Last week, the Cavaliers finished the week 2-1, improving to 25-7 on the year (on pace for 64 wins), with the lone loss coming in a game without LeBron James in Detroit. Cleveland extended their lead in the Eastern Conference to 2.5 games over the Toronto Raptors, and aside from punting in Detroit, the Wine And Gold appear to be approaching the midway point playing some of their best ball. Let’s take a look at a few things, as usual, as we prepare for the week ahead.
The Games
As I mentioned, the Cavaliers basically conceded the Detroit game after an emotionally and physically taxing Christmas day win against the vaunted Golden State Warriors. Not being able to win without LeBron is a bit troubling, seeing as they still boast a roster that features two top 12 NBA players. Detroit came out quickly, looked pretty good amidst some lineup changes, and seemed to be on the way to finding their footing. Andre Drummond was, predictably, a monster underneath, finishing with 17 rebounds, and a double-double despite shooting 5/15 from the field. Typical games from Kyrie, Kevin Love, and Tristan Thompson weren’t enough, however. Every time the game got within reach, Detroit made a run sparked by turnovers and big shots, and the Cavs were never really in the game after the first quarter. Detroit did some really interesting stuff offensively, but it wasn’t anything Cleveland should have had a hard time with, and, at full force, with 23 in the lineup, and later in the season, this loss would never have happened.
A national TV contest saw the Celtics come to Cleveland on Thursday. For large parts of the game, the Celtics were exactly who I thought they were. They were slow, deliberate, in need of shot-makers, and didn’t looked like they belonged in the same building as the Cavs. Trailing by more than 20 at one point, Boston did use a late run to make things interesting, and take them to the wire. I harp on it a lot, but it is worth talking about until things get better. The Cavaliers, with their current roster composition, simply are not deep enough to allow teams to go on runs. Something has to give here, and big leads cannot be squandered against teams vying for playoff position in the East. I do think that this will get fixed before it becomes a problem late in the season, but it is a little concerning. Boston has a roster that features a small point guard making things up as he goes, and a bunch of screen-setting role players. I am shocked at how limited Al Horford appears to be this season without Coach Bud in Atlanta to really utilize him properly. That said, it does not appear that this Boston team should be a threat this spring, when things really matter.
The new year started off basking in a victory against a Charlotte team that Cleveland apparently is not afraid of. Things started off with great energy coming off of a full day of rest. The ball popped and exploded into pockets off of high pick and roll, and guys appeared to be engaged and ready to go right from the jump. The real story from this game, aside from Kemba Walker being smoother than Northeast Ohio winter ice, was that Jordan McRae showed up, looked like he belonged, and didn’t appear to be so ball-centric. My knock on him has always been how often he shoots. Shooting frequently is fine, and he has a background as a volume scorer. However, so many of his shots this season are forced from outside of the context of the offense, and often taken at the expense of open teammates, or running a fluid system designed to get guys looks that he has to work so hard for. Really fun stuff from McRae.
This Week
On paper, this week appears to be about as close to a walk in the park as you’ll get when faced with the grind of an 82 game NBA schedule, and the dead of winter. Things start off with a Monday evening game against a New Orleans team that started 2-8, and has gone 12-13 in the 25 games since. No, that isn’t impressive, but it does show that there has been progress. Having Anthony Davis healthy and looking like a top player again is huge, of course, but the other pieces are starting to fit together. Jrue Holiday has returned to the lineup, and has been tremendous in terms of running the offense, looking for his own game when they need, and making sure that the pieces they spent so much on over the summer actually make sense in a tangible way. The game should not be difficult, but it will be interesting to see how Cavalier bigs combat with Davis in terms of his ability to run the floor and extend the elbow on the court, in addition to his dunking and shot blocking expertise that we all know so well.
Chicago appears to be the toughest task this week, by a long shot. Despite head coach Fred Hoiberg’s obvious desire to join the rest of us in the 21st century, things are still going slowly, sloppily, and in a sort of disjointed grinding game that makes it feel like the late 1990’s. They simply do not have enough shooters that can consistently make threes to run the Space And Pace style of offense effectively, and Rajon Rondo, while still boasting gawdy assist totals, appears to be doing so at the peril of the rest of the offense getting touches in good spots. Zone defense, and hiding Kyrie defensively on guys like Rondo, Grant, and Carter-Williams appear to be the order of the day. Tristan or Kevin should be able to deal with Mirotic on the perimeter, and I think we will see Liggins and Shumpert almost exclusively on Dwyane Wade. LeBron will deal with Jimmy Butler, who is still developing into one of the finer two way players we have in the league. All in all, Cleveland is the superior team, has a defined identity, and in those ways, is the antithesis of what Chicago has been the last month or so.
A Friday game at Brooklyn appears to be a nice chance to get some youngsters some minutes. Brooklyn frequently gets smacked around, and Cleveland did exactly that when they plastered them earlier in the month, leading at one point by 44 points. Brooklyn simply does not have enough above average NBA talent to matter, and teams routinely butcher them underneath due to their lack of a true physical presence. Yes, Lopez is huge, but he doesn’t appear to be all that interested in being a physical presence in terms of rebounding or shot blocking. Simply put, teams aren’t afraid to go to the rim against them, and the Nets appear to be fine with that. Sean Kilpatrick continues to impress in what has become a breakout year for him, and he’s a thrill to watch. Watch when he comes off of pin down screens. He catapults towards the top, attacks the oncoming pass instead of waiting for it, and does so while still allowing himself to read what the defense is doing. He’s a ton of fun.
Cleveland will face more of the same when taking on a Phoenix team experiences a lot of the same things going on in Brooklyn. They don’t have a true defender outside of Jared Dudley, and their muddled back court appears to be in need of a thinning more now than ever. Devin Booker is the real deal, and is quickly becoming a version of Klay Thompson that I thought he could be. Brandon Knight is still shooting too much and not guarding anyone, while Eric Bledsoe looks terrific, and is always a threat to go Full Westbrook on anyone at any time. Young bigs like Dragan Bender and Marquese Chriss are also bright spots here, providing Phoenix with a ton of hope at a long and bright future. Those guys are still feeling things out, though, and often look lost on defense. Lacking a true pick and roll big, Phoenix sometimes over-spreads the floor to create shots for guys that haven’t yet learned to make them consistently. That said, Leandro Barbosa is still doing Leandro Barbosa Things, and it is so cool. He’s still a complete blur, he still zips pocket passes into impossibly small windows, and he still makes things happen for himself when things stagnate. He’s a good time, and what he’s doing at his age is being overlooked because of how badly that team has performed.
Trends
You guys, Jordan McRae looked great. I know I’m hard on him, and not without reason. However, he came to play and looked like what everyone thought Cleveland was getting. He was a terrifyingly efficient 8/12 from the floor and finished the game with a +17 +/- rating. This is encouraging on a couple of fronts. First of all, the Cavaliers need some bench pop from a wing in the worst way. Secondly, if he continues to look like a competent team player his value may extend beyond what the Cavaliers can get from him production wise. His trade value will skyrocket as we approach deadline time, and if he is, in fact, in the Cavaliers’ long term plans, production from McRae and Liggins make guys like Shumpert expendable. Developing McRae and Liggins while being able to move a deal of Shumpert’s size would be a major win for the front office. The math there is easy, and I’m sure you’ve done it, but to recap: The $10 million Shumpert deal allows the Cavs to get more money in return than the tiny contracts of Liggins and McRae combined. Not having a ton of assets to trade becomes easier to deal with if youngsters can be depended on, and that Shumpert deal can be flipped. The Cavs are in a pretty good place here, all of a sudden.
Kyrie Irving continues to develop as a play making point guard who can provide instant offense for other teammates. He finished the month of December averaging a robust 7.8 assists, pushing his season average to 6.0 per game. I don’t get too worked up about raw assist numbers, as I’ve mentioned before, but assists mean something. It means that Kyrie has, in the same season, learned how to be a prolific scorer that can carry a successful team, as well as a distributor and play maker, at the same time. Not a ton of guards do that, and as we continue to watch the evolution of Kyrie’s game, it is reasonable to expect that while the assist numbers may plateau, the Cavaliers success will be directly contingent upon the development of this iteration of Irving as a leader.
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