Live Thread: Cavs @ Pacers, Game 4
2018-04-22
The Cavs are back in Indiana again tonight. After giving up an 17 point lead in the 2nd Half of game 3, the Cavs are down 2-1 to the Pacers. This game isn’t a must win, but having to play a must win game in Indiana would be a poor position to be in for game five.
One has to hope the Cavs can right their play. They are making just 9.7 3s a night (12-16) at a 30.9% rate, which is second worse in the playoffs. During the regular season, the Cavs made 12 3s per game (3-30) at a 37.2% rate, which was sixth in the league. The shooting will hopefully return to normal. No one on the team is getting buckets outside of the King.
LeBron James has scored 98 points this series, he’s averaging 32.7 per game. The Cavs have scored just 270 points in three games. James has essentially score 37% of all those points. There’s not much more to say. Cleveland simply needs more guys to make shots.
Defensively, the Cavs haven’t allowed the Pacers to score over 100 and are second in defensive rating for the post season. The struggles haven’t gone away and the their trapping scheme hasn’t been the most effective, but the defense isn’t to blame for the losses.
Tyronn Lue has mentioned Tristan Thompson will probably see minutes this game because of “toughness.” George Hill will miss the game because of his back. This means the Cavs will have to figure out some way to slow Victor Oladipo. Jose Calderon is probably not the answer to that. He’s starting anyways though.
Right now, I’m not confident the team can figure the offense out. At least with Jose starting, LeBron will be have some help creating shots, but it may not be enough.
Dipo with a bad foul on kk 3. Excellent
Yikes…. Oladipo was wide open. Blown switch on D. Got lucky he changed his mind.
Sweet. Hopefully Kyle can get himself going at the line.
Bad pass by dipo. Break for us. Take advantage
LBJ with the quick start. Calderon and JR’s jumpers might be on tonight?
Can’t keep anyone in front individually, including Bogdan, leading to Young corner trey. Trapping might stop some initial penetration but if guys can’t step up individually we are going to give up a lot of open threes. It will be either Bogdan or others killing us with open shots off simple penetration.
Like the start. Gonna need some good minutes from Nance too, and some good minutes from Clarkson at the backup 1.
Can the Cavs count on Kyle foot at least hopefully this game. With Love out he just has to hit his threes. KK is due to go off
I think he needs to take another 0.5 second on his shot, seems like he rushed that first one
Agreed.
This is the TT we need, esp with Love in foul trouble. Hopefully he keeps up the energy.
LBJ with the spin move!!! SO EASY.
Another nice screen, TT
Wonder why Lue never gave him at least 10 mins a game this series. His energy could be diffence in games 1 & 3
Bron got fouled on that drive.
TURNER FOULED LBJ!!! LBJ still finishes.
Offense still looks bad.
Defense looks great though
Nice drive, Bron. Good screen from TT.
Great job by TT! Inadvertently drawing the foul as the shot clock was almost done.
tristan drawing a possession saving foul lol
CALDERON! CRAFTY!!!
Calderon taking the lane given. Wish all our guards would do that.
Hopefully TT can get the boards Love gets. Love looks hobbled.
LBJ no helpside D.
Korver misses an open 3.
WTF? there was no foul there!
Looks like they are going to call things tight against Cavs inside tonight. Not good.
Aggressive JR is a good JR.
Marv is harping on the mystery of why TT has barely played so far in the series
Swish!
KLOVE…. pump fake man!
WHAT A PASS BY CALDERON!
This team is so reliant on skip pass threes that are almost never completely open.
what exactly is a skip pass?
Usually a pass from one wing to the opposite side either over or through the shifting D.
we’re not even running an offense already
I’d bring in Nance now. Seriously? Freaking Thompson?
Just what Cavs needed two quick ones on Love
2 on Love. Great.
Time for TT to play.
Lue leaving him out there.
Early 2nd on Love.
That call was absolute garbage.
Nah. Obvious foul. Both of them.
That’s a shaky second foul call on Love.
Not a good start
Wouldnt have expected we’d be starting 36 year old Calderon and 37 year old Korver in a pivotal playoff game this year
I hope Cedi gets some burn today.
Jose should help the offense. He is the point who has started the most often.
Hope TT plays limited minutes.
I think we’ll find out whether we have a legitimate shot to make it back to the Finals this year or no by how we look in Game 4. Down 2-1, can’t go down 3-1 – is this roster capable of simply beating a lesser opponent, and convincingly? Is the coaching staff able to come up with any sort of game plan to win this game? Even a nail biter win, if we don’t look good in the process, doesn’t bode well for the outlook for the rest of the playoffs. We need a convincing win, and we need someone… Read more »
Wall should’ve shot that stepback j it was open…. Oubre bailed him out by drawing the foul.
Oh Raptors…when will you stop getting beaten by the wizards…
iOle’ Ole’ Ole’!
Wiz up six with three free throws and 30 seconds to go. Think they got this one.
Thinking about Fratello’s comment “there’s no secret it’s going to DeRozan or Lowry”….man is there one player with remotely the amount of pressure LeBron has on him playing right now? (granted it’s at least 33% his fault)
I think if Lebron gets 8 or more assists we win. If 7 or less…we lose. Basically if Korver can shoot we should qin
If Korver can shoot, it will be like getting a player back.
he has not had the playoff clutch gene since joining the Cavs…or frankly when playing against us
Cavs have two days before Game 5. Should be 42-44 minutes for LeBron tonight
Wizards up four with 90 secnds to go
Poeltl the Toeltl fouls out
Think the Cavs play loose tonight and win this one.
Wizards up three, which is good.
Need to bring in the enforcer tonight to lay some lumber on Cory Booker for the shot that took George Hill out.
should have an extra roster spot
isn’t it trevor booker? jw
Argh. Yes. LOL. Made the same flub in the podcast.
LOL they do have corey Joseph!
feliz 420@
I like the matching black suits
I honestly think we could start Nance. Love, Bron, Cedi, and Jose and race out to an early lead. We dont have anybody on Cedi’s level at guarding guards. What the heck do we have to lose by playing him?
Looks like raptors wiz running long. Anyone know what channel Cavs will start on?
Fox sports ohio :)
For those of us sadly outside NEO sounds like it’s NBA TV
will blissfully miss the first 3 quarters or so. see you all in the 4th. go cavs?
still waiting for “UTAH HOOD ” to emerge —-maybe like 5 or 6 / 3 “s tonight would be real nice !!!
I’m not convinced there is a Utah Hood. Certainly not under this kind of pressure.
I hope we don’t see any minutes where TT is on the floor the same time as Green
You’ll get those minutes, and probably Nance/ Green minutes, too! It’s like winning the powerball!!
Would be nice to see JR and Korver catch a bit of fire tonight.
Probably our best 3 pt shooting lineup to start the game so the looks should be there for them
Warriors tank the game to Spurs to get more time for Curry to comeback before playing the Pels. Cowards.
Pels are going to mess them up
Hill out is not good. Especially when the Pacers have Dipo and Collison at guard. Going to have to score some points…this would be a good night for Clarkson or Hood to go off…but can they?
We need to score and tt will make that a lot more difficult
Whatever tt does on rebounding will not makeup for his body clogging up the offense
Love has to drop 25-12 tonite for Cavs to have any chance….not sure what TT can do but if he can just crash the boards no matter what, maybe he can eliminate Pacer offensive rebounds and force them into one shot possessions…going to be very interesting game….Pacers have lot of pressure to keep momentum going, and Cavs are mostly use to being in deep trouble in a series…Lue has to utilize the depth to his advantage and for adjustments
I continue to believe that the Cavs should begin the game with a lineup of Nance Jr, KLove, Bron, Hood and Hill that way LeBron doesn’t need to battle against the Indiana bigs down low and KLove should be able to post against Young or Bogdanovic.
Nance Jr should be able to defend Young or Bogdanovic easily.
I also believe that KLove should try to attack the Indiana bigs more and try to draw some fouls which his good at.
I seem to have forgotten what Klove is good at
To be honest I knew that KLove wouldn’t provide the same type of numbers that Kyrie provided as the Cavs second option and that it would be hard for the Cavs to replace KI’s production but I also thought that our brilliant coach could use the scoring habilities of JC and RH and find a way to help the Cavs in terms of scoring but it hasn’t been that way at all.
It’s time for a Jordan Clarkson 20 point game
Don’t believe it’s happening, he looks totally lost out there.
Our self-inflicted suffering aside, this has been the best playoff first rounds in years when looking at the series in both East and West.
So far it has been, I agree.
Does anyone think that LeBron would respond to actual tough coaching? What would he do if Lue berated him on the bench after that play we’ve all seen of him stopping while the team gets scorched for a long Bojan 3?
I don’t know LeBron. Way too much armchair psychology in sports analysis. LeBron has been the most consistently productive superstar that ghe league has ever seen when you factor in lack of injuries. He always shows up
I totally agree, but you must admit that the team lacks effort sometimes, and if they saw LeBron giving more, or getting chewed out by the coach, they might play harder. Need to be able to call him out in order to call out the other players.
If I’m correct that play was with like less than 2 minutes left in the game and he never went out of the game in the second half so he gets a pass from me on this one. Dude is really trying hard out there. He has to battle against all those Indy bigs to get rebounds and then he also has to run the point and then he also needs to score the ball or create for othets in crucial times of the game.
LeBron can do almost no wrong in my eyes, but he should at least jog back on that one. The game was lost in those last 2 minutes.
I’m more than a bit anxious ahead of this game.
Go Cavs!
Me too 😕
Ty Lue’s big coaching move is to play TT more. Oh dang, we might be in trouble.
Go Delly! And Go Cavs.