Recap: Cavs 81, Pacers 96
2012-12-12
Will the real CJ Miles please stand up?
I watched this game at a deserted bar with fellow NBA blogger Eric Maroun. To my recent surprise, Eric is a Clevelander, transplanted to the northside of Indianapolis, who writes for Hardwood Paroxysm. We met tonight and quaffed a few brews. So…this recap includes the insights of your favorite, intrepid, half-attentive, dive-bar viewing blogger.
The first half featured an irregular dose of CJ Miles, who tallied 23 points. Remember how Dion Waiters looked during the Clippers game earlier this season? That was CJ during the early portion tonight, and it was awesome. Cleveland forged to a 58 – 43 lead midway through the second quarter.
Unfortunately, over a 3 minute and 39 second stretch spanning the second the third quarters, Indiana punished the Cavs with eighteen unanswered points. Prorated to forty-eight minutes, that’s a 237 to nothing ballgame, folks. The Pacers have struggled this year without Danny Granger, but the core of George Hill, Paul George, Roy Hibbert and veteran David West can still resemble the unit that caused Miami playoff struggles last year.
The Pacers lead progressively extended from there, and they won by fifteen. It was a good night to watch the game at a bar.
A few notes:
I certainly noticed that Varejao and Gee were underperforming, but had no idea that they shot 0 for 16. That is embarrassing for them, and potentially for me.
I knew CJ Miles was streaky, but has he spent his entire career bouncing between ten game stretches of -6 PER and 30 PER?
Only nine points and four assists from Kyrie, but it is major fun seeing him on-court again. I am looking forward to Dion returning also, as there is a definite dynamism to each of their playing styles.
Jeremy Pargo only played three minutes tonight, with Sloan otherwise taking his minutes. His twenty minutes resulted in five points and two assists on 43% true shooting. Did I miss the back-story behind Pargo’s benching?
Ben Hansborough attempted to rake Tristan’s eyes out. Tristan defensively swung an elbow in his direction, to which Tyler Hansborough flipped out and did a tough guy, big brother thing. TT received the T, which from my seat seemed ridiculous.
Samardo Samuels and Luke Walton combined to play 39 minutes. I can not begin to fathom this. They both did things that they do; but why couldn’t Jon Leuer get minutes this season? Luke Walton is nearing 33 and obviously has nothing to do with the Cavs’ future. Heading into the season, I figured a legal-name-change to “Luke Walton’s retiring contract” was in order. Samardo has played 105 games…we know what he is now; barely an NBA player. Jon Leuer, after offering 555 fairly useful minutes to Milwaukee last year, received a three game chance? I know those were ugly outings, but why were neither Walton or Samuels playing, and then the exact day that Leuer gets sent to Canton, suddenly a plethora of minutes open up for Kevin Jones and the aforementioned duo? Curious roster decisions…Leuer posted 15 points, 13 rebounds, and 3 steals in his second game with Canton.
Yeah, so it was that type of game; the type where one-third of a recap is spent writing about a role player on the D-League team. Friday night will be better.
And not every team is trying to win with defense. Why do point scorers get paid and no one is trying to trade to get TT off our hands? Because scoring sells, and is still prized over solid defense by most teams around the league.
Cols, I think SA did just fine winning with a good defense in a small market. And yes, as is obvious, you need both. D’antoni has proven his system is fragile and inflexible to actual talent at hand, and has no track record of above average defense, even if it wasn’t quite as terrible as the pace made it look. I DON’T want him just to make the regular season fun. I want a ring. I’m fine with running an up tempo, fast paced offense, I’m not fine with hiring Mike D’Antoni.
Ha. I like the offense and defense suggestion. Byron will be evaluated as a by the organization NEXT YEAR during the first qutr-half of the games for the season. His track record as a player and coach so far has basically been winning or competing toward the end of the playoffs. Two finals with the nets? Consistently getting the Chris Paul Hornets to a very difficult to crack western conference playoffs? The cavs don’t have the squad to challenge for the playoffs right now, so what do you want him to do, win 25-35 games and miss a chance at… Read more »
I think we should probably try to win with offense and defense.
Except that every team is now trying to win with defense. It would make much more sense to instead try to win with offense. Especially when you have Irving and Waiters. These are the types of guards that would be pretty awesome in an uptempo offense.
Actually, Cols, for a small market team building a great D makes WAY more sense than a high fire power one. Fast scoring teams need tons of athletes, shooters, etc. D teams just need guys with fundamentals. Guess which assets go for less on the open market?
KSwI
So we should just do what every other team is doing? For a small market team that strategy seems pretty loco.
I’m fine with the flagrant on TT, because he was swinging his elbows wildly, even if the hit was unintentional. What bothers me more is that there was no tech on Tyler Hansborough. People have gotten techs for far less.
Cols, the reason everyone else does it the other way is because there hasn’t been a non-top 10 defense to win a championship in my lifetime (didn’t actually look it up but know it is a big trend, if you would like to fact check me I’d appreciate the information) I’ve seen the suns go all in with dantoni with the best players dantoni could want for his system, and they couldn’t reach the finals for 5 consecutive years. I say dantoni get players that didn’t fit his system perfectly and he floundered like hell. I don’t want him, I… Read more »
Stan Van Gundy sure. Not Mike Brown
And really, why can’t we try to win with an offensively minded coach? Every other NBA team tries to win the same way, that is with suffocating defense. If the entire league is trying one thing wouldn’t it make some sense to go all in with D’Antoni? Especially because with Irving and Waiters he can probably come up with some great stuff. And it’d be awesome to watch.
D’Antoni’s D was underrated. On a per possession basis, it was decent. Also, D’Antoni hit on ways to make players more offensively efficient, which is always good. However, his biggest flaw was not being able to win in the playoffs because playoff games are about executing in the half court and playing a possession game, and that’s not what the Lakers are about. Oh, and he lost because David Stern made one of the stupidest suspension of all time.
Yeah I’m not a DAntoni fan. I’d go for Stan Van Gundy or Mike Brown. DEFENSE
Hell no to Dantoni. The guy has fun to watch teams, sure, but he is a bad coach. He got the suns to the 2nd round of the playoffs, big deal. With the talent they had it wasn’t much of an accomplishment, and playing that up tempo no D crap works against teams in the regular season, when they aren’t focused on your teams specifically and aren’t up to running around with you. In the playoffs its another matter. If Dantoni can completely suck with the talent he had in NY, LA, and not get a perfect roster in Phoenix… Read more »
I don’t want D’Antoni but this Cavs team would fit his system better than the Lakers do. Overall this team can run and multiple guys can hit the three. Kyrie in the SSOL would be a fantasy god.
I don’t know.
Watching Mike Brown screw up the playoffs kind of sucked. I don’t know if Scott is the answer at coach but I’m really really glad we are done with Mike Brown.
I wouldn’t mind seeing Mike D’Antoni here after he gets fired from the Lakers. His teams are always fun to watch and those Suns were awfully close to winning it all for a couple of years.
s87 – I was thinking the same thing watching that second half. The bench guys were playing well enough and Kyrie/Andy were having off games. When that elbow incident happened with TT I think Byron thought this garbage game wasn’t worth getting Kyrie and or Andy injured. Everyone on the Pacers seemed ready to brawl.
I should also throw a shout out to Swirving for the Scott comment.
Really though, every single shot of Scott during a game is him silently looking pissed off with his arms crossed. Shouldn’t he be trying to light some fire under his young team?
Jimbo I hate to say it, but I’m kind of with you.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m not really sure what Byron Scott has brought to the table so far this season.
as far as the Hansborough TT foul, I don’t know what you were watching, but it seemed pretty warranted to me. I thought Hansborough (either one, ben for the blatant raking of the face, Tyler for his escalating reaction) could have gotten T’d up to, but what TT did was not a complete accident, his arm that hit Ben wasn’t even touching the ball, he stuck it out there knowing the guy who just ripped off his facemask was in that direction. I don’t blame the kid, he got mugged highly unnecessarily, but the refs can’t let dude’s get hammered… Read more »
Hey Useless, did you watch the game? Walton actually did play pretty well yesterday. I know, I’m as shocked as you are, but it did happen. Now of course that was mostly backups vs backups, but he actually looked like a pretty good bench player yesterday. It won’t continue, and he shouldn’t get the opportunity to even try, but it did happen. Also, if Byron isn’t blowing games on purpose, treading water for one more high pick, he needs to get out of town. Its really hard to look at what the guy does with the bench, and look at… Read more »
If people think Mike Brown’s rotations were terrible, Byon’s are even worse. It seems like he has no plan and is playing guys aty random. Luke Walton had a bunch of DNP’s and now he’s a regular rotation guy again? I’m starting to wish we had a different coach. I’m all about consistency, but when the head coach can’t stick to something resembling a constant rotation after we’re a quarter of the way through the season, I think it may be time to think of other options.
@+/-=useless- That’s a big huge sample size you’re using there pal.
Agree that the Hansborough brothers were beyond ridiculous. In fact I’m hopping on http://www.eightpointsnineseconds.com to talk some trash about the flop now. What a ludicrously officiated game.
Actually…Luke played pretty effectively tonight. It didn’t hurt that he was on the floor when the cavs weren’t missing many jumpers, but he moved the ball well on offense and contributed to turnovers in the first half.
Luke Walton had a plus/minus of +14 in like 17 mins?…and the Cavs lost by 15? Pretty sure the plus/minus stat is beyond useless in evaluating single player performance on game to game basis
Was it just me, or do the Pacers big guys seem really agitated all the time? David West was about to clock someone from the 2nd qutr on, and Hibbert always looks like he’s growling. Hansboro has always been chippy, something Dicky V used to call his “intensity.” Their Hibbert twin backup was trying to set mean screens every chance he got on Kyrie. I know that there is a heap of testosterone on that court, but Andy Verajao and Tristan Thompson should not get under 3-5 guys skin as bad as it looked tonight. I agree that Byron’s rotations… Read more »
Drove to this game from Athens, Ohio. Had a great time at the game, did not have a great time watching the second half. They’re blatantly trying to not win games. Andy V, Kyrie, Gee, and Miles all were chilling on the bench, totally relaxed while the Cavs rode Sloan, Boobie, Walton, Samuels and Tristan/Zeller for 12 consecutive minutes at the end of the third/beginning of the fourth. What a bummer.
All I know is that if Ben Hansbrough doesn’t get fined (or warned if he needs warned first) under the new flopping rules, I honestly don’t know what is a finable offense. It doesn’t matter if it’s in slow-mo or real time, he flopped and singlehandedly turned a non-foul into a flagrant 1. Also, how did Tyler NOT get a technical foul for his reaction?
CJ Miles is Jamal Crawford, only not nearly as good at shooting. With Crawford, he gives you one thing. One very specific thing. Scoring. And that’s it. He’s below average to really bad at the rest of it. However, he can be such a potent scorer that, most games, his big huge positive scoring ability outweighs the rest of the negatives. Especially considering it is all he is required to do on his current team and has to focus on nothing else. CJ Miles is the same way. Except, for the most part, he isn’t half the shooter Crawford is.… Read more »
How many fast break points did the Pacers have tonight? 80?
The Cavs should target Cody Zeller in the 2013 NBA Draft, that way the Zellers can tag team against the Hansboroughs. Then they can really play out this whole WWE thing going on in the NBA. BTW it looked like baby Hansborough may of flopped.
Kevin – I was thinking the same thing about CJ Miles. Can’t remember a more feast or famine guy than that. He’s either been the worst player on the court or the best. Larry Hughes popped into my head but he played good D and would rack up some assists/boards even when his jumper wasn’t falling. CJ Miles is something else entirely.
I tuned into the radio midway through the 2nd quarter and was pleasantly surprised that CJ Miles hadn’t lost NBA Jam Fire overnight. Got home, checked the box score – Cavs squandered a 15 point lead in what seemed like 3 real-life minutes. Figured they’d shore it up after halftime and besides a 5 minute stretch in the 4th where they played pretty scrappy D – they just didn’t do anything very well in the second half. Rough game.
Kevin, my guess is the Pargo benching had something to do with his god awful night last night. He was easily the worst Cav on the floor yesterday. We’ll see what that means for the future. Sloan has actually looked passable, too.
Nathan pointed out in an earlier post that, AMAZINGLY, Walton had two blocks and was +14 on the game. WHATTTTT!?