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April 6, 2016Instant Merchandise, Browns Moments, and Third Eye Blind: While We’re Waiting…
April 7, 2016Cleveland Cavaliers (56-23) 109
Indiana Pacers (42-36) 123
Box Score
This season, your guide and author has spent a lot of time in this space lamenting that the Cleveland Cavaliers are temperamental, inconsistent, and volatile. I’ve decided to no longer worry about the zigging and zagging, in part because, in the end, it never really mattered — the Cavs will likely lock up the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference with their magic number stalled at two, plus I doubt they’ll be distressed in the unlikely event they land the No. 2 seed — partially out of necessity — why fret when, ya know, it’s easier to just not — and partially because I’ve concluded that it’s a deliberate strategy on the part of the Cavs — no opponent can possibly hone in on the real, true version of the Cavs when they throw everyone off the scent every fourth game with a incongruous performance.
So, following a quietly impressive four-game winning streak against Eastern Conference foes and possibly the team’s most complete victory of the year over the Milwaukee Bucks on Tuesday night, the Cavaliers were sure to throw out another red herring on Wednesday against the Indiana Pacers. With LeBron James resting on the bench, the Cavs did just that. As a matter of convenience and willful ignorance, I wouldn’t trouble yourself too much with the Cavs’ performance or the game’s outcome … except, you know, enough to read the next few hundred words. Let’s poke around behind the box score and see what we find.
123 – The Cavaliers allowed a whopping 123 points on the road in Indiana on Wednesday night, an astounding 43 more than they did on Tuesday night. One hundred twenty-three points is the second most the Cavs have allowed all season, trailing only the emotionally scarring defeat at the hands of the Golden State Warriors in January. The Cavs allowed 36 points in the first quarter, the most this season, and it didn’t improve much after that. The Cavs didn’t close out on shooters, didn’t prevent penetration, didn’t clog passing lanes, didn’t protect the defensive glass, and didn’t challenge the Pacers frontcourt in the paint. The Cavs defense existed only in theory on Wednesday.
24 – After outscoring the Bucks by 42 points from behind the three-point line on Tuesday, the Cavs allowed the Pacers to amass a 24-point surplus on long-range points on Wednesday. The Pacers, a mediocre three-point shooting team by NBA standards, doubled up their season average for made threes, shooting a gaudy 16-of-31 (51.6 percent) from long range. Paul George went 4-of-9, Solomon Hill (entered the game shooting 22.4 percent from three) went 3-of-4, and C.J. Miles (apparently seeking revenge for making him play on such awful Cavalier teams from 2012 to 2014) went a silly 6-of-8. The Pacers were hot, though they may have been abetted by the absentee Cavs defense.
16 – The Cavaliers entered Wednesday’s game with an NBA record-tying streak of 16 games with double-digit made three-pointers, and at 16 the streak would remain. The Cavaliers shot a bleak 8-of-29 (27.6 percent) from deep. Kevin Love went 3-of-5, but had little help from his teammates. Kyrie Irving made 1-of-5, as did Richard Jefferson, and J.R. Smith — fresh off a 7-of-11 game in which he earned the Cavalier record for most made threes in a season — inexplicably attained only one three-point attempt. If a game in which the Cavs didn’t really care or try raised any red flags, they were the porous defense and the continued inability to adapt when three-pointers aren’t falling.
49 – Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving combined for 49 points on Wednesday, keeping the team afloat in a game in which the bench didn’t uphold its end of the bargain. Love was great in the first half (21 points on only nine field goal attempts), but went M.I.A. in the second. Irving shot 11-of-18 (61.1 percent) and added six assists, even finding guys in the pick-and-roll and finding Love in spots where he wants the ball. Wipe out the 1-of-5 on haphazard threes and some lousy defense, and Irving had a good night. Irving is now shooting nearly 10 percent worse (from 41.5 to 31.7) on threes this season than he did in 2014-15. Irving showed some nifty moves splitting a double-team and dropping a nice double-crossover before a pullup J (below). But when Paul George scores 29 points and the Cavs aren’t playing anything resembling defense, the Cavs need either Love or Irving to go bananas to win a game on the road against the Pacers. That didn’t happen.
1-4 – The Cavaliers are now 1-4 this season in games that don’t include LeBron James. I have a theory that the Cavs are better with LeBron James. I know I know, it’s a small sample size, and correlation is not causation. But … I just have this feeling.
3 – Mercifully, only three regular season games remain, after which the Cavaliers will enter that post-season tournament for all the marbles. It’s so close … can … almost … taste it. Playoff basketball, you can’t come soon enough!
5 Comments
Ugh. It looked like a game…until it wasn’t.
The Cavs and Indians have yet to win on the same day! Small sample sizes be damned, make sure there are no Indians games scheduled on the same day as Cavs playoff games!
You are assuming that the Tribe may actually Win a significant amount of those same day games…
I’m less worried about the first round or so that will be played in April, but once the Indians dig themselves a hole they can’t get out of, and then decide to try to get out of it…
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