Live Thread: Cavs @ Celtics
2024-11-19The Streak is on the line tonight. It’s going to be a tall order with Sam Merrill, Dean Wade, and Max Strus in the infirmary. Top that off with Caris and Isaac Okoro firmly in the “questionable column,” and the Cavs seem a little thin at the three. Might we see Ty Jrome there? Maybe some some Jaylen Tyson? For Boston, Kristaps Porzingis is out, and Payton Pritchard is a question mark.
The Cavs should have the advantage inside, but they’ll have to play tough and guard the three against Horford and Kornet, and despite the injuries, I still like the Cavs’ depth. I feel like Craig Porter Junior might be due for a breakout. It’s all going to come down to defense though, as Basketball REference has the Celtics listed at No 1 in offense, and No. 1 in net rating (+12.2).
The trick will be guarding Jason Tatum, and holding up against the Celtics big ball-hawking guards. Look for Donovan Mitchell to try to take this one over early, and the Cavs to sell out to stop Tatum from the tip. What do you say Cavs? How about we shut these Beantown douches up and take this streak to the next level? Go Cavs.
P NANCE— REALLY HAVING SOME NICE GAMES FOR THE CHARGE—— AVG OVER 25PPG —— HITTING HIS 3’s @ ABOUT A 45 % CLIP—— HOPE HE CAN CONTINUE HIS PROGRESS
“ MORE THOR PLEASE “👍. HOPE CPJ CAN HAVE A REPEAT PERFORMANCE OF LAST NIGHT— GIVE HIM/ KA CONFIDENCE 👍🏀
Carter from the Chase Down had a good take on CP. this was the first game he contributed as a secondary / complementary ball handler (good screens, catch and shoot, plays off the short roll) – he essentially played a screener / mini power forward role that Dwayne Wade did for us a bit in 17-18 and Okoro often does successfully.
I hope we find space for him, he’s a smart playmaker but he’s buried behind our other guards.
DG and Merrill out for tonight.
Guess we’ll see Thor, Tyson and CPJ.
Assume we’ll get it done against Brandon Boston, Elfrid Payton I guess? and Yves Messi. Line is Cavs by 13.5.
Bummer to see the streak end but I feel a lot better about Cavs chances in a series against Boston today than I did before the start of the season. I really hope they get a crack at it. Kenny and DG need to figure out how to get him going against them, Horford continues to eat his lunch. Was at least good to see some life out of CPJ, I’d been pretty down on him this season to be honest.
Mitchell’s quote — “we were kind of watching each other [in the first half]” rings true.
A never-used starting 5 (I believe) plus high pressure plus mixed success against Boston for the younger stars led to some tentative stuff in the first half.
We’ll get it right. This is a really smart team and staff
“DITTO “ WHAT RAOUL POSTED——- BEEN SUPER BUSY TO JOIN IN —— WILL SEE HOW THEY RESPOND—- DO NOT USE TONIGHT s GAME AS A BAROMETER—— THE UPCOMING R&R IS WILL NEEDED / DESERVED 👍🏀
this loss is a major BFD:
away game, usual Boston love from the refs, many more Cavs out than Celts, DG had a bad night, Celts were all time hot from three, Celts with two days off to prep, …
the Celts have had plenty of games where they were not hitting 3’s. They lost three of them, and would get blown out by the Cavs. In contrast, the Cavs have won plenty of DG bad night games
Yeah, to me I’m a lot more encouraged by how the Cavs changed the dynamic of the game in the second half and ultimately were right there at the end, than discouraged by how it started. And moving on from the “streak” should be a mental refresher for the team at this point (especially having played so many games to this point), as amazing as it was to see.
I don’t find it to be a big deal at all. It was a “good” loss. Played hard. Learned some lessons. No one got hurt. Cept maybe garland?
it being a good loss is why it’s a big deal. if you lose it by 15 (or 30 like the Knicks), it’s less significant. a two possession game with the injuries on both sides is pretty much drawing dead even.
plus the process was pretty good. it didn’t take a Wade or LeVert miracle game to get there as it has in past.
Nate, good call on the CPJ breakout game.
Tough match up with all reserves out…also, merril is not 100% with an ankle, doing his best against best 5 out lineup in the east. Having some more bodies to throw at celtics might have helped. The energy to get into the offensive flow was disrupted, but that should mean that the secondary cut moves, but it didn’t or wouldn’t for stretches of the game. So, DG would go into create mode and results in some bad shooting numbers there aside from missing some good looks that have gone in this year. Good celtics defense, but also nobody on the… Read more »
Horford’s block of DG’s scoop move was a big play.
Horford is an undersized C who can move his feet and has great timing and BBIQ. He’s been that dude since Florida (he was picked #3 for a reason)
And is my nominee for “current player second most likely to be on roids.”
He hears someone say “Balco”, I bet he smiles and nods.
Tough luck when outside shots not falling. I blame crazy green court.
We really missed Wade’s positional defense. Great efforts by Merrill and Porter to try and take up the slack, there.
Personally, I think falling out of the extra Cup games would be a silver lining.
Beating Boston in a conference finals is sure to be tough as they are a really good team of veterans still in their prime. It’s a long season, though, and the Cavs have some room to grow, while the C’s are probably at their peak.
Only one extra game (the final)
Oh interesting!
good point about the weirdass green court, which hurt the eye on TV. that is an extra home court advantage because the visiting team has never seen anything like it before.
Celtics are vets, but young vets at that and will likely be contenders for a few more season if they keep Tatum, brown, white, etc. They are not “old” and they have had a lot of injury issues at the starting center position. Timelord’s body fell apart, tingus out in the first playoff series, and they rely on 38 year old Al to step up. Al will likely retire after this year. If you factor out Al and Holiday Celtics and Cavs are probably similar in age. Both teams will make for good playoff competitors for the next 3-4 years… Read more »
And OKC just lost to the Spurs, who without Wemby.
I think we can be a problem for the Celtics. We were missing Strus, Wade, LeVert, and Ice… DG played like garbage, Mitch was inefficient, Allen was average.
The Celtics didn’t have the Zinger.
Yeah I get that. They are also going to start the apron clock next year. That tax burden will be a problem for them going forward.
agree. plus the Celts had two days to prepare, the Cavs had one. if the Celts aint hitting threes, they will be blownout.
got to watch a full game for a change, and a great one.
majorly mystified by all the CtB’ers who think Niang is unplayable. what’s the deal with that?
He was fine. Just guarding Tatum ain’t gonna work.
he’s a useful bench big. he’s not good defensively but his little swipe is good and he holds up on switches and is harder to post than you’d think.
his decisiveness on offense is so much better than Wade’s, just keeps things going and presses advantage, so he has some utility if he’s not making 3s on that end.
Niang is a good bench player but won’t get many minutes in the playoffs.
Ty Jerome and CPJ played well. Kept them in the game.
The respect the Boston D had for Jerome was palpable.
little/no mention of the missing Caris and Wade, just mentions of Okoro and Strus
Levert could have made a real difference, made it easier to cut DG’s usage on an off night.
absolutely
so much of what we’ve tried and has worked with Caris and Wade would have been super effective too (Wade at 5, the four guard lineup with Caris at 4 and Mobley at 5).
sucks. oh well. we’re still good. one game is just one game
Too bad DG and Allen didn’t show up tonight. Could’ve been a victory. Great fight by the others.
Allen was good. DG was just off.
A victory when the other team shoots 50% from 3 seems rough but we had it
DG is not a good match up against the celtics. They pick on him on both sides of the court.
he figures out a little more every time they play but it just might be a tough matchup and he just has to be off the ball more. Having a little more extra playmaking in Strus will help too.
lots of things don’t go right when you are down by 10 or 20 right off the bat.
Allen wasn’t “good.” Definitely some brain farts and not nearly aggressive enough on offense. Cavs should’ve been playing through their two bigs the whole night and Mobley had that empowerment, but Allen did not. Probably the worst Atkinson game I’ve seen so far in terms of tactics (and it wasn’t JB bad, just could’ve been better).
FTS has him at a B- which is in line with my thinking.
He was better than average, he wasn’t great, but he was good.
They’re wrong. Lowest PM on the team. Defense sus as hell.
i think you’re wrong
PM and EPM remain the stats people use for bad takes that need some measure of quantitative / statistical gloss because they are rough correlative measures AT BEST.
he played his shifts when Boston was unconscious from three, and sat when we came back with paint points and better defense. but he wasn’t the reason for either of those big changes in the games momentum. just did his job.
Just saw him fall asleep on cutters, overhelp, not pre-rotate to weak side and fail to track loose balls too much. Also not aggressive enough on O, but to me that’s on the coach and the guards too All correctable.
in a lot of leagues going 15 – 1 is not considered all that bad.
Oh for sure.just stuff to improve on
Vogt AL mgr of yr
Hell of a run. Go Cavs! Any word on how Strus is doing? Getting close?
I heard maybe Dec 1st
Someone needed to defend Mitchell there.
It didn’t look malicious on the replay. It did look like Tatum was reaching for the ball, but it was a sloppy swipe and obvious foul.
he went through the body pretty hard and did lead with the shoulder more than usual. i didn’t love it b/c i think you have to review a head shot
He went full steam into Mitchell with intent of punishing a smaller player. That wasn’t some normal reach in foul. He doesn’t try that with someone who is his size … it was garbage and the Cavs should have thrown Tatum 5 rows into the seats on the following in bounds play. At that point in the game it was more important for Cavs to have Mitchell’s back than the score of the game. I’m more disappointed that none of his teammates did anything than losing game.
Being an “enforcer” is dumb and retrograde.
We’re down 4 rotation players, don’t really want to add more problems to that mix.
Should have been a flagrant
Nothing dumb about having the back of your franchise player. Especially when the game is over. You don’t need to punch anyone just a very hard foul.
the…game was still in play. a flagrant on Tatum (the right call IMO) would have made it a one-possession game. a retaliatory flagrant on us makes it a three possession game. it’s dumb
Be interesting to see how the team recovers for the Pels.
My takeaway today: the Cavs are good.
still
Only lost by 3. Not a big deal. Some things to clean up. I’d rather take some lumps now vs April/May/June.
literally one lump, too. losing a two possession game in Boston is pretty chalk. they are still a little better than we are.
absolutely!
3 yes, in reality Game was over at the 1:30 mark when brown made a layup to extend to a 9pt lead. They just exchanged throws and Donovan chucked a half court 3 and someone scored a garbage floater at the bell to cut the 5 to 3.
Whelp. Time to start a new streak.
Did ok to salvage the point differential
It’s hard enough to play the Celtics on a normal night; with your top 4 wings sitting out, just about impossible. Still came down to the final minute.
Terrrible D on a critical play. Story of the night.
Need to put in TT here to lay Tatum out
Someone needs to put Tatum 4 rows into stands. Like right now
Punk body block by Tatum.
I don’t think that is flagrant, but in today’s NBA, who knows?
How did we get this shit of an officiating crew?
Tony Brothers sucks
Forever and always
Overall a pretty decent showing by the Cavs all things considered. DG playing at his regular level could have been a different result.
Nice fight.
Too bad DG stunk it up. Otger than that, pretty good.
Allen not great either.
He wasn’t terrible. Just had some bad moments.
Our two guards who people said couldn’t play together didn’t play together tonight.
The Cavs didn’t give their hugs enough of a chance to in play together here
That’s game! 😔
Wait….
These refs are awful. Mitchell fouls Brown and the refs don’t blow the whistle?
Think this is a mistake. Mobley should be able to win any jump ball. Better to have that challenge. But I get the thought. Get the ball here cause you’re going to win this challenge
Hit a three. Get a stop. Score again. Make ’em sweat.
DG is 3-21 FG, 0-6 3PM.. everyone else played well on offense except our two best guards… we could have won this game..
Wtf Brothers. Dipshit.
Challenge that!!
Yes!
How did the refs miss that?
too much green
Sh poo uldve been a foul on white.
That was the right play to Mobes, shame it was a TO. Ah well.
I don’t understand Niang here
Gotta keep playing through mobley.
Lol. Brown “too short “
Lol spida.
Eff you, Brown.
By this point in the game Garland should know that scoop layup won’t fly tonight!
Dg with his best sexton imitation
Ok
Cavs still right there.
Get garland out
Another block on a DG layup.. I think his 3rd block attempt at the rim.
Still plenty of time.
Let’s go CPJ, Jerome, Mitchell, Mobely & Allen to close. Maybe Sam or Niang.
DG our worst by a mile.