Live Thread: Cavs Vs Pacers
2014-11-29
The Indiana Pacers come to take on the Wine & Gold tonight. They are still without Paul George and may be without Roy Hibbert too because of an ankle sprain. David West and CJ Watson returned to the lineup less than 30 hours ago picking up a win against the Orlando Magic. Their status is probable, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they sat out on the second night of a back-to-back.
Indiana was thought to be done without Paul George on the roster, and surely everyone counted them out when David West went down early on this season, but they have rode their defense to stay competitive in games and have won six of their last nine. They aren’t protecting the rim as well as they did last year; however, they are still just allowing opponents to make 6.8 threes a game, a top ten mark. It will be interesting to see how Indiana tries to keep the Cavs off the three line. The Cavs are already unable to make threes, and this game might expose that issue.
The King’s Men are coming off of a game where they managed to hold the Wizards to 46.1% shooting while allowing just six threes to drop. That doesn’t seem impressive, but for Cleveland right now it is. The Good Guys also managed to cause 18 turnovers. Tonight is a good chance for Cleveland to continue their defensive development; the Pacers aren’t exactly offensive machines.
Look for former Cav Donald Sloan at the point spot and former breakout Wine player CJ Miles leading the Yellow’s second unit. AJ Price was waived just a few days ago, so the Pacers are no longer a roster made up of one-fifth Cavs castoffs.
I’m picking the Cavs in this game, 98-81.
I got this numbers from posters but the bench scored 16 points with 74 total minutes.
Help fix that with Varejao on the bench again, he doesn’t need the starters as much as Tristan. Run some Waiters/Varejao PnRs to help Waiters. And Love gets a few more touches. Blatt has liberty of choosing closing center based on who’s hot or matchups.
Kyrie is in the best shape of his life. No more huffing and puffing. I would tell my young athletes: “the difference between a good athlete and great athlete is conditioning.”
Ball movement tonight has been so-so, but they’ve been getting such perfect looks early in the clock. No real reason to move it a ton I guess.
Dion: passing up a good shot to take a terrible one.
I have been a steadfast Dion guy, but, man, he really doesn’t seem to have a role on this team when they are playing well. If he can get his J going that can change quickly. Right now its bad.
I thought the same thing. I watch garbage time, hoping for some Dion magic, but he looks like a genuine bench guy on a team with a weak bench–not he 6th man of the year we fantasize about. It will be interesting to see how it goes when Delly comes back–maybe a savvier point guard will help Dion get to his spots.
Amundson is pushing to play fifteen minutes without a board or points. He’s so bad.
Defensive energy though.
He’s late on rotations. Him and Love together look so out of it. Love just looks out of it on general though when put into a pick and roll defense.
Amundson is terrible.
TT might have sat 2 minutes in the first 30 minutes of the game. He just banged all night against West & Mahimni. I thought he was the unsung hero. Love had breakdowns, but he played hard and banged, too.
The pacers suck. Looks like cavs the panic was way premature. They are finding their stride now.
Ugh. Dion 4th quarter chucking begins. Harris redeems!
Sad Andy is out…hope it’s precautionary more than serious. Would be nice to get a fun, easy-ish win with Kevin Love putting up 30+ to help me over the “JT Barrett” situation. Can’t believe how good he has been. Buckeyes had a real shot only because of him.
Hope Waiters has a good game too…and gets some assisted jumpers in addition to his 4 or 5 off the dribble.