Live Thread: Cavs at Hawks
2016-04-01https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FirzS-AORa4#t=58s
The last time these two teams played was November 21st. Â Can you remember how you felt about the Cavs on November 21st? Â The Hawks have quietly become as the 3rd best team in the East, behind the Cavs and the Raptors. Â But they are in a 3-way tie at 31 losses with the Heat, Celtics, and Hornets. Â The Cavs will be playing with a full deck tonight. Â The Hawks may get the support of a feisty home crowd tonight, as I’m sure Matthew Dellavedova and company will conjure up some bitter emotions from the ECF sweep.
The Cavs should hold the rebounding and 3-point shooting advantage against the Hawks. Â The Hawks have a more free flowing offense and generate more assists. Â The also turn it over a fair amount. Â They are a scrappy defense and get a fair share of steals and blocks. Â The key to the game for the Cavs could be playing to the Hawks scouting report and limiting turnovers on offense.
Let’s talk about it!
The Cavs looked over at critical times and no TO was called. Lue was making them work through it. Why is he the worst coach in the league because of that?
Romeo Crennel can’t believe how bad his halftime adjustments are.
Who’s saying he’s the worst?
Use the old Ctrl-F to search on Lue for each page. You’ll find some comments.
I’d see arguments that he’s not the man for the job here. They have great points. Not everything here needs to be polar ends if some would just understand.
I don’t see how you can make that argument right now. They have played less games with Lue. You do remember that Blatt led them to a 5 of 11 stretch in Nov – Dec without Kyrie (who many here think should be on the bench). If the Cavs get to the ECF and lose was it Lue’s fault? How can you say it is or isn’t?
It’s unfair to blame just one in particular.. But everyone definitely has its own share of the pie whether we win/lose. It just depends who has the bigger share of the blame.
But if we’re in the playoffs now with the current state of the team and we lost? Lue’s adjustments in-game, the offensive/defensive plan, KLove inconsistency and Kyrie’s inability to involve many guys will be highlighted the most.
No one thinks he is the WORST coach in the league. That would be grossly exaggerated. He is showing how very limited he is in coaching playoff basketball. You Coach to Win Period. That means playing your Very Best Line-up offensively and defensively in close games. There is no room for hurt feelings & you suck it up.
He’s clearly not coaching to avoid hurt feelings. Some of the comments here are that he didn’t call enough timeouts early on. Clearly that is making the team work through a problem.
Yeah Clearly /s He made the game harder than it needed to be. He could have closed this puppy up sooner had he put his strongest defensive line-up in to avoid the OT. Kyrie was not productive regular game & hurt them even more on defense. He’s sick physically, he tweaked his ankle and who knows what the personal stuff he went through this week did psychologically. It didn’t make sense to force him in the line-ups that were falling apart.. It’s called recognizing in game adjustments in situations like this. He TOO has to get ready to coach playoff… Read more »
Exactly right on Kyrie being sick/hurt. I think Lue was trying to play Kyrie through his issues, not buddy him. Kyrie did have 7 assists to his 23 shots. Teague had 9 assists to his 23 shots.
Lue’s coaching worked well in OT when he used his lineups and TOs more appropriately than the Hawks did.
Kyrie had 6 assists in the first half, just 1 assist in the second half/OT when he was overdribbling and forcing shots and should have been pulled.
The only timeout criticism I saw in the thread was that he used his last one too early. The main criticism was for staying with Kyrie through a terrible second half and OT, and not even going offense/defense late in the 4th with Kyrie and Delly when that alone probably would have won the game in regulation. “Making the team work through a problem” is a nice way of saying he didn’t know what to do when the Hawks ran all over the Cavs for most of the third quarter. It’s a pattern — the Cavs are much worse in… Read more »
Kyrie’s issues are clearly documented (health physically and emotionally). Would you rather get a guy back into the mix in the regular season as you tune up for a playoff run? Or sit him just so you can win another regular season game?
Irving’s approach and results were bad for basically the whole second half and OT. So pull him. That’s a teachable moment, a chance to let Kyrie know he has to change his approach. Leaving him in tells him there’s nothing wrong with overdribbling and forcing shots.
If you can like Lue for leaving players in to make them move past their bad play, and you can also like him for pulling them when they’re bad, what could he do that you wouldn’t like?
Well, when you critique someone on the team, some people here automatically translates that as hate. I’m afraid what you stated will be categorized as such too..
There are very few here who carry any sort of positivity for this Cavs team through thick and thin. So far I think it’s me, Cols, Hot Sauce and Gordon. Seriously reread all the comments on Kyrie, Lue, etc that were posted tonight if you don’t believe me running jumper.
Don’t expect philosophical detachment when there’s a 25-point swing to the bad.
(Let’s say you put me on the other side of the commenters) Some comments maybe too harsh but that stems from frustrations and part of us being passionate. You have to maybe comprehend it in a way that some things said like “Lue sucks” isn’t end all be all. That said MOST points we make are great and valid points isn’t it? Some of it are even very obvious. And if we point out something does that mean we’re abandoning the team? Hell no. Is saying we’re “guaranteed to make the finals” being optimistic? Much more being right? That’s a… Read more »
I’m a realist. This team hasn’t distanced themselves from the group of teams behind the Spurs and Warriors. They haven’t played as well as they did last year — not even close. They have played some serious stinkbomb games against bad teams. They are a good team that is not ideally constructed, and they play like they don’t GAS a lot of the time. That’s the reality. I’m fine with Cols’ pipe dreams and delusions, I’m not fine with his habitual shouting down of anyone who doesn’t follow his personal party line.
Lue sandbags the league,
Keeps his good coaching hidden
Until playoffs start
Our own coach is lost
He can’t even call timeouts
And lets Kyrie play
Please Spurs, please save us
You’re our only hope, Coach Pop
Stop this death machine
I don’t want to watch
This Warriors game being played
Can’t get up from couch
Oscar Robertson
You have been passed as well, sir
At Eleventh now
I screamed like crazy
First half made me so happy
old habits die hard
Growth game say some
What do they see
Cavisiest Cavs to me
Coach Lue w-t-f
I don’t know where your head is
Bench Kyrie, win game
Perfect symmetry
Irving was minus 13,
Delly plus 13
Tale of two halves here
They played so well in first half
Second missed Delly
Seeing no progress
Looking forward to late May
Ill have more free time
Oh. dayum.
Kyrie’s defense sucks
Its ruining Cavs’ chances
No defense, no rings
Missed another one
Glad Cavs pulled it out at last
Grand Canyon awaits
Tristan:
Gather all rebounds
You Ambidextrous ball fiend
Haunt Hawks’ nightmares
https://twitter.com/CavsNationNet/status/716094687644426240
A LeBron smackdown:
https://twitter.com/CavsNationNet/status/716094526671175681
Tale of two halves here
Reflects the entire season
No defense, no rings won
crap no, screwed that up
We’ll just drop the last word and it’s good.
yeah. exactly what I’m thinking.
Kyrie finally hits one:
https://twitter.com/CavsNationNet/status/716093945915305984
Andy’s small time successes are easier to watch after games when Frye makes a difference. Was really tough to see Andy kicked out…still is…but Frye has been electric
Love watching Andy running high post offense for dubs.
Don’t get me started.
Catching up on some vines: JR goes glass for a 3:
https://twitter.com/CavsNationNet/status/716093590364151808
Cavs piss away lead
Win despite garbage Kyrie
Time to watch Andy
last line sucks. rest good. i may edit
HUGE win! Biggest win of the season by far. We needed this. It’s almost playoff time, and this was a playoff atmosphere. This was a test after all of the hooplah recently – finally playing a really good team. This was HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE for our growth. Kyrie is going to learn from this. Absolutely great to leave him in and not pull him because he was struggling. He ended up winning us this game. We don’t hit those FTs without him, and his 3 pointer late in the 4th was absolutely crucial to winning. We don’t win this… Read more »
I appreciate the comment and the logic train. I completely disagree. The end of game FT notwithstanding, Kyrie was killing the Cavs at both ends.
Yeah just reinforces that playing badly doesn’t matter cause you have the bigger contract. Sit him and piss him off.
Or play him and teach him. Play him out of his funk. Wasn’t he sick yesterday? Also aren’t the Hawks decent?
That’s fine. The typical sports angle is the typical sports angle. I just think you have to look at this differently. At the end of the day, this single game wasn’t important. The context of this game for our players is overwhelmingly more important. Great players being able to forget every shot they’ve missed and come up big when it matters is huge. Kyrie did that tonight.
Irving’s poor play is why the game even went to OT. 5 for frieking 23
I really don’t see KI learning much from this game. It’s a nice thought, though…
And I’m quite sure Delly could’ve gone 5-6 at the line.
Glad we won. We had to lock down on d a few times and we did. Shump and Lebron trapping Teague at the top with fourth quarter winding down was huge.
After that horrific Kyrie on an island play where Teague owned him.
“he owned him” again and again and again …. repeat…..
Sum up this game in a haiku everyone
Ball movement builds lead
Iso ball spells the Cavs doom
Ugly OT win
pretty spot on.
As usual easy
at the start and then slowly
bleed out from malaise
is it malaise though? I don’t sense laziness. Just terrible habits and no trust.
I think they put in the effort on the court, but I see them (Kyrie) thinking he’s good enough as he is and doesn’t need to change his game. That’s laziness in my mind. Maybe its just a lack of self awareness, arrogance, or entitlement. But he is not willing to change, and its going to sink us. I had such optimism from him last year on that finals run. We’ll see, I guess.
I have to recap this now.
Take my comments throughout the game to heart please. I really think they are the correct angle to have on this game.
Not trying to sound like an azz. Just wine + good stuff
oh not at all. I even understand your argument. Thanks for making a coherent one. I think other circumstances render it wrong, but Ty Lue obviously didn’t.
Curious as to what the other circumstances are? I’m not sure this game was a must win game for us.
then you don’t play LeBron that many minutes. you don’t shorten your rotation. Kyrie doesn’t get right by pissing off all his teammates the entire game and having them lose a game where they held a 20 point lead and LeBron played out of his mind. If Kyrie was exhausted you’d rest him. He was horrible. Sit him. Win the game easily.
I wish Kyrie could just play defense. If you want to win championships, that’s not asking for too much
Nice contest on Horford by Kyrie at the end.
This team rules. I love it.
Wow. That was a bad coaching showdown if I ever saw one.
Boom. Game. Great job by Cleveland. Love it.
I thought the Hawks were terrible? Your exact words from this game.
No lead is safe with this team. They could be up 40 at halftime and I’d have zero confidence they could hold it. They are playing their worst ball at the most important time.
WHEW!
Bad foul on Shump. Why would you do that?
This is the game that never ends…
Why foul there..?
They foul? Well that’s new.
C-L-U-T-C-H
Did anyone else hear the announcer say “pretty good look for Atlanta” on a dunk?
yeah i would say a dunk is a pretty good “look”…
It was…
It did look pretty good…
Lol…they should put Hubie on Shaqtin a fool for this hack job
the funny thing is “pretty good” makes it sound like you could do a little bit better…
Irving back to the line.
Put that ball in Kyrie’s hands plz
Love how ha d they play.
Go home, Cols. You’re drunk.
Be sure to call Uber though.
Nate, if you don’t think the Cavs are playing hard, then there’s no such thing as playing hard.
Zzzzzz…
I love Delly’s use of fouls. Man that kid can make a difference in a game
Leaving Kyrie in was the wrong move in THIS particular game. But leaving him in is the right move for the long terms goals of this team. Period. He needed to be left in for his confidence, for the team’s confidence. He needs a game where he can “fail” in terms of iso ball, get shit from his teammates after the game and in practice, but still be able to contribute to the win (the HUGE three pointer late in the 4th and his FTs in OT).
This is SO HUGE for Kyrie and the team as a whole.
No 3s. Double Korver. No one else will hit a 3.
James is the mvp
I see ColsBot3000 has not only completed its maintenance cycle, but been upgraded.
The programmers added 4 new words to its vocabulary!
Great coaching by Lue to keep Irving in. That’s exactly what he needs.
no. it’s not.
Still wish they would move the ball more and get love involved in the offense in late game situations…That’s how they build first half leads and then when they get up the revert to Lebron/Kyrie iso ball and lose the lead…And they tend to get stuck in that quagmire for the rest of the game…No ball movement in overtime…If they could stick with their ball movement offense for a whole game they would blow teams out…
Kyrie is so money from the line in OT. At least there’s one good thing to say about him this game.
Amen
Thank God for Kyrie’s clutch free throws. I’ll never knock those.
Love Irving sealing it.
Great play by Bron there get the TO so that the Cavs can get their good shooters in.
This is PLAYOFF BASKETBALL
This is the worst announcing I’ve heard in a long time
Great d by Thompson there.
This game is messing with me. On one hand I’m so impressed with LBJ and TT. On the other I just want to vomit on Kyrie and Lue. This team is its own worst enemy times 1000
I’m 100% happy that Kyrie was left in the game. This hardens players. This is what Kyrie needs. Failure or not, he needs this for his growth as a player. This is important for him to play through this. This type of game against a quality opponent is CRUCIAL for the Cavs’ growth. We need hard fought games, win or lose. We need to fine tune our craft in close games against good opponents. Our guys are engaged, and that’s so wildly important this time of year. I’m glad we’re going to OT. Let’s see what we’re made of. If… Read more »
I’d rather have won in regulation with Delly playing important minutes down the stretch and Kyrie hopefully learning from having been pulled that he has to get better on D and change his game on O.
Players don’t learn from being pulled. All that creates is negativity. You need to think about this logically, from an actual human perspective. Not from a generalistic “professional sports players will automatically respond to being benched in this manner” even though it’s all negative.
That’s an optimistic view of human motivation. Are you really Tony Robbins?
then sit LeBron. Kyrie didn’t ahve it tonight. If you want to win the game, do what you need to do to win the game.
Why sit LeBron? That makes zero sense. This team needs to play together, nobody sitting, and play meaningful games. This only helps. You have to see that.
Agreed mini-playoff game in the reg season. Let’s see if the Cavs can show some grit.
He is incapable of stopping anyone driving to the hoop
Agreed. Can’t help think that this will increase Kyrie’s sense of entitlement. The meritocracy is dead.
Blatt would have been abused for his poor coaching in this game
Kyrie has apparently missed practices trying to get healthy, so he’s a little off. Don’t know what lue’s excuse is
Lue has, so far, proven to be totally unable to make in game adjustments. Popovich or Kerr will destroy him if it comes down to coaching.
Kyrie Irving has been in the League for five years. So far, he’s proven to be really fun to watch in the all star game. He’s a great scorer that is borderline unplayable against halfway competent point guards.
I’d rather roll the dice with Dellavadova at this point and just use Kyrie at the end of games on offense. He can’t run the team.
10 free points we’ve given away. Cmon guys…
Did he just say the Cavs have missed 24 foul shots?
They’re 15-25.
These announcers have been blatantly anti-Cavs this game. Reminds me of the playoffs last year.
It’s just Hubie Brown…He’s been ridiculous this game…
Yes, everything that is remotely a 50/50 call should go the Hawks way… according to him.
Is it on espn or something? Ive been watching fso broadcast. You just cant beat Fred and AC.
Didn’t realize it was on FSO!! (I assumed it was blacked out, should have checked. I’ll be watching the end with AC :D )
yeah I appreciate them more and more every game. They’ve become more blatant homers, but they call a good game.
And I bet it will be the same this year.
Keeping Irving in is exactly the right move.
why? explain why that is.
Does he ever explain any of his opinions?
i love how the Cavs are sticking together through adversity.
Terrible iso ball by Kyrie after the big 3 point shot. That’s fine. He’ll hear from his teammates in the film room. He’s going to learn from this. A big game just before the playoffs in a season we’re expected to return to the Finals? This game is going to be huge for Kyrie’s growth. I’m telling you. He needs to see on film his errors and he needs his teammates to give him shit but accept him as a big time member of this team. Failure or not. He’ll be back fighting next game.
Why is he going to learn from it this time when he hasn’t all the other times?
Because this game matters. We’re weeks away from the playoffs, on the road against a team that’s 10-1 in their last 11. Atlanta is hot. They were the #1 seed in the East last year. This is the most intensity we’ve had in a game in a long time.
This is crucial for Kyrie’s growth. This game has a different context than the others. We need to get battle tested this year, and this goes toward battle testing us.
And Lue leaving Kyrie in sends him the message that he doesn’t have to get better or change anything.
Man I am not pumped about Hubie brown right now, and bazemore is getting away with so much crap
Lebron is everything to this team
That was a Gretzky assist by Bron.
Made the pass before the guy was open. Amazing.
That’s such a bad call on LeBron. Sorry, but he didn’t lower anything. He’s just a man. Bad bad bad charge call.
Agreed. Big time flop.
Agree it was a great spin and Bazemore just had his face in the wrong place at the wrong time…
Big time rebounds going on
Lebron does not like Bazemore.
ICYMI, the LeBron-Bazemore backstory: http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/15047018/how-nike-lost-stephen-curry-armour
Every time the Cavs do something good Hubie just seems so disappointed…
KYRIE WITH THE BIG THREE. PLAYING THROUGH IT!
Leaving him in there is so huge for his psyche. What a huge shot!