Recap: Cavs 91, Grizzlies 83 (Or, Take Your Winning Streaks as You Get Them.)
2014-02-09
Overview:
The Cavaliers escaped with a win over the Memphis Grizzlies over 53 minutes of ugly, ugly basketball, with both teams shooting under 40% from the floor and generally not moving the ball at all. Kyrie Irving finished with a game-high 28 points, including a game-tying layup with 19 seconds left in regulation, and Dion Waiters punctuated the game with a vicious crossover and one-handed dunk to put the Cavaliers up six points with 41 seconds left in overtime.
Cavs-Related Bullets:
DELLAVEDOVA. Yes, he scored five points to Kyrie’s 28. However, I’m having trouble escaping the fact that I enjoyed the Dellavedova-led unit that started the fourth quarter for the Cavaliers than the Irving-led unit that ended it, even with Kyrie scoring the last four points to send the game into OT.
At the beginning of the year, we were seeing Irving at his worst. He was choking the offense, he was forcing shots, he was missing open shots, and his defense was, as usual, a negative. Now he seems to have settled back into his groove, as we all sort of knew he would, we have to face the reality that Kyrie Irving at his normal level might not be all that the commercials and All-Star votes would suggest that it is. Even tonight, when Irving was making his shots, he wasn’t getting the Cavaliers into any sort of an offense and making things easier for his teammates. Some of that blame falls on Mike Brown’s shoulders, but the defense is not feeling Kyrie on possessions that don’t end with him shooting. And his defense is a real problem. Nick Calathes should not be getting 17 points and six assists on 7-9 shooting. Some of those baskets came without Irving on him — they were the easy ones. When Calathes scored when Irving was guarding him, it seemed like Kyrie’s mission was to stare at the back of his jersey after he made his move and learn to spell “Calathes” from memory.
Enter Matthew Dellavedova. When Dellavedova and Miles came in to start the 4th quarter, the Cavaliers had a different kind of energy on both ends of the floor, with Dellavedova swarming on defense and getting to loose balls and Miles running all around the court to set up his jumper on offense. If it wasn’t for the star power involved, that should have been the unit to finish the game. Of course, Kyrie came back in for Delladova, and a 74-67 lead turned into a 74-78 deficit. Kyrie made up for it with the two big shots, not to mention his piping-hot shooting to start the game and give the Cavs an early lead, but lord if I didn’t wish he had a bit more Dellavedova in him.
To love Dion Waiters is to learn to hate yourself and everything you believe in. The box-score line says that Waiters shot 7-21. The box score line is correct. That is not a good box-score line. However, watching the game, the glimmers of true offensive hope seemed to come from Dion Waiters. For all of Kyrie’s offensive talent, he’s more of an isolation player that will kill you with his jump shot more than he’ll craft an efficient offense out of thin air. Deng is an isolation player. Obviously, nobody on the frontline is creating any offense. Then there’s Waiters, who can seemingly get into the paint at will and get defenses — entire defenses — on their heels, but simply isn’t being put in the position to do so in the current offensive system. The best plays of the night came on three Waiters dribble-drives to the basket (two led to wide-open Irving threes, and the third led to that massive slam), and my modest proposal is that when he’s in the game, he should get the early touch and the screen or isolation to work with, with Irving off the ball to spot up or go on a secondary action, rather than have Waiters stand around and feel that he has to force shots.
Quiet game for Deng, who’s still recovering from the flu, and he’s kinda hard to notice even when he is filling up the box score. I’d like to see him in motion a little bit more instead of having all his catches be at the three-point line, but look what the players who had a full training camp are doing on offense.
Not a good night for Thompson and Varejao offensively, but they played Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph to what was essentially a stalemate, so you’ll take that every single time. The Grizzlies really had nowhere to get points from when the Cavs closed off the paint on them, so kudos to the frontline for that.
Good Anthony Bennett: His lone basket came when he drove, got shut down, but beat his man back off the floor with a quick second jump and softly put the ball back in. I’m not looking for 20-point games out of Bennett, or even 10-point games. I just want spurts of promise, and I got one tonight. There was also the sequence where Bennett had an open three, hesitated, decided to swing the ball, and threw it directly to a rotating Courtney Lee, but hey. Baby steps.
Alright, that’s all I have for tonight. Until next time, campers.
@KJ
I understand where you’re coming from with playing Dion on the ball and Kyrie off, but Dion is almost the same way. His numbers shooting the ball, especially on catch and shoots, are very good. His FG% on drives and pull up jumpers is atrocious. In reality either one should be able to be a good off the ball option, but for some reason they haven’t figured this out.
Pipedream first trade for Griffin. Call Philly and offer Jack, Clark, Thompson, pick (s) for Thad Young and Spencer Hawes.
Really good comments on this thread. C:tB at it’s best…
“At the beginning of the year, we were seeing Irving at his worst. He was choking the offense, he was forcing shots, he was missing open shots, and his defense was, as usual, a negative. Now he seems to have settled back into his groove, as we all sort of knew he would, we have to face the reality that Kyrie Irving at his normal level might not be all that the commercials and All-Star votes would suggest that it is. Even tonight, when Irving was making his shots, he wasn’t getting the Cavaliers into any sort of an offense… Read more »
I think delly should start at point, his hustle is very contagious and he could guard the point or two guard which ever is a better shooter. Kyrie would not be getting lit up all the time. I would really consider starting bennet also, bringing tristen off the bench. I think they should look to trade clark and jack, they have not lived up to anything special. If you think about it I would say this is chris grants worst moves of all. Jack was supposed to be that vocal vet to keep the team together and he failed. Clarks… Read more »
Empowering people is the trainer’s job…. (cue rimshot)
Ben: Liked the comments. Memphis is a good matchup for Cleveland, especially missing Conley and Tony Allen. But I enjoyed the heck out of that game.
Shouldn’t empowering people be a coaching strength?
The new GM’s greatest strength is “empowering people?” Not what I wanted to hear.
TV63: Great post. All of it.
I think TT’s best games have been defensive efforts against guys like David West, Lee, Randolf, etc, He hardly scores in those games, but he contributes most towards the win. I agree with Ben Worth that he is a center with PF height.
Now Brown needs to come up with a defensive rotation that can stop a 3 shooting team. And Kyrie should guard the 2.
Winning . . . and learning how to win is much, much better than losing or tanking.
DCBrowns;
I totally agree that all the analysis on KI and DW on CtB somewhat misses the point. Here is a history of how that came to be: When the Cavs failed to take the league by storm in November, some CtB’ers went into “Tea Party’er at an Obama rally” mode, blaming DW for everything from the Beatles breaking up to the toilets at Sochi. This naturally caused others to react by saying they thought KI was even more at fault.
The dust-up has mostly died down, and DW and KI are both playing better.
Oh Yeah, listened to that interview with the acting GM. He’s like all the scouts are the same, the personnel are the same etc. Then what the hell changed?
good win ( trying to contain from getting overly excited )—not to be negative after a win—-but mike brown went back to his ” typical formula “—I understand Bennett had 2 quick fouls—but he has shown progress the last 5 games when given the minutes to play—-last night brown went back to giving him only 6 minutes—-he needs to be in there to develop—even sometimes during crunch time this is one of the big negatives on brown his inability to grow/ trust young players—but hey good win—-when they play hard/ and give the effort —we will all support them
@everyone, what I tell you about that Delly/Dion lineup it’s freaking awesome. I still can’t understand how Kyrie is the only all-star in league history that can take a 10 point lead and let it go to a 5 point deficit just by going back into the game.
Kyrie and Dion played hard together. THEY SHOULD! We’re seeing a different attitude emerging on Dion and it’s about time. I do think Grant’s firing has something to do with that. I agree getting Jack out of Delly/Dion lineup was a very smart move.With Kyrie getting some bench time and forced to watch Delly/DIon he realized he was missing out on the fun. And he has! Look the starters aren’t exactly startling. ‘Delly’s 5″ is very exciting watch and good things are happening with ball movement, defense, forcing turn overs and RUNNING UP THE PACE and most of all they… Read more »
This was my favorite game of the season. What other people see as ugly basketball, I see as playing with true grit/heart. Our front-line worked their collective tail off battling the Memphis All-Stars. Andy, TT, Tyler and Bennett each fronted, refronted, banged and recovered harder than I have seen all season. The Memphis match-up is actually quite good for us. They don’t shoot threes and don’t play stretch 4s. We get shredded by each. TT is effectively a Center in a PFs body. When he can play against a traditional big, his effort and lower body strength can be put… Read more »
Most of the analysis (and this season that mostly means criticism) goes towards Dion and Kyrie. And that’s flawed. They are the basically the only reliable offensie players. Maybe more focus should go to the numerous guys who produce very little and are killing this season. Instead most fans and media are parsing every move, every metric, every comment from Dion and Kyrie. Sure, they each have faults. They are also both above average players, and near-elite in Kyrie’s case. Cavs issue is the inconsistent (or non-existent) play most everywhere else, poor interior defense from anyone not named Andy, and… Read more »
Once again Delly sparks the team in the 4th qtr.
I agree with the one who’s been saying Dion needs a 2-3 minute break in the 4th. He plays long stretches, gets tired, and his shots stop falling. Put CJ in there. Dion’s a scorer, not a shooter (yet). Big difference.
Zeller’s weakside help hasn’t been getting there a split second late the last couple of games and it makes a BIG difference. The difference between sitting him on the bench and playing him all the minutes he wants.
Mark Price’s jersey is too expensive on Amazon.com man, $99.00, how about a discount? Go Cavs
Lets don’t get carried away, it was a good win but Grizz played a back to back game and were there at the end which it shouldn’t happen. We’ll see what they do tonight. Question is , can they win three in a row ? Go Cavs
Yeah I agree that Dion should be given more of the ball and for Kyrie to play off the ball – provided he can eliminate his throw up a 20 foot, contested jumper 8 seconds into the shot clock moments. I definitely believe he gets the team involved more than Kyrie and has good basketball vision. I also just don’t get why Kyrie is still tasked with defending the other team’s ball handler. Every opposing PG we play looks like an all star when they play us! Dion and Delly are far better in iso-defensive than Kyrie and should be… Read more »
Half of Dion’s dimes were for 3’s. Just sayin… I said it weeks ago, the formula for success is to give the ball mainly to Dion and let Kyrie play the two. They can switch up but Kyrie’s game is so much better suited to off-the-ball due to his (generally) good stroke. Dion and Delly were really good defensively tonight. ALL the bigs played good defense. Zeller was garbage offensively but he battled on D and did as much as you can ever hope for him to do against Gasol and Z Bo. Andy was unbelievably great against Z Bo… Read more »
Got to say, Zeller really brought some toughness tonight. He was banging and throwing his body around. (I know, right?). The Zeller, Waiters, Delly, Miles, Andy line was ridiculously good, and the bench won this game. Dion’s 6 dimes and 2 turnovers, don’t tell the story of how well he and Delly worked the offense. The biggest play of the game was the play that Dion hustled to the backcourt to rescue a loose ball and then lazered a pass to Deng in the right corner. Well, it was the biggest play until Dion crushed Memphis’ dreams with the best… Read more »
Only saw the second half, but a lot to like. Zeller came in and stopped the roll that Z-bo had got on, and generally played tough through the middle of the half. Fantastic move for the slam to ice the game by Dion — that was HUGE. Delly made a bunch of nice plays, including a huge 3. Remember he’s a rookie free agent!
Good move by coach Brown to get Tristan out of there when it was obvious that he couldn’t handle z-bo, Overall a very gutsy OT win. I’ll take it!
Ha i kinda liked the Griffin interview…you’re right he does seem rather thoughtful. But we have him to thank for our recent winning streak of course, so that’s nice. Plus, with the win we moved out of a tie for last place in the western conference.
@ Dot
I don’t think I’ve seen Delly once not smiling or anticipating a big play.
I also think the only guys on the team who’ve figured Gum Drop out are him, Dion and Andy. Maybe Tyler a little bit too, but not consistently.
Did anyone see the David Griffin interview on cavs.com? He is an odd guy. Very abstract and philosophical.
Cavs win, Krolik recap and a Freaks and Geeks video. Everything is good.
Kyrie and Dion putting aside their ego’s in the only way this roster is going to work as currently construct. Nice to see them set one another up. A couple post ago I brought up how the 2012 draft might have been a fulcrum for the team. If this team had Beal instead of Waiters would they be where the Wizards are? Not just from Beal’s off the ball ability, but from locker room stability. We don’t know what has happened in the Cavs locker room, but assuming it is rooted in friction between Kyrie and Dion is the general… Read more »
soultoronados: I don’t think Dellavedova can feel sadness. But he does slap it on the back and tell it “Good effort!”
The Cavs are like the high school girlfriend you knew you should break up with but even after you did you kept. Coming. Back. Until she mistreated you again. A few days ago I pretty much gave up on the season, but when Dion took it down the middle tonight and slammed it home, I was in love again. Please don’t make me scotch tape my bball heart back together again, wine and gold.
@Michael- The more that time passes, the more I start to think that TT’s ceiling is lower and lower than it was the game before. The glimmer of hope that keeps me sane is this: I decided after the first few months of TT’s career that he was destined to be a smaller, but more athletic Varejao. And if you compare their career arcs, TT is FAR ahead of where Andy was in his third year. So there’s hope. @toronados- “If Dion is hot, Kyrie should handle the ball and get Dion on a cut.” That’s a great idea. Unfortunately,… Read more »
I tuned in for the second half and got swept up in the defense-a-rama. I love it when we get stops, even if it’s stopping a defensive minded team lacking its primary scorer. Around 5:12 in the 4th, I was thinking “where’s Kyrie?” Then he appeared! And then the cavs sucked. So I started thinking about why that it is. A lot of it has to so with defense, as John noted, but it also has to do with chemistry. The first two possessions with Kyrie in the game involved Dion taking an ill-advised jumper and then dribbling till he… Read more »
TT really isn’t a worthy starting player, he’s more of an hard working, energy bench player on a playoff team. I can only hope he develops a mid range like Andy does in the future. If Bennett somehow breaks out of his shell in a year or two, the starting PF is his. I like this game, nice to see Kyrie and Dion both playing well in a winning game.
The Dion dunk was nice….
@FlopCitySports: @dionwaiters3 THROWS THE HAMMER DOWN! #Cavs http://t.co/8PbY6Ngc3l
Forgot to add my thoughts on TT; he really just struggles with these types of teams. Bigger, more physical bigs (especially a great defensive big like Gasol) are just going to be tough for him to score on even as he develops more post moves.
Is it just me or does it seem like Kyrie and Dion over the past two games have been looking for other players a lot more often than before? Just seems as if there’s a lot more willingness to share the ball these past two games. I hope that continues even while recognizing that they’re the primary scorers on this team and have to look to score first. Still, it seemed to me that they’re just trying harder to make the team work over these past two games. This was a very good win against one of the two best… Read more »