Summer League Recap: Cleveland 70, Milwaukee 68 (or, I’m Wiggin’ out Already)
2014-07-12https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLd8n4_dRH4
Dan Gilbert was on hand to watch a match-up that featured two of the top rookies from the 2013 draft class (Delly and Antetokounmpo) and the top two rookies (so far) from the 2014 draft class. Cleveland started the fourth quarter on a 15-4 run in the first eight minutes and survived a Nate Wolters three point attempt as time expired to win an ugly game which featured 37 turnovers and sub 40-percent shooting. It was a reported 80+ degree on the floor and both teams had been going through two-a-day practices for the last several days. Fatigue showed for each squad, but still, there was a buzz in the sold out Cox Pavillion.
Matthew Dellavedova controlled this game from start to finish for the Cavs, and the Delly that surprised us all last season looked just as sharp as ever, running point for a game high 36 minutes and 34 seconds of the possible 40 minutes. Delly was completely in control: initiating the offense, pushing the pace, and setting up teammates. Blatt’s going to love having Matt as a floor general. Delly finished with 13 points, nine rebounds, and six assists. He also added six turnovers, but at least a couple of those were due to players not being ready for his his passes, or just not cutting to the basket when they should have. Delly also hit 6-8 from the charity line in the last two minutes, and was 3-3 shooting his sick little floater. The only hole in Matthew’s game came from his unwillingness to put up shots around the basket (he was driving for others more than himself), and his 1-6 outside shooting. But to be fair, no one shot well in this game, and the fatigue was evident. Cleveland went 4-25 from three, and Milwaukee went 2-20. When Delly gets to play with more potent offensive players this season, he’s going to be a dangerous set-up man.
Giannis Antetokounmpo is going to be a monster. His jumper looks light years better than last year. Giannis shot without hesitation from three, and went 2-5 there — the only decent percentage in the whole game. He also leveraged his huge length and wing span, showing an ability to catch passes far away from his body and to get into a scoring position with effective footwork. He looks all of 6’11 now. His dribble drives showed off his ever-improving handle and his ability to finish, and he flashed a couple of nice passes, too. The alphabet looked like an NBA athlete playing with college kids, and he showed the ability to harness his athleticism better than anyone in the gym. The Greek Freak could be the Greek K.D. some day. If Wiggins follows Giannis’ growth, the Cavs will be in good hands. G.A. finished with 17 points, six boards, and two dimes in just under 30 minutes, but added seven fouls (lots of moving screens were called this game) and five turnovers (it is still summer league).
Andrew Wiggins looked very nervous early (as did everyone), but settled in to have himself a nice night. Andrew had 17 points in 31 minutes to go along with three boards and only one turnover. He shot 7-18 and 1-8 from three. As Ben Werth noted last month, ‘Drew’s upper body shooting mechanics are close to perfect, especially for how long his arms are, but he needs to improve his footwork and his core strength to stabilize his shot. The farther he gets from the basket, the more he seems like he’s just flinging it. But Wiggins hit several mid-range pull-ups moving to his left and his right that looked very silky. He’s also added a particularly nasty six-foot stride step-back to his left. That’s a shot he’ll be able to get off any time he wants in the regular season.
Why? Because he’s unbelievably quick. Delly rifled a transition pass from just past half court on the right side to Andrew in the left corner, and Wiggins caught, power dribbled, and was at the basket and drew a foul in about a quarter of a second. On another play, He flushed a beautiful dunk (left) from the left baseline off a nice back-door pass from Alex Kirk. ‘Drew also showed the ability to get to the line and draw fouls, but his shots were a little strong, and he went 3-6 from there. He’s going to struggle a bit from the charity stripe until he gets a consistent lower body shooting form. Wiggins looked like everything he’s been advertised, and he’ll probably be able to fall out of bed and score 14 a night just in transition, cuts, and putbacks. His defense was solid, especially on this block but Parker’s strength was hard for Andrew to deal with when Jabari got into Wiggins’ body. Still, a tantalizing debut.
Speaking of Jabari Parker, WHOA. The talk that he’s the most NBA ready player in this draft is understated. Parker showed the ability to put the ball on the floor and score in transition and with a face-up game in the half-court. He finished with with both hands off drives, and spin-moves and his jumper looked solid. He also shot 11 free-throws and displayed the ability to pass out of double-teams. Parker finished with 17 points and nine boards on 7-11 shooting, including 0-3 from three, plus nine rebounds. Parker will be a strong NBA scorer for years to come.
Anthony Bennett spent a good bit of time guarding Parker, and the results weren’t pretty Bennett got regularly abused and finished with a whopping eight fouls, in 30 minutes. Bennett was also whistled for a couple moving screens. But on offense, ‘Tony’s improvement was palpable. Anthony scored 15 on 6-16 shooting, including two monster transition dunks where Bennett ran the floor, and Delly hit him as the trailer on the break. He also had a couple of nice steals, and seven rebounds. On the best play of the night, Tony caught the ball on the right wing on the break, rushed toward the basket, and then hit a confident little five foot floating hook next to three Bucks defenders in traffic. And let’s talk about the most obvious improvement: Bennet is noticeably thinner. He looks at least 30 pounds lighter than at times last year and wasn’t laboring in the heat. He looked to be one of the better Cavs players when it came to conditioning. He and his training staff deserve credit. I guess I will give up the “Canadian Bacon” nick-name for now.
On the negative side, Bennett is still a chucker. Bennett swished an early three-point pullup with a man in his face, and after that, thought he could hit everything. He was unafraid to shoot early in the shot clock, whether he was open or not. Tony’s dumb shot selection reached its zenith with the Cavs were up five with 2:29 to go. After Bennett missed a J, Delly snagged the rebound and kicked it out to Tony. Without hesitation, Bennett bricked again with 20 seconds airballed with 23 seconds left on the shot clock. Delly, the announcers, and David Blatt were all incredulous about his lack of game awareness. Oh, Gum Drop Bear.
Carick Felix is not going to make the Cavs if he plays like this. Felix was invisible, outside of two steals and one rebound in seventeen minutes. I didn’t even realize he was out there most of the time.
Scotty Hopson and Will Cherry had some timely buckets for Cleveland, each notching seven points in 14 and 16 minutes of play. Cherry played backup point guard in the 3:30 that Delly sat, and he looked a little overwhelmed there. But as a scorer, his instincts are solid. Neither will make the Cavs.
Center, Alex Kirk had a quietly effective game, giving the Cavs some much needed interior presence. Kirk totaled 12 boards in a game where there were a lot of rebounds to be had, showed some decent range on his jumper, and had a couple nice passes.
David Blatt has obviously been running his players through the ringer in practice, and they all looked gassed at times during the game. Summer league games are pretty free-flowing, and there wasn’t a ton of structure to the offense, still, he ran some nice plays. Wiggins got a bucket coming of a double screen curl from the left baseline, and Bennett was setting pick and pop plays up all day with strong (and often illegal) screens. If Blatt can teach ‘Tony to roll hard there, it will help everyone. David also ran some unexpected double teams at Jabari Parker, and the Cavs ability to pick up the defense and use it to get into their offense was impressive when the Cavs made their fourth quarter run.
The Cavs play again Sunday night, and Robert will have the recap for you, Monday. Also, look for a podcast from the guys, tomorrow morning. Until then, Go Cavs.
Bennett did look like he was in shape, which probably translated to more energy – which was welcomed. Mentally – the guy still makes a lot of bad decisions on the court, and gives weak effort at times (missing a box out on parker down the stretch – which was just lazy). Much like last year Bennett is in love with his 18-20 footer, and when he gets the ball he seems like he has 10 things he wants to do all at once, but settles for his basketball love – the quickly chucked jump shot – regardless of where… Read more »
The Bennett missed box out of Parker was on a missed free throw. That is why I remembered it – those bug me. Just wanted to point that out.
I think it’s worth mentioning Bennett rebounded really well on D.
The Bucks had to hide Jabari on defense by putting him to guard our weakest offensive player every time. When you go up out of summer league literally everyone is going to be at least passable at offense, Jabari will not be able to defend at the next level if he’s that fat.
So glad we got Lebron to play 3 and not that bum Chandler Parsons or Trevor Ariza. LOL….I have been gone for 48 hours to Illinois visiting my great aunt and her husband; they 91 years old. They wore me out. Didn’t know Lebron signed until 2200 yesterday, at my hotel, because my charger broke because of my puppy (that I got that very day). Read my post from July 8th or I think it was the day before the eve of free agency. Lebron pretty much described how he came to this last decision versus what happened in 2010.… Read more »
Great analysis, Nate. (Here’s mine: A bit long) People tend to forget that Wiggins was primarily an outside shooter at the tail end of his HS career. Scouts and reporters mocked his shooting and called out his abilities outside of Athleticism mid-way through his Junior season. He went from 32% from 3’s and 43% overall in his Junior year to 37% from 3 and 52% overall shooting the following Senior year. The man can shoot – its obvious from his stroke. However, I do agree with recent reports that suggest his lower body mechanics are off while his upper body… Read more »
bennettt looks like a ” new ” person / slimmed down—-still needs to improve his basketball i.q. ( has the right coaching staff and LeBron to make great strides in that area )—-wiggins was nervous ( as expected ) at first and forced once he settled the raw talent was obvious ( can you imagine what is running thru blatt’s great basketball mind —–what he is capable of doing with this bunch ) yes the further wiggins shot the less he retained his shooting form ( high extension/ hold the follow thru etc . –don’t just fling it ) with… Read more »
Actually, I like it when one uses “Wiggins” and “forced” in the same sentence. That would be the antithesis of “passive.”
The mention of Hopson reminded me: I haven’t seen this reported widely yet, but we know Gee went to the Pelicans instead of the Bobcats for the heavily protected 2nd rounder. We still get Brendan Hayward and 2nd rounder Dwight Powell, but the new piece was Scotty Hopson and some cash.
Side note: What is the purpose of 1-55 protected 2nd rounders? That just leaves 5 slots to use. We now have two of those, both in 2016, I believe.
The purpose was to intentionally lose Gee’s contract and get nothing in return . . . but fulfill all the requirements of the NBA’s trade bylaws. You might think, “Why not get ANYTHING in return?” What we got in return was, again, losing Gee’s contract.
Talk about “confirmation bias!” You over-rate Wiggins performance and under-rate Bennett’s. No real surprise, I suppose, considering the author. Wiggins showed some good things but he absolutely was as much as a chucker as Bennett was, as he took EIGHT 3-pointers, for god’s sake! He made one. Also, his one TO was exactly the kind of terrible ball-handling while driving into traffic we saw far too often when he was in college. However, his quickness was impressive. I find it funny that Nate is impressed with Wiggins’ mid-range game as he knows that is the worst shot in basketball. I… Read more »
KJ – Nate gave Bennett some love for the first time, so it’s time for you to back off a little about Wiggins. I mean, if Lebron and Gilbert can reconcile . . . I wanted Noel, but loved the Bennett pick. He has tools, but right off the bat he has not turned out to be as great as I thought he’d be. He’s a late bloomer and needs time . . . as does Wiggins. We need to turn both those guys over to Blatt and cut both some slack. But I hope we keep them both (along… Read more »
If you don’t think Bennett was setting some moving screens, then you’ve never seen one. He was like a bowling ball out there. Anyway, yes, I expect more from Bennett as a second year player. He should know not to take stupid pull-ups early in the shot clock, but hey, it’s summer league, everyone’s working out their game. I do find it comical that you harped on Wiggins’ one turnover in 30 minutes. Thought his handle looked pretty tight.
Nice recap. Don’t have league pass or whatever channel these games are on so really enjoyed reading the details here.
Hope all future recaps are similarly well written.
NBAtv, actually
Wiggins’ step backs were pretty damn smooth. You could feel them going in before the ball left his hand. Also loved seeing how fast he can get down the court. Pretty exciting. Obviously he needs to dial it back on those threes though, for now anyways. Can see him being a legit threat from deep in few seasons.
Good write up, Nate. Thanks. Wiggins certainly wasn’t passive. He is a team player who can freelance – but should also excel in a well designed offense. I’m pleased with the pick, and excited about the young man. First time I’ve seen you give any love to Bennett (and it may turn out we give Bennett for Love). Many or most of his fouls were screen fouls. I thought his defense was really good. He was not “abused.” A couple of baskets from extremely talented NBA players (GA / Parker) may have scored a basket or two off him. Again,… Read more »
Without hesitation, Bennett acutally Air-balled a 3 with 23 secs on the shot clock…completely ill-advised, but he looks better and actually played with confidence.
We’ve got 4 #1 draft picks on the roster…the future couldn’t look any brighter…but to quote L.L. Cool J, “I Need LOVE”.
Thanks for the correction. I didn’t have the opportunity to go back and watch the tape. I changed it in the article.