Like a lonely lothario, the Cavaliers continue to have trouble finding the Love after the first spark’s over.
In the fourth quarter, anyway, and that, as much as anything else, is what makes them perpetual losers. Or at least in six of the seven games since LeBron James went down, including last night’s 112-94 loss to the Warriors. But there are some buds on those trees.
The Cavs took the lead midway through the third quarter 66-64, and up until that point they were playing terrific hard-nosed ball, moving and sharing the ball, though truth be told, it was the team’s hard work on the glass that made much of the difference.
Unfortunately the team fell into their old bad habits as Kyrie (23 pts, 23 shots) and new addition J.R. Smith (27 pts, 11-23) fell into playing hero ball, and Kevin Love (17 pts, 6-11, 14 rebounds) continues to be M.I.A. outside the first quarter. Love had a good second quarter too, before the ball stopped moving the final 18 minutes, as Irving and Smith looked a little too much for themselves.
The Cavaliers played the team with the best record hard even through the fourth when they cut the lead to 7. But they weren’t getting the stops they needed on defense, and the poor offense was leading to bad shots and turnovers which the Warriors turned into to points at a whiplash-inducing rate. The Cavs were outscored by 30 on fastbreak points, and entering the fourth, the Cavs had yet to produce their first fastbreak points.
Some of the problems were your typical Cavaliers fastbreak issues, such as guys taking a few moments to turn around and get up court, or they did it half-speed, leaving an opening for a truly motivated opponent to cash in, such as former Cavalier Mareese Speights on the below play. Speights was starting for Andrew Bogut who is just getting back from injury, and put in a great effort with 12 points, 8 boards (four of them offensive), two blocks and a steal.
The Cavaliers also continue to make opponent’s bench guards into Sixth Men of the Year, allowing Justin Holiday to get loose for 14 points in 18 minutes, many filling in for Klay Thompson who needed stitches in his forehead and missed much of the second half after torching the Cavs for 18 in the first. (He finished with 24.)
Curry picked up the slack with 23 and 10 assists, but it was as much Draymond Green’s versatility that kept Golden State humming. He missed all 6 of his 3-pters, but grabbed 11 boards, blocked three shots and had EIGHT assists, as Golden State ran the pick and roll to perfection with Green.
Some of the issues can simply be attributed to too many new pieces, such as here where there is some kind of pick & roll coverage breakdown that allows Bogut to receive a pass directly under the basket for an easy bunny.
Yet despite the breakdown, despite James Jones stepping on the end line, despite some pretty stale offensive sets, the team kept it within 7 with under four minutes to play, but couldn’t come up with enough offense or the defensive stop they needed. They made only one basket over the last 5:50 of the game to go with three free throws.
We attribute much of that to the dissipation of ball movement with J.R. Smith and Kyrie Irving initiating the offense the last 18 minutes of the game. While both can and did make plays, if they would share the ball more, it would involve more people in the offense, create more movement and open up more possibilities.
Here are the Cavs shot opportunities during this stretch.
You’ll notice a lot of dribble pull-ups. Is that the best we can do? During this stretch, Smith and Irving went 5-14, shot 4 free throws had 2 assists and 3 turnovers.
If Love can’t get the ball when LeBron isn’t playing, when exactly do they intend to start getting him the ball? With the new players perhaps the only thing Blatt could do at the end of the game was run pick and roll. But he could run it with Kevin Love. It might go horribly, but the sooner Kyrie adjusts to Kevin Love as a pick and roll partner, the better. Obviously a post-up or two sometime other than the first quarter might be nice as well.
But while there are these negatives to take away, there are also some positives. The defense looked very good for much of the game. Kyrie put more effort into chasing Steph Curry around as we’ve seen him exert defending any point guard this season. It’s a low bar to be sure, but it’s progress. We’ll see how he does against the less heralded Darren Collison of the Sacramento Kings.
Also, while his offense eventually degraded into the kind of isolation dribble pull-ups that doom an offense, J.R. Smith showed great ability to create his own shot and even get others involved – at least more than we could rely on Dion Waiters to do. He also showcased the kind of catch & shoot skills (effective FG 49.5% so far this year; eFG takes into account that 3s are more valuable than 2s) that Waiters could never master, and which will prove quite useful with LeBron and Kyrie on the court together.
Timofey Mozgov showed good size and agility, though his cuts to the basket weren’t really sharp enough to garner the kind of easy baskets Tristan does. Hopefully he’s a better foul shooter as well. He did get stuffed by Andrew Bogut last night, something one Nuggets fan opined after the trade happens far too often given his size.
Overall, to play the best team in basketball right now so close on their home court is a real positive. Especially as not only is LeBron out, but Shawn Marion as well, with a hip issue. With all the injuries and new bodies, things could’ve gone much worse. It’s shallow consolation, but it’s what we’re left with as the team slowly, very slowly, rounds into form.
I will be live tweeting the game against the Sacramento Kings on Sunday night. You can follow me on Twitter @CRS_1ne, and read my analysis the next day on the Scene blog.
This article appears in Jan 7-13, 2015.