevin Love and Mike Miller decline open shots as the Nuggets scramble to rotate over. By the time Kyrie tries to force a final pass to a cutting Love, the Nuggets’ Randy Foye is able to deflect the ball. In this case, the reluctance to be selfish backfired with a shot clock violation.
The Cavaliers took positive steps on Friday night to change those deplorable assist numbers.4 The Cavs had 329 passes against the Nuggets, leading to 25 assists and 12 secondary assists. 25 assists is well above league average, and 12 secondary assists is a number more than double league average. The Cavs finally demonstrated that rapid ball movement could lead to some good looks, as the offense appeared to take a giant leap in the right direction. In the possession below, the Cavs made nine passes, the last of which was a nifty give from Irving to Anderson Varejao, which resulted in a three-point play. Kenneth Faried fails to respect Kevin Love’s range, which freed Irving to spring for the hoop and find a cutting Varejao.
The 2-3 start for the Cavs has also been in spite of the lackluster shooting alluded to above. The Cavs’ current 41.9 percent on field goal attempts is just a hair above the forty percent benchmark for abysmal shooting.5 To put that in perspective, the Cavs have only shot below 43.0 percent for a season four times in their history. In fact, the current 41.9 percent figure would qualify for the worst shooting season in team history.
Beyond team shooting numbers, every key offensive player is shooting poorly. LeBron James, Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving, and Dion Waiters are all shooting below their career numbers. The four of them, who take the bulk of the Cavaliers’ field goal attempts, are shooting a whopping average of 6.6 percent below their career averages. Six percent! In every game, no more than one of the Cavs’ core four has shot well.6 Furthermore, Mike Miller, a career 40.9 percent three point shooter, has only made one of six three-point attempts.
Does anyone think that LeBron James, a career 49.6 percent shooter, and Kevin Love, a career 45.0 percent shooter, are going to continue to shoot 41.9 percent and 36.6 percent, respectively? James has long been the poster boy for offensive efficiency, an M1 Abrams tank that gets forty miles to the gallon on peanut oil. It’s unrealistic to expect both players to continue to struggle so mightily from the field. Their shooting numbers are going to recover to some degree.
Despite all the factors contributing to the slow start, the Cavs have still posted an offensive rating of 107.3, eleventh in the NBA.7 If you remove the Portland game from the equation as an outlier, the Cavs’ offensive rating average would be 112.5, which would be good for the third most efficient offense in the league.8 That 112.5 number is about the magic number the Cavs should aspire toward. The Los Angeles Clippers led the NBA with an offensive rating of 112.1 last season, the 2012-2013 Miami Heat team that won the NBA Finals had an offensive rating of 112.3, and the 2008-2009 Cavs juggernaut that won 66 games team had an offensive rating of 112.4. The Cavs appear poised to post an offensive rating of at least 112.0. Of 63 such teams in NBA history, only five have finished with less than 50 wins, and qualifying teams have averaged a downright crazy 57 wins. So, omitting the game where LeBron James passive-aggressively watched Kyrie Irving purge himself of his bad habits in a 3 of 17 shooting performance, the Cavs have had an excellent offense.
Obviously the Cavs aren’t going to bring their A-game every night. There will be sloppy nights where they run less like a well-oiled machine and more like the rusty 1992 Buick Skylark without a muffler you drove in high school. But I’m willing to bet that the Portland game is an outlier, and that the Cavs are already a potent offense. This suggests that once David Blatt experimentally perfects the recipe for success, Cavs teammates becomes more accustomed to playing with one another, and the team starts shooting better, they should be offensively elite.
All of this is to say that Cavs fans should be optimistic, and this is coming from a devoted cynic who assumes the romantic couples in movies always breakup and is bracing for the Browns to go 5-11 even after already winning their sixth game. The positive outlook comes despite the noise about sharing the ball, the complaints about offensive stagnation, and the lousy shooting from the whole team. By the time the Cavs emerge from the identity crisis they’ve been enduring here in the early season, I fully expect them to be offensively devastating. Cavs fans should as well. Vegas, which knows a thing or two about handicapping seasons, still pegs the Cavaliers as the favorites to win the NBA Finals, in no small part due to an offense that seems to have no ceiling. Cavs fans should be encouraged by the offensive success and awesome offensive potential in the face of the underwhelming 2-3 start.
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- Because these numbers were gathered beforehand, some figures (especially league rankings) may have shifted come Monday morning, some quite a bit. Virtually all stats were obtained or derived from Basketball-Reference.com, with noted exceptions. [↩]
- Via NBA.com’s player tracking data. [↩]
- Indicated by a very low number for assist opportunities per game. [↩]
- Kirk talked about many of these numbers on Friday night. [↩]
- A 45.9 percent effective field goal percentage is similarly crummy. [↩]
- No more than one of James, Love, Irving, and Waiters has shot over 45.0 percent from the field in any single game. 45.0 percent is a solid benchmark for a “good” shooting night. For instance, against Portland, Kevin Love made half of his field goal attempts, while James, Irving, and Waiters all shot below 35.0 percent. Basically, none of the Cavs offensive stars have played well on the same night. [↩]
- This is an estimate of points scored by a team per 100 possessions, and is better for gauging offensive proficiency than points per game because team’s possession numbers vary so drastically. [↩]
- Though it’s too early to tell, this may be a fair assumption given how much lower the Cavs’ 93.0 offensive rating against Portland was from the Cavs’ average. [↩]
2 Comments
Only 77 games left in the season!!!
Great article, Kyle