Live Thread: Cavaliers at Spurs
2015-03-12
The wine and gold visit San Antonio, looking to follow up on an impressive win Tuesday night in Dallas and push their record to 2-0 on their current four game road trip.
There’s never any shortage of intrigue when a LeBron James-led team faces the Spurs. Whether you’re flashing all the way back to the 2007 Finals or have more recent memories — the Ray Allen shot, the Spurs dissection of the Miami Heat in last year’s Finals, Kawhi vs LeBron — this is a match-up with some meat on its bones; one that might be a bit more than just “the next game” for the Cavs star forward. Even with James’ notoriously short memory, he only needs to look back to November 19, 2014, to when these two teams met in Cleveland, to find some extra motivation. That game ended with James dribbling the ball off his foot in the final seconds before he could even attempt a shot and the Cavs fell to the Spurs 92-90.
In that game, the Cavs were led by Anderson Varejao’s 23 points and head coach David Blatt went with an eight man rotation, that saw Dion Waiters, Tristan Thompson and Joe Harris as the team’s lone reserves (not counting the two spot minutes from Will Cherry).
The Spurs are playing like the “same old Spurs” again, but this is a very different Cavs team.
Of course, you’d expect all that to mean that Spurs coach Gregg Popovich would rest his entire starting five in tonight’s nationally televised game. Apparently not. Both Tim Duncan (hyper-extended elbow) and Manu Ginobli (illness) are expected to play for the Spurs.
Enjoy. Discuss. Go Cavs!
For some pre-game / half-time listening, check out Tom’s segment this afternoon on Dayton Sports Scene:
https://soundcloud.com/dayton-radio/tom-pestak-3-12-15
James Jones…secret clutch 4th quarter decoy weapon. Nice!!!
And OT too…even better. Think he has a chance to start Game 1?
Somebody’s got to stop Leonard
Argh. Cavs still with this dopey lineup.
Blatt unfortunately got negative reinforcement with Kyrie’s ridiculous shooting…
Excellent point as always EG
I can’t believe he got to take a dribble.
Can I jsut say how awesome it is that Cleveland is playing San Antonio at the same time that the Lakers are playing the knicks, and there is zero question which game is better. I mean, that’s just all kinds of awesome.
Small market teams FTW!
^^^^^^^^^^^ This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Here’s one for the small markets! Cheers!
damn！！！！！！
Oh pleaseee! Pull this one guys! Let’s Go Cavs!!!
STRAP IN FELLAS!!! THIS MIGHT BE THE GAME OF THE YEAR!!!
You know how Wade was better than Bron in Heatles Year 1 and Lebron was better than Wade after that? So when is Kyrie going to be 1a to Lebron’s 1b? Next season? Is it happening now??
KI needs 12 points for a career high. Feed the beast.
The announcers have given Kyrie credit, but they were too wrapped up in praising Parker and Leonard to truly talk about how great Kyrie has played.
46 points on 17-28, 5-5 from 3, 7-7 from the line. The dude has been INSANE!
Sad moment for Nate. He was relishing writing about how awful the cavs are.
Me and missing Linck are going crazy!
Kyrieeereeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee I can’t even.
KYRIE WITH 46! What a performance!
I have never commented before. but WOW KYRIE IRVING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Good way to break in!
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY GGGGGGGGGGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDDDDDDNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You broke the page believeLAND!!!!!!!!
page blew up, my mind blew up!!!!
OT would be incredibly interesting with Duncan’s OOOOOHHHHHH HECK YEAH!!!!!!
I’ll say it again… Kyrie plays HUGE in big games.
Holy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeetttt. Kyrie. Wow.
Haha. The way the announcers were talking you would have thought the Spurs were uo 20
Still hope they lose just to teach Blatt a lesson.
LOL. Well done, Nate, welldone.
Shock collar, Nate! This is incredible!
OH MY GOD HOLY COW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh wow. I wish we could use profanities on this thread sometimes! My Oh My!
Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo glad they gave him that max extension at 12:01 a.m. I wanted to trade him last year. I’m an idiot.
Loved watching him at Duke, love watching him in CLE. Still my favorite player. Just so fun to watch. Its incredible.
HOLE. LEE. CRAP.
KYRIE IRVING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Was his foot on the line? Awesome shot but I is scared.
ITS A THREE!!!!
IT’S ALL GOOOOOOODD!
KYRIEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
KYRIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They will double Kyrie for sure. Maybe get JR in.
Need to get it to Kyrie for three
So you’re saying there’s a chance.
Spurs have played as well as they can and we can tie it here.
We are still screwed!
Does LBJ take the shot – because I’d rather bet on Kyrie.
Holy snikies….there’s a chance for OT. Amazing. Lets go CAVS!
Pretty encouraging game for the cavs.
Leonard pulling a Lebron!!
And the game is not over yet….
See? Moz plays in the Fourth.
Mozgov sighting… smh…
Offense rebound are you effing kidding me? Sigh. KI is awesome though.
Are you kidding me guys??? Get a freakin stop and don’t get the rebound????
Kawai was clearly over Kyrie’s back
That’s why you coach. You can’t just say, “he’s having a bad game” and take him out. You have to coach. You can’t just sub guys. So you smack Mozz on the butt & tell him to do better. Can’t smack James Jones on the butt & tell him to grow taller…
Kawai over the top again for the rebound… smh
Holy hell kyrie is on fire
This game is so utterly insane. Do the people in the Cavs organization realize that Kevin Love can leave as a free agent after this season? And that we traded Andrew freaking Wiggins for him? For the love of god, take James Jones out of the game and put Love in. Hide him on Belinelli on defense and then post him on offense every single time with a smaller defender on him. I just don’t understand what we’re doing with Love. Why did we even trade for him if we’re just going to bench him or make him stand like… Read more »
KYRIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This game is over.
Well, I’m not actually disappointed tonight. I wasn’t overly impressed with the Dallas game because Dallas is struggling. Spurs are clicking and I expected this to be our toughest test, because you have to not only play great offense, you have to play near perfect defense to beat them. We’re still improving, and they really showed up tonight. Keep working fellas. Almost there. Two more months to get to great.
Still don’t understand these 4th quarter line ups?
Every single line up tonight was beaten by the spurs. They know how to counter.
Then why not play Love and Mozgov?
NEED A STOP!!!!
Parker just too good…
That was not a stop. :(
COME ON! Need some quick scores!
Kyrie was great other than forcing some mid range heat checks. But I would have loved to have seen him get free for a few more 3-point attempts. Shumpert is puzzling because he let us down on O missing so many threes off kyrie drive and kicks, yet his D is superb.
I really don’t get the Blatt hate right now. James Jones is one of only 2 cavs in the positive +/-. Love isn’t a world beater in the Fourth, never has been. Maybe it would be better with love, mabye not, but Blatt knows what he’s doing.
C’mon didn’t you know, all the critics here are championship coaches in waiting!!!
I am not hating Blatt and for me it’s not even a matchup thing. Pop uses the regular season to get the team ready for the playoffs. Sitting Mosgov and Love in the fourth quarter to try to win individual games in March to me isn’t preparing for the playoffs.
Blatt may know what he is doing but so do Pop, Steve Kerr, Budenholzer, Thibodeau et cetera. People don’t exist in a vacuum, it’s a competitive league.
The way they use Love it’s a fair point. But he’s capable of much more.
Not on the bench he’s not.
i love chuck but the beat a dead horse thing is just
I’m just not worried about us in the playoffs. The Spurs literally got every single call, and despite us not playing great half court offense, we were within 2 points and could/should have pulled this game out.
The Spurs got the home cooking tonight. If this game was in Cleveland, we’d win by 10.
Not worried! They’ll shake this off, learn from playing a great Spurs TEAM, and continue to get better.
Love this team!
“Some people call stats analytics so they can charge you more for them” love that Chuck.
It was better the first 15 times he told that joke…
Hey, we know he loves to beat a dead horse.
I feel like LBJ has turned it over at least three times tonight directly off a Spurs turnover.
Well, he only has three turns so maybe
Got to tip the hat to them they just played great the whole game.
Aha, thats why Jones is in there for Love. To take that push call. Nice!
James Jones just played the entire 4th quarter.
Blatt really struggling tonight.
Blatt has some explaining to do. They were really successful getting the ball to Love in the post and they abandoned it completely tonight. How do you play Champ the entire 4th when the game is not a blowout?
Why is Blatt not playing Kevin Love or Mozgov in the 4th quarter? This is really aggravating.
Seriously. Can Kevin love start getting some 4th quarter minutes.
You know Sports Guy is in LA loving the Lakers getting killed by a terrible Knick team and Love riding the pine in the 4th, cackling like Mr. Burns in his mancave
Well I don’t know why we’re worried about signing Love anyway, we’ve got James Jones. It’s a no brainer.
Wow Spurs shooting almost 70% on twos. I think the Pop way is better than the Morey way. Less risky game to game.
They’re still fighting at least
That was a nice play out of the time out
I am just so lost. I never know what Cavs we are going to get. Its night and day with this team. Its like, as a team, we suffer from schizophrenia. Two drastically different identities swapping out on a nightly basis. I’m not saying we were awful tonight, by any stretch, but we don’t look like we did on Tuesday.
Love shitting his pants in a game with playoff intensity. Mozgov looking scared and small. So Blatt has to roll with a big man lineup of James jones and TT. Ha-ha-ha. Kyrie the only one out there who is ready for the playoffs. Not even the coach can handle this. What a joke.
Blatt has to coach better. James Jones can’t just play a whole fourth quarter. That’s why you coach. You can’t just say, “he’s having a bad game” and take him out. You have to coach. You can’t just sub guys. So you smack Mozz on the butt & tell him to do better. Can’t smack James Jones on the butt & tell him to grow taller…
I think there’s a lot of overreaction going on…. the Cavs are great…. the Spurs are champs. Cavs have scored plenty of points tonight, just getting exposed on defense because you have to play team defense against the Spurs, and the Cavs don’t have the chemisty yet to really be tight on that end. Anyone who thought the Spurs weren’t one of the best teams in the West were simply misled by their record. They’ve been injured all year. They’ve only recently had their full team together. They just want to be in the top 8, the West is a… Read more »
Why do you run so much James Jones in the 4th when you have Kevin Love?
Seriously, I know he’s been hitting lately, but honestly, he’s gotten more opportunities in the fourth.
Send Blatt back to the Middle East.
Yeah… cause there’s so many good coaches out there… smh…
It was sarcasm.
Fair enough… He’s been outcoached by Pop, but most coaches are.