After two games in Cleveland, the Cavaliers head to Chicago tied at one game a piece with the Bulls in their Eastern Conference semi-final matchup.
The most anticipated playoff matchup in the Eastern Conference got underway this week and so far it is following a very familiar Chicago vs. Lebron storyline. The Bulls picked up a win in the series opener on the Cavaliers court, but Lebron and company stormed back on took game two. The series is now even at one game each. But this was a tale of two separate games and history.
The narrative goes something like this: Lebron is the best and he is going to lead a team against a tougher, rougher, less talented Bulls squad that takes game one and makes the whole sporting world wonder if the king is dead. But, each time the Bulls go out and make a statement in game one, Lebron’s team has come back to take game two. And usually games three, four, and five. The Bulls have consistently come out and sent a wakeup call to Lebron, but then they fall flat and get run out of the playoffs. Monday continued that pattern of game one victory for Chicago.
It was a perfect storm of events that led to the Bulls taking game one in Cleveland. Any number of factors could have gone differently and we could be talking about the Cavs and an insurmountable 2-0 series lead. Instead of a deep hole, the Bulls are headed home in what is essentially now a best-of-five series.
The Bulls did three things that need to happen during every game in this series, and the rest of the playoffs, if they want to win. Derrick Rose was Derrick Rose. He was able to drive to rim, collapse the defense and kick the ball to open players like Pau Gasol for easy looks. Rose also flashed the range from deep, going 3-for-6.
The Derrick Rose-Paul Gasol pick and roll was alive and well. The Cavaliers, with or without Kevin Love, have issues defending this and the Rose-Gasol combination was particularly adept at taking it down. Also, Jimmy Butler was able to play a game-high 44 minutes, guarding Lebron on 73 of 75 possessions. His defense was credited for helping slow Lebron on a 9-for-22 night with six turnovers.
These are all good things for the Bulls that happened in Game 1. Game two wasn’t quite the same story.
In Game 2, the Cavs ran the Bulls right out of the building. Two of the biggest factors for the Cavs were Lebron and Irving. Sound familiar? It should, these two players are who we pointed to in our series preview as the beginning and end of the Cavaliers chances to dispatch the Bulls from the playoffs. Irving was able to match Rose’s performance in game one, going for 30 points on 10-for-23 shooting from the floor and a perfect 9-for-9 line from the free throw line. Irving demonstrated a much-needed consistency in game two, going for 21 points in nine fewer minutes than game one, hitting 5-for-9 from the field and getting to the line 12 times. Drawing fouls and getting penetration to collapse the defense to create spacing and open looks for teammates is going to be very important for the Cavs moving forward in this series. Lebron made his 34 minutes count, launching up 29 shots, scoring 33 points.
The Game 2 performance was encouraging Cleveland. They tended to go under screens and the ability of the Bulls backcourt to hit shots from range gave them the edge they needed to escape with the win in game one. In game two, Derrick Rose and fellow guard Aaron Brooks combined to go 7-for-28 from the field.
Another encouraging sign for the Cavaliers is their adjustment to lineups without Kevin Love and J.R. Smith. In Game 1, Mike Miller was inexplicably placed in the starting lineup, the Bulls never trailed. In Game 2, Blatt started Tristan Thompson and moved Iman Shumpert to guard, the Cavaliers never trailed. Small adjustments like this are important in shifting the outcome of a seven game series. Dropping Miller for Thompson is not a like-for-like and that is a good thing. The Cavs moved Shumpert to the guard position that Miller inhabited and Thompson moved into a forward position. Thompson is generally a power forward and that frees up Lebron to play a less physically demanding position by moving to the three spot and making him less likely to have to crash into bigger bodies down low. It almost seems obvious and you have to wonder what they were thinking by not running that lineup in Game 1.
J.R. Smith will return for Game 3 and things should look much better for the Cavaliers the rest of the way, though there is the possibility that Shumpert might miss some time due a groin injury suffered in the third quarter on Wednesday night. Cleveland will have to hope that Smith can replicate Shumpert’s performance if he is unable to go for game three. While his status is unclear right now, the Cavs can at least act knowing that they have found their best lineup in the post-Love playoffs if Smith or Shumpert were to be unavailable.
The Cavaliers also have another, well-known issue – the ISO. Blatt tried some things early in the season and it didn’t quite turn out so well. In response, the team reverted to an ISO-heavy offensive approach. This approach presents all kinds of problems for the Cavs as they run deeper into the playoffs, Tom Haberstroh, Wednesday on Twitter, shared the statistic that Lebron is averaging 11.2 isolations per game in the playoffs this year. In 2014 it was 5.1, and in 2013 it was 6.1. The Cavs are dangerously close to checking out and just watching Lebron work.
After a big loss in game one, the Cavaliers responded in game two with a huge win. Lebron led the way, taking lots of shots and scoring lots of points. The Bulls ran cold and the Cavaliers forced as many turnovers in the first half of game two as the entire game one. If the Cavaliers can continue to limit the Bulls ability to exploit the Cleveland tendency to go under screens and stay focused, not checking out on offense and making Lebron work out of ISO so frequently, Cleveland could repeat Lebron’s history against the Bulls in the playoffs.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
