How the Browns will blow it: WFNY 2018 Mock NFL Draft Strategies
April 24, 2018Cavs (and all of us watching them) feeling first-round stress – The Nail in the Coffin, Episode 116
April 24, 2018Happy Tuesday, WFNY!
What a week for Cleveland sports, huh?
The Cleveland Cavaliers find themselves in a first-round dogfight against the Indiana Pacers. The Cleveland Browns are about to conduct a hugely important draft that will set the tone for the future of the franchise. And the Cleveland Indians? Well, they just keep doing their thing.
A few brief words on the Cavaliers, though. This has been a tremendously frustrating start to the playoffs for Cleveland. I think deep down all Cavs fans knew that this was going to be more of a struggle than previous years, but I don’t think this is what any of us expected. This journey inside a time machine back to 2009 has been pretty jarring. Watching all the players around LeBron just wilt and fall away has been beyond depressing. Again, we knew not having Kyrie Irving to lean on to attack and create baskets was going to be tough to make up for, and nobody expected Rodney Hood, Jordan Clarkson, Larry Nance, George Hill, Kyle Korver, Jeff Green, or JR Smith to be Kyrie. But the hope was that, collectively, the group of role players could do enough to be effective at helping LeBron work through the Eastern Conference once more.
There was an idea that if the Cavaliers could do that much, then this offseason they could potentially make some trades to keep LeBron happy in Cleveland. But as the role players, along with Kevin Love, have all shrunk while the Pacers role players have stepped up and played above their expected roles, you realize just how alone LeBron James really is out there.
Which isn’t to say LeBron is blameless in all this, either. His effort in the first quarter of the first game of this series really set the tone. He has disappeared for huge chunks of third quarters, especially the last two games. When the ball isn’t in his hands, LeBron barely moves or engages, he doesn’t set screens often, and he’ll go long stretches without going into the paint. Perhaps it’s asking too much of someone at his age with the minutes he has played to take on such a heavy load. And yeah, it’s painful that the Cavaliers can’t even afford to let him rest on the bench at all because his teammates simply can’t seem to do much of anything without him. But unfortunately for LeBron, for the Cavs, and for us as fans, though, that’s where we are. We need LeBron to do more. It’s ridiculous to ask more, but it’s hard to see how the Cavaliers can advance beyond the next round without getting more. More from LeBron, but also more from teammates.
I don’t know what’s going on with Kevin Love. My suspicion is that his thumb is hurt worse than we know. But what we saw out of Love in Game 4, and, frankly, most of this series, is just unacceptable. Ty Lue once famously got in Love’s face and reminded him that he’s “a bad mother f—” too. Perhaps it’s time to deliver that message again.
I don’t disagree with Love that the refs haven’t been doing him any favors in this series, but he needs to snap out of it and stop worrying about the refs. He needs to get mad. Not at the refs. Not at himself. At his opponents. Take it out on them. Kevin Love is a better basketball player than any Pacer not named Victor Oladipo. He needs to play like it.
Finally, Ty Lue needs to give in. He needs to accept that while Jeff Green is fine enough basketball player, what he brings doesn’t fit right with what the Cavaliers need to do to get their offense going. It seems like all season long Ty Lue has resisted the things that work and tried to lean on the things he thinks should work. Not to make Green a scapegoat, but every lineup he is used in turns into a slog and a struggle. And it’s not because Green isn’t a good basketball player, it’s because he doesn’t fit the way the Cavaliers play on offense. He’s not a shooter, he doesn’t get offensive rebounds, and he’s not a good screener. Those are the pillars of what the Cavaliers have done in getting to the Finals three straight years. It would be nice to see the Cavaliers remember that and get back to that mindset.
So here we go. Game 5 is Wednesday. Thursday is the first day of the draft. Game 6 is Friday. These next three days are going to really do a lot to set the mood for Cleveland sports. I’ll see you all on the other side.