Live Thread: Cavs @ Pacers (#PaceYourself)
2016-02-01
The Cavaliers take their seemingly speedier show on the road for a couple of games before returning home for a quick quartet of contests prior to the All Star Break. Tonight’s foe, the Indiana Pacers, generally live up to their fast and furious nickname… clocking in with the seventh best pace of play in the NBA (currently at 99.57 possessions per 48 minutes). So, we’ll see if the Cavs’ pace (or at least the efficiency of their recent more urgent style) will be enough to match the tempo of their hosts.
Posting at least ten fast-break points in their first five games with Tyronn Lue at the helm, the Cavs (34-12) are averaging 13.8 per game, and are in the midst of a four game winning streak. They will also look for a third consecutive game of getting all three of their stars over the 20 point mark (they now sport a 9-1 record when this happens), as LeBron, Kyrie and Kevin continue to share the ball and the scoring load.
The Pacers (25-22), who had been slowed by a six loss in seven game slump in mid-January, have revved things up again lately, beating the Hawks and the Nuggets in their last two. Paul George hasn’t quite been in gear as much as he was earlier in the season, but Monta Ellis and rookie Myles Turner have helped keep the motor running. The Pacers are also still capable of ratcheting up the defense with Frank Vogel calling the shots, and they’ll undoubtedly be up for this rematch after dropping their first meeting with the Cavs back in November, 101-97.
Probable starting lineup for the Cavs includes: Kyrie Irving, J.R. Smith, LeBron James, Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson. And, for the Pacers: Monta Ellis, George Hill, Paul George, Myles Turner and Jordan Hill.
Game time is 7 p.m. (EST), and action can be seen on NBATV and FSO, or heard on 1100 WTAM.
Prediction: Cavs continue to pick up the pace and slow down the Pacers… 112-103.
Let’s pick up the pace ya’ll!
C’mon guys! They played absolutely horribly and failed to build on any positive basketball development, but man, is that locker room happy!!!
Connectivity is everything. As is galvanization.
WOW You have to listen to JR on NBATV on differences of Coach Blatt vs Coach Lue. I love JR . He doesn’t hold back and he told it like it was! He let it be known in a nice diplomatic way that it was time for Coach to “go at” Lebron and everyone. It was a real problem because things didn’t get cleaned up. You could just tell in his voice the rest of the team were fed up from the nonaccountability of the stars.
Good call Udog from a week ago
From Kevin Love, lol. #HELLYEAHHHHimadethepic…..
https://www.instagram.com/p/BBRSY7UM98K/
No Delly, figures…
Ty Lue coached the Cav’s out of an embarrassing loss tonight:
Realized that the Pacers stars, PG and Monta were shooting awful, so Shumpert was not really needed late.
Offensively, he ran some quality plays down the stretch and in OT.
Left Delly on the bench after his early atrocious play.
Lastly, he let players figure it out on their own. Steve Kerr throw clipboards, Lue let’s stars be stars.
Reading the comments, you would think the Cavs lost by 25.
Good to see we have a new guy to take over the “Delly sucks” theme now that Cols has retired it. The main task that comes with this job is rationalizing why Delly always has the best +/-. BTW, check it out tonight.
Sure, he clearly almost lost the game for Cavs tonight. /s
Just curious if this was an example of Lue trying to win every game at the expense of the long haul. I’m having a hard time keeping my BS narratives straight.
It was one game so I won’t put too much stock into it. But his rotations and adjustments were a mess tonight. If this crap is still going on in April, then we are in trouble.
Players I’d love to add: Trevor Ariza, CJ miles (bring him back), Robert Covington, Will Barton, Omri Casspi, Bismack Biyombo (no idea why we didn’t add him last off-season for $1mil),
Bismack is on a two year six million dollar deal. He was about 700k out of the Cavs’ price range.
Thinking about this always reminds of Andy’s contract, which then drives me crazy.
The players we could have with that contract…………..sigh
Really would be interested in breaking down how the Warriors force their opponents into their style of play. Cavs too easily handed the Pacers the reigns to controlling the pace in the second half.
Part of it is their death lineup with green at the center. If they want to push the pace they rollout super small ball and gamble that they can fly around and force enough steals on d so that they off set the size mismatch. Most teams cannot keep up with them when they go that small.
Draymond and Steph are the two best players in the NBA right now.
Best players because they play smarter than the Cavs right now.
Steph for sure, Draymond in the top 4 or so…Green can’t do everything Lebron can, but he’s a better point guard.
DENVER BLOWING OUT THE RAPTORS BY 24 —-UTAH TIED WITH THE BULLS —
TO EASE THE “TENSION “—THEY ARE SHOWING THE MAKING OF THE ” MOZ WINTER HAT ” COMMERCIAL ON TV—IT IS A CLASSIC —GOOD WAY TO END THE NIGHT — ” GOOD BEAR…GOOD BEAR “–GOOD NIGHT !!!
Was almost hoping they’d lose just to learn their lessons about turnovers and doing stupid things. Baffling plays by LeBron and especially Kyrie. My favorite was when the screwed up a 2 on 2 break because LeBron didn’t run the lane wide enough and cut off Kyrie’s path to the basket. Also, get Love the ball at the elbow. And yeah, Lue’s coaching was awful. How about wasting a timeout when. Kyrie had the ball and all Indy could do was foul? Damn. Miles Turner was a beast. This draft class is insane. Cavs bench was playing way too fast… Read more »
I’m pretty sure Ellis sees a nice, thick porterhouse when Mo enters the game.
With the leaving-them-in-to-figure-it-out gambit, I hope this season doesn’t devolve into a battle to see who can be more passive-aggressive between Lue and LeBron.
I feel like that’s a good strategy for a high school team. And sort of a lazy approach for a professional coach. But to be fair, I’m not a coach so maybe it works. It’s just not very fun to watch.
Cavs looked great in the first half and tired in the 2nd.
They looked pretty dominant to me.
They needed more Delly in the second half. Blatt would have known that. Leb and Ky sucked. And Lue looked out of shape.
There, did I push all your buttons?
Kyrie seems really really tired…
Not surprised, played a ton of minutes. That is definitely one thing Lue has to clean up. Cannot be playing these guys so much in general and especially not 20 minutes in the first half. Keeps that up they will be burned out come playoff time. Know they did not play a ton in the pistons spurs games but they did play a lot in the first half of those games, so it is clear this is a pattern.
Honestly, his conditioning is still not any where close to where it should be.
5 MORE GAMES UNTIL LONG (8DAYS ) ALL STAR BREAK–POSSIBLY LUE WANTS TO PLAY STARTERS ALOT OF MINUTES TO GET USED TO NEW SYSTEM / STYLE / CONDITIONING –COULD GO 5-0 BEFORE BREAK AND GET SOME GOOD SEPARATION ON TEAMS —-I HAVE MENTIONED BEFORE ABOUT LACK OF PLAYING TIME FOR THE BENCH –POSSIBLY THEY ARE POTENTIAL TRADES AND DON’T WANT TO RISK INJURIES ( MO / ANDY / POSSIBLY R.J ) —-1ST GAME BACK AFTER ALL STAR GAME IS AGAINST THE BULLS AT THE “Q”— REVENGE TIME AND GOOD BAROMETER TO SEE HOW FAR WE HAVE COME ( OR HOW… Read more »
Kyrie coming up next on FSO postgame… I’m interested to hear his take on this game…
The NBA TV crew was very gentle on the Cavs. This game really deserved Barkley in studio to criticize the Cavs.
“That was turrible, just turrible”
I really hope Bret Breilmaier calls out Lue in the video room.
The bench has always been horrible. Has never provided scoring. We love to have old, washed up players on our bench. Every off season we add more.
Shump, Delly and Moz are old and washed up?
Good point…..
Yea, and that’s the bench. we’re eight deep. We have seven spots to fill with youth, athleticism, maybe even talent. Maybe leave JFJ on the team since apparently he is the leader of the locker room.
Have we ever had a coach that tried to develop them? I think unfortunately the last productive Cavs bench was under Mike Brown
We stack all of our offensive players on the starting 5. I don’t get it. I mean, I get that the players have egos. But from a TEAM perspective it seems that we would be better off dividing up the lines to either a) balance scoring and defense; or b) balance players with playing styles. You could move Schump into the starting lineup and put JR off the bench, but actually run plays to get him looks. TT plays really well with Delly… so keep those guys on the floor together, and Varejao plays well with LeBron (though we haven’t… Read more »
Just 10 points from the Cavs bench. For the Cavs to get to the championship level that they want to get the bench has to be way better.
For them to be way better… they actually have to play…
Shump was in 22 minutes, Moz and Delly 12 each, and RJ 9 minutes. Seems kind of crazy for an OT game.
Yeah they also played like 10 minutes. Also, Lue’s line up was questionable early on. Took out LeBron, Kyrie and Love and ran with the bench. Poor coaching by Lue tonight. Very Byron Scott-like.
Look how many mins they played. Lue barely used them
I agree with all of you and I’m not blaming it on the players (at least tonight) but coach Lue needs to let them play. The Cavs have a 3 game cushion over Toronto so even if you lose a few you will gain more as a team in the long run.
IST WIN IN INDIANA SINCE 2009 —-TOUGH PLACE / TEAM TO BEAT AT HOME —AGREE WE NEED TO WATCH THE STARTERS MINUTES / GET MORE PLAY TIME (TRUST ) FOR OUR SUBS ——-HOPING DENVER CAN BEAT TORONTO TONIGHT TO GET A LITTLE CUSHION ON THEM –GO CAVS !
Denver up 11. That means an ovetime win for Denver.
Am I the only one who thinks delli blows I know he is a tough competitor but that’s it come on mo
I think it’s mostly you, no offense. Delly wasn’t great tonight, though.
It’s hard to judge on 11 minutes. And he did have 4 assists.
Yeah, agreed, 4 TOs, though, and a couple of those were really bad.
To put it another way, in just 11 minutes, Delly had almost 20% of the Cavs’ assist tonight.
I’m surprised he didn’t have 60% of their assists tonight….
And how many turnovers
Four, which is atypical. Doesn’t mean you strap him to the bench. He’s 12th in the league in assist-to-turnover ratio.
Yeah I’m just frustrated the lack of ball movement and indecision. They won that’s what counts.
I think you might be…
I’m sure you could recruit Cols to your team.
I’m sticking up for Cols. I don’t think he would go that far.
Wow seriously you use that word?
What word? Mo or blows
Put them together and what do you get?
Bippity boppity boo?
Lol I’m clear on that but who else do we have
Delly is a much better option. I know you think he stinks, but he is a much better option than Mo. He usually doesn’t turn it over that much. I also think he wasn’t put in the best positions. No big 3 on the floor with him? He’s a player that thrives with huh usage players. Lue had him creating offense, which isn’t his strength.
“High usage players” not “huh usage players,” stupid smart phone.
I actually prefer ‘huh usage players’
He was in the floor with some huh usage players, that’s for sure.
You’re an adult . You know. That’s all I am saying.
Lue says he didn’t call TOs late in 3rd on purpose. Said they dug that hole, better get out by themselves. Learned that from Phil Jackson. — Haynes
It’s show and tell week for Lue. Ugh, I hope he doesn’t use this in the playoffs. This seems like a Byron Scott sort of coaching style.
Yeah and we seen how well that worked. Here’s an idea…. You can take the offending party out of the game. Popovich has no problem doing that.
Sneaky good game by Love….I didn’t know till I checked that he was 19/ 8, with a sprinkling of assists/ steals/ blocks.
JR really kept them in the game with some pretty huge 3s at critical times.
Other than that, it was a win. Better than a loss. But pretty awful game overall.
Indeed – Love was a bright spot. He shot pretty well. He passed well. And he played above average D. He did flop a couple times and then not get back on D… (or, alternatively, he was fouled and it wasn’t called). They weren’t calling a lot of contact under the basket… which is when we tend to struggle.
JR Smith – as he has been for the last month or two – was great and kept us in the game with some timely 3s.
Ty Lue says “it was a great win..told em you all dug yourself a hole and now ft out of it” on not calling a timeout at one stage — McLeod
Ty Lue went with the dig your own grave coaching approach.
Just hold them accountable and that would mainly be Lebron and Kyrie.
I actually kind of like that, a lot. Basically saying you guys got yourselves into this mess by playing the way you were playing.
Of course the great win part is a little off message
It sucks but the team needed to go through a night where they reverted to bad habits (we knew it was coming, thought it would be SAS). Now they can review that in practice, have a few moderate opponents, and gear up for Chicago.
Yeah I just hope this doesn’t become a habit. Play smart for a few games and then revert…
Lue played his starters a lot in the second half I personally don’t think that is good in the long run. He needs to play his bench and let them figure it out.
I’m not mad about the ugly win (don’t forget the Warriors needed a buzzer beater to beat the Sixers). What I don’t understand is why they always let the Pacers and Bulls dictate the pace against them.
What an atrocious game. Obviously I’m repeating everything already said – but to combine it into one rant: 1) Terrible ISO offense. No passing. No pace. It was SO, SO, ugly. 2) The players were totally gassed (or playing lazy, one of the two). Why didn’t we play a deeper line? 3) Why did Lue run a 5-6 man rotation in the 4th quarter and OT? Absurd. Blatt got criticized the other day for playing around too much with the lines and not playing deep enough lines in tight games. This was far worse than anything Blatt did. 4) JR… Read more »
Bunch of tune up games before getting to CHI. I think they’ll work it out. BTW 6 year losing streak in Indy. That includes last year’s Finals run team.
LBJ didn’t play either game in Indy last year if I recall correctly though…
Don’t ruin my mojo
LOL… sorry DaveR…
I think he played one of the games, but Love and Irving may have been out.
Don’t take this the wrong way. I honestly did not know that. I was really surprised by that.
Who is calling out Lue in the video review at tomorrow’s practice? Bret Breilmaier?
Well the Cavs got the ugly win but what changed in the second half that they just stopped pushing the pace?
They seemed to get gunshy with the turnovers, then they let Indiana dictate and slow down the pace, then they fell back to ISO ball…
Yeah they do not yet completely trust in moving the ball when things are not going their way. Warriors turn it over a fair amount, but they do not care as long as they score 2 out of three times. They just have to be reminded to trust in ball movement.
Wow. Basketball “genius” LeBron screws up on two separate 2 for 1 opportunities and calls a timeout leading by one with the ball in a great foul shooters hands. He is so smart.
This game was atrocious.
LOL Ben….preach it.
Yeah I don’t feel wonderful about this win. It was a win, but it was several steps in the wrong direction.
Big Positive for Kevin Love tonight. Lebron acknowledging going back to really bad habits.
Yeah was hoping Lue would get through to them at half time but apparently that did not happen.