Live Thread: Cavs Vs Trail Blazers
2015-01-28
The Cavs come home tonight for the second game of a back-to-back against the Portland Trail Blazers. The Blazers will be unusually rested because their game against the Brooklyn Nets on Monday was postponed due to snow. Portland last played on Saturday and beat the Wizards.
The Blazers are trying to play through a few injuries right now. Star power forward LaMarcus Aldridge, who has been averaging 24 points and nearly nine rebounds a night during January, has a torn ligament in his thumb but will still play. Nicolas Batum* and Robin Lopez, however, will be sitting on the bench for the evening. Lopez is recovering not only from a fractured hand, but also a fractured ego. After trying to go after the Moon Dog, he got bit. Check out this tweet from the feisty Cavs mascot:
No offense @rolopez42, but I only feud with the more high profile of twin brothers. No one remembers the mascot fights with Ed Mikan.
— Moondog (@CavsMoondog) January 26, 2015
I’m excited to watch the the match up between Kevin Love and LMA. Both players love playing from the elbow area and are not exactly known for their defense. I hope Kevin recognizes Aldridge is having some issues with his hand tonight and plays especially physical down low. Maybe when he slaps at the ball for a rebound, he can “accidentally” tap LMA’s thumb.
It will also be exciting to see Kyrie Irving and Damian Lillard duel. Kyrie managed to hold DJ Augistin of the Pistons to 19 points last night after Augustin had a 35 point performance against Chicago on Sunday. Irving is going to have to fight over screens to stop Lillard from shooting the three ball. Lillard is taking 7.2 threes a night and hitting 37% of them. He’s averaging 22 points a game. If he goes off, the Cavs could be in trouble.
Also watch for LeBron James to do some serious damage if he plays. He is currently listed as questionable and is a game time decision. Nic Batum normally takes on the task of covering the King and for the season has caused players to average 1.2% less than their typical field goal percentage.
Finally, this is another revenge game. The last time these two foes met on November 4th Portland won it easily, 101-82.
I’m picking the Cavs tonight, 105-99.
*In a turn of events, Nicolas Batum actually started after experiencing less pain in his wrist during shoot around.*
Doubt mozgov could have done any better tonight on defense.
Yeah, LMA wasn’t going to miss those… Need a game winner from Kyrie, KLove or JR…
Wouldn’t mind Kyrie as a decoy until the last shot at buzzer
One of those things is not like the other . . .
No question who gets last shot at buZer
If the Cavs can get this win it will really boost their confidence up.
I’ll take that outcome on that possession…
This is why Kyrie gets a full max
Nobody wants this win more than Griffin!
Moz-Clutch! Get another stop know.
That might’ve been a make up call but I’ll take it.
Lemmie guess a play for LMA
Any fouls to give here?
LMA is gonna come back and tie it up… KLove with the game winner
I will take your word as a cavs prophet.
How do you say clutch in Russian? Moz says, “Clutch.”
MOZ IS MONEY!!!!!
What a game!!! Please Moz hit one at least.
THANK YOU REFS! Finally caught the push in the back!
Bailed out by the whistle.
JR SHOOT THAT!!!
My thoughts exactly. Don’t be shy
Was WIDE OPEN!!! Glad someone else caught that!
nice MOZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Get a stop please!!!!!
Kyrie has half of our points tonight.
5-0!!! CALL THE POLICE!!
Smith with great hands
Run a damn play!
They did, and scored!!!
Offense is still incredibly weak. Too reliant on ISO. iso doesn’t work long term against good teams.
ref never should have awarded a timeout. he did not have control of the ball yet
Agreed, he travelled, plain and simple.
They also missed Caveman shoving Delly.
YEs saw that, thought it was an elbow by LMA on delly
How that wasn’t a foul call on Kaman?
These refs also suck!
LMA sure doesn’t look or play like a guy with a busted thumb…
It looked like Caveman got away with a shove on Delly there. Ridiculous.
They need to come quicker with the double-team on LMA. Attack him as soon as he puts the ball on the floor.
The dangers of walking it up and going ISO. Waste of clock and opportunity…
Blatt needs to setup a play or something. Anything to get to free throw line.
COME ON! LMA pushed off on that…
Would be nice if the refs could give us some calls?
You think Kyrie has been money from three lately cause they left him off the 3-point contest list?
I dunno, he’s played awfully bad to be redeemed by one shot of any kind.
They are getting good options off that high pick n roll.
Don’t like love coming back in. Luck there guys. That might not happen again for us
Good D by JR again.
Interesting note: Only two players this season have beck-to-back 35-point games. Lebron James and now Kyrie Irving.
A soccer move there pulling Kyrie’s jersey.
Okay Kevin Love is gonna hit a game winner and redeem himself shutting everyone up including myself.
I’ll +1 on that….
He’s gamin it right now
Well, he’s back up and walking on it
We could of had Wiggins!
Hopefully just a stinger
Well our wish for KLove sitting out may come true… just not the way we want.
I’ve never seen so many bail out shots in one half. The Cavs play great D for 20+ seconds and then Meyers Leonard hits a 3. Or Steve Blake hit’s a shot while he’s falling down. Or Aldridge takes a “why not?” 3 and cans it.
This is heartbreaking – the Cavs are really working hard
Completely agree. It’s tough to watch
The refs weren’t as bad tonight, but they certainly missed that call from Caveman on Love.
Wow, that really didn’t look good on the replay….
How did they not call that on Caveman?
Leonard and Kaman playing dirty.
When you have no talent, you have to play dirty… just like Perkins…
Well, that might be the end of KLove for a while…
No way they can let him back in after that. I think his 2 week deployment to south beach for lebrons guru is signed sealed and delivered.
And now Love is in pain.
Yeah this sucks.
and Kevin Love is down.
LMA is so deadly.
Can’t believe he hit that three…. ugh
And it’s a tied game.
BIG BASKET from JR SWISH!
Thank god… Someone else finally made a basket.
LMA cannot score against Moz…
Nice D by Smith there.
Dr cold to the ER. Dr cold to the ER stat. We need your confidence to be put into an iv drip for employee 0
Why is Kyrie out of the game?
Cause he can’t play 48 minutes….
There’s no excuses with Love not getting the ball.
This is when we need to get love near basket and to. The free throw line. That is only thing that can get his stroke back I fear.
^^^^^^ Yes. Surely he can do more than the noodle-armed turnaround right hook.
WTH is wrong with K Love.
I don’t know what to make of Love anymore. I just think he puts up big numbers on bad teams.
I haven’t given up on him yet… a lot of it is in between the ears right now.
I feel like there are a fit/use/health issues but he’s still a really good player. But no argument those are issues.
Delly with the nice rebound off of Love’s 12th straight miss….
Delly is redeeming himself after poor 1st half offensive play.
He’s also picked up his defensive energy.
Blazers just keep getting closer and closer.
Cavs playing pretty good D, Blazers just hitting shots. That Blake shot was ridiculous…
Let Delly run this offense and get some plays running, way too easy to key in on Kyrie right now.
Totally agree… Delly gets ball and men moving… let Irving catch some rest off the ball.
So, what do they do now that Kyrie is missing shots?
Nevermind… I guess he’ll just take it to the rack
Pray someone else can get hot.
Again extremely difficult to win against good teams like this.
Leonard is playing better than Love. Yes Leonard.. I say Leonard because I don’t recall his first name.
At least Cavs are flying around on D