The Big O Face: Cavs-Hawks, Behind the Box Score

Cleveland Cavaliers (54-22) 110
Atlanta Hawks (45-32) 108
Box Score

Are you the type of person who other customers loudly sigh, cross their arms, tap their feet, and shake their head behind in the line at Bed, Bath, & Beyond, as you turn a simple purchase into a transaction as complicated as the acquisition of a billion-dollar company? Do you start fights with family members at holidays because you just can’t not call them out on their shit? Are you an all-around difficult person? Did you not like Thursday night’s 20-point victory by the Cleveland Cavaliers over the Brooklyn Nets because it was just too easy? Well, then Friday night’s game was right up your alley!

The Cleveland Cavaliers looked every bit the part of a dominant basketball team in the early going against the Atlanta Hawks, before predictably letting the Hawks machete-hack their way back into the game, taking the lead at one point before settling for overtime. The Cavaliers eventually prevailed in a playoff-like atmosphere, so Cavs fans could celebrate after the game — but not before taking a pull from the Maalox bottle a few times in the second half. Let’s lift the hood on the box score and take a look.

29, 16, 9 – LeBron James finished with 29 points, 16 (!!) rebounds, and nine assists on Friday night, weirdly falling one assist or one rebound short of a triple-double for the fourth time this season (to go with his three real triple-doubles). James just looks spry on the floor — as gallant as he has in his entire career. He was sub-great from a scoring perspective in the fourth quarter and overtime (seven points on 3-of-8 shooting), but he made up for it with nine rebounds and six assists during that span.

There were points in the fourth quarter when Friday’s game looked in grave danger (is there any other kind?) and James made game-saving plays that relieved the Cavs of the embarrassment of blowing a big lead. There was a steal and breakaway dunk in the fourth quarter with a Jumpman flourish (below), two plays in the last three minutes when James found a wide open Tristan Thompson after Thompson’s man was forced to rotate to thwart James, and a Lost smoke-monster block on Jeff Teague with 1:31 in overtime and the Hawks trailing by two.

The most eye-popping play of the night was went James caught a bounce pass from Kyrie Irving streaking to the hoop and dunked adjacent to a defending Al Horford. James has treated viewers to some of the most astounding in-game dunks I’ve ever seen in the last three weeks alone, and this was another to add to the reel. The most amazing thing about it is the way he seems to repel his body away from Horford to evade contact in midair.

https://vine.co/v/ijvBePlYj2n

Since the start of March, James is averaging 25.8 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 7.2 assists on 53.0 percent shooting. Regretfully, James did shoot five three-pointers on Friday night. They went … poorly. Oh, and James passed Oscar Robertson to become the 11th most prolific scorer in NBA history, adding to the list of greats he’s passed this season. Show everyone your Big O face, James. You know what I’m talking about.

5-of-23 – Irving followed his 10-point, 4-of-14 performance against the Brooklyn Nets with a 20 point outing against Atlanta, but on only 5-of-23 shooting (21.7 percent). It doesn’t take a mathe-magician to know that it’s hard to win when one of your ball-players shoots 23 shots and only makes 21.7 percent of them. Though Irving took too many exterior shots, he struggled from everywhere, as shown by the bloodbath of a shot chart below.

Irving did have seven assists, which is commendable for a shoot-first, ask-questions-later guard who often defers ball-handling to James. But he still forces too much, and seems to have little appreciation for the flow of the game. The consolation in Friday’s game is that Irving made 5-of-6 free throws in the fourth quarter and overtime (the lone miss was Irving’s first missed free throw in overtime in his career). While James’ game has gone to the penthouse, Irving’s has gone to the doghouse: he’s shooting 29.3 percent over his last five games.

28 & 9 – Even though Paul Millsap led all Hawks scorers with 29 points, it was Jeff Teague who kept the Hawks in the game. Teague roasted Irving all night, as Teague is someone Irving has struggled to stay in front of for years (along with Reggie Jackson, Tony Parker, and the rest of the NBA). Teague would either beat Irving with his first step, or toy with the Cavs on the pick-and-pop (in which the pop man would open up while his defender waited for Irving to recover on Teague) or pick-and-roll (if the Cavs switched it). It was from plays like this that Millsap got a large chunk of his 29 points. If I’m playing the Cavs, I’m doing nothing but running high pick-and-rolls against Irving from Minute 1 to Minute 48. Irving had a plus/minus of -13 on Friday night, which is basically impossible in a game that the Cavs won. It was not a great week for Irving for uhh a variety of reasons. The Cavs need him to bounce back.

100% – Kevin Love shot 5-of-11 from the field on Friday night, which is [shrugs shoulders] fine. Here’s the rub, though, Love attempted nine three-pointers. He was 2-of-2 on two-point field goals [punches numbers into supercomputer, waits on results], which is 100 percent. The SportVU tracking numbers weren’t available on NBA.com when this post hit the presses, probably just to prevent me form complaining about Love’s post touches. I can only think of three post touches Love received on Friday, one of which resulted in a lovely dish to Thompson (Love finished with four assists), and two of which resulted in buckets with nifty footwork. That’s okay, though, please use Kevin Love exclusively as a glorified spot-up shooter. I’m completely serene with that decision. [Takes deep breath from inhaler.]

14 – I didn’t make much of Tristan Thompson’s 382nd straight game played on Tuesday, but the Cavs’ Iron Man came up with 14 rebounds on Friday, including five offensive rebounds that all felt important. He tortures some teams more than most, but he’s a hellion against the Hawks. The Cavs could have done without his 1-of-6 from the free throw line, though.

21 – The Cavs had a lead of 21 points at one point in Friday’s game, and allowed it to slip through their hands like a greased pig yet again. After blowing a 20-point lead against the Rockets on Tuesday, the Cavs really didn’t need a second collapse in four days. The Cavs were superb in the first half on Friday, leading 55-41 at half. They moved the ball (they finished with 27 assist on the night, a solid number), played starchy half-court defense … then, they kinda stopped. The Cavs are 90 percent of a great team, but they just have a lot of lapses. If they ever put it all together (and that’s a big “if”) then they can beat anyone.