Recap: Pelicans 119, Cavaliers 114 (Or, May I Escort You to the Bucket?)
2014-12-13
The Cavaliers completed their tough four in five night stretch by dropping two straight on the road. Cleveland fans were relieved to have both LeBron James and Kyrie Irving in the starting lineup against superstar Anthony Davis. Though the Browed future of the league left the game early, the Pelicans still were able to avenge their loss in Cleveland. Let us get to it.
1st Quarter: The Cavs started the game with the customary Kevin Love mid-post touch. Anderson Varejao made a nice baseline cut from the weakside and finished over Asik in one quick catch and shoot motion. On the defensive end, Blatt put the more mobile Varejao on Anthony Davis duty leaving Love to deal with Omer Asik on the glass. The assignment didn’t go very well. Wild Thing played off of Davis and The Brow made him pay with three made jumpers. The moment that Andy crowded his space at all, Davis upfaked Varejao into picking up the second of two questionable fouls. Tristan made an early entrance at the 9:45 mark.
The Cavs didn’t move the ball very well in the first quarter. Unfortunately, it became the theme of the evening. LeBron saw Luke Babbitt across from him and decided it was time to show everyone that his skills have NOT diminished. Considering LeBron was questionable to even play in this game, it was nice to see the energetic pep in LeBron’s offensive step. What was less enjoyable was his determination to play 2006 era Bron ball. His shot was falling. His stat line looks nice. He looked to punish people in transition. But how many of these highlights come within the flow of the offense?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=DmcgNBLQ_Hc
The first quarter, though high scoring, was a complete bore. The refs couldn’t get the whistles out of their mouths for a second. Tristan had a quick two blocks upon entering the contest leading to a LeBron “and 1” at the :27 sec mark of the above video, but in general the game was jerky and displeasing to watch.
Kevin Love is rightfully criticised for his poor defense, so it must be noted when he does something well. On two consecutive trips, Love forced Davis to pass the ball back out after stonewalling the offensive move, and followed that with a nice rejection against Tyreke Evans. See Kevin, putting your hands up is a great idea!
The Cavaliers thought they got a break when Anthony Davis left the game at the 5:04 mark with what was described as a chest contusion. Dion Waiters checked in at that play stoppage. There is something hilarious about watching Tyreke Evans go against Dion Waiters. If only Waiters had Evans´ ridiculous ability to get to the rim. If only Evans had Waiters´ jumper. Sigh.
LeBron continued to dominate the ball. Two technical fouls from Evans and coach Monty Williams gave The King two freebies to pad his first quarter onslaught. James finished with 21 in the quarter. 35-33 Cavs.
2nd Quarter: Delly, Kyrie, Dion, Power Forward Extraordinaire James Jones, and Tristan filled out Blatt’s lineup to start the period. Kyrie found TT for a soft slam alley-oop on nice PnR action. The Cavalier defense left much to be desired. There was a Jimmer Fredette sighting as he scored two consecutive buckets early. Had he connected on his subsequent three ball attempt, his two remaining fans may have had heart attacks. All three attempts were barely contested. Offensively, the Cavs missed many decent looks off good action. They started 2-10 and only had four points through the first 4:30 of the period.
A quick four points in transition brought Cleveland within one point at the 6:44 mark. Kevin Love added to the fastbreak scoring with a nice “And 1” to put the Cavs back up top at 48-47. It was at this point that Ryan Anderson drilled a three and I said, “For the love of basketball, let him not be hot tonight.” No such luck. The Pelican sharpshooter finished the half with four bombs and 16 points off the bench. Tyreke Evans followed with a three of his own to push the lead to five. LeBron and Love’s combined 44 first half points still left the Cavs down 59-64 at the half.
3rd Quarter: MVP candidate Anthony Davis did not return with the other Pelican starters. It didn’t matter. LeBron put some energy into stopping Ryan Anderson leaving Kevin Love to check Luke Babbitt. The long-locked-one(did anyone actually see his face in this game?) promptly hit a three to push the Pelican lead to nine.
The Pelicans were absolutely destroying the Cavs with dribble penetration. An energy lowlight came when Tyreke Evans rebounded his own miss in transition as LeBron casually watched.
The man could not be stopped. I have happily praised Mathew Dellavedova’s fantastic defense in recent games. In this contest, Delly was annihilated. To be fair, NO ONE could stop Evans, but it was particularly disheartening to watch Evans casually blow by the Cavaliers’ best defensive guard.
LeBron decided it was time to “take over.” Unfortunately, he didn’t decide to dominate from the post, draw a double team, start the ball swing and give his team a chance to get hot from three. No, no. The Chosen One simply held the ball, dribbled a minimum of 28 times before firing deep contested jumpers. Yes, he was absurdly hot. He made them all. Ironically, he only missed two foul shots during his barrage. But there was literally NO offensive movement. Most players are more in tune on the defensive end when they are not standing around on offense. I don’t think it was a coincidence that the defense was paricularly horrific during LeBron’s hero ball. After three, 89-76.
4th Quarter: Kyrie, Delly, Harris, Love, and Tristan started the fourth. It was strange that Dion hadn’t made an appearance in the second half. We later learned that he was out with abdominal pains. Get well soon, Dion. Nothing changed from previous quarters. The Pelicans got into the lane at will setting up wide open shots from the perimeter. Ryan Anderson continued to can threes. When he jab stepped Kyrie for a step back three, I actually started laughing.
Kyrie finally got it going in the fourth. He scored all 17 of his points in the period, but it was certainly a case of too little too late. Some late buckets from Uncle Drew and James Jones made the contest slightly interesting until Evans hit two more baskets in the paint. Blatt pulled LeBron with two remaining.
Thoughts: This is the version of LeBron that makes casual basketball fans fight with NBA junkies. LeBron went for 41, five and five on only 24 shots. He had a bounce in his step, juked, and hit nothing but net on most of his preposterous jumpers. To the casual fan, he looked like the best player in the universe.
To an NBA junkie, this game was utterly infuriating. ‘Bron did nothing to make his teammates better. Outside of one nice weakside block, his defensive rotations were sloppy. He was caught in “no man’s land” in PnR defense. It is the type of performance that screams, “I’m still good!!! I’m still young!!” LeBron is human. I’m sure he was annoyed by those questioning whether his game is deteriorating. It makes sense that he would want to put on a show against the future Brow face of the league. But the Cavs won eight straight with LeBron playing more like Magic than Kobe.
Kyrie is only shooting 36% over his last five games. He has done a decent job distributing over that stretch, but the Cavaliers need Irving to make the open shots afforded to him. Regardless, we should all be thrilled that his knee scare was nothing serious. His shot started to fall in the fourth. Perhaps his slump is already over.
It cannot be stated enough. The perimeter defense was absolutely horrible against the Pelicans. Tyreke Evans is a wizard at getting into the lane. That is the primary reason that he is in the league. But the Cavs should be embarrassed by his success in this contest.
Jrue Holiday has a bit of Joe Johnson in him. He obviously isn’t as big, but Holiday has the same knack for hitting those tough 10 footers in the lane. Those are difficult shots that both players nail with relative ease.
The Pelicans are a fun team. It is a shame that we didn’t get to see more Anthony Davis. Well, maybe not. It was any ugly game without the league’s best young star. Add me to the list of people who desperately want to watch The Brow compete in the playoffs.
The Cavs have a few days to regroup before they begin their five game homestand. Here’s hoping the ball movement and defensive energy return with some home cooking.
I will not stop until Scrub-Fuego finds its way onto espn.com headlines. This is my moment, people! This is my chance! You know, you really only get one or two big opportunities in your life. In the words of the great Marshals Mathers:
“There’s vomit on his sweater already, mom’s spaghetti.”
Or maybe Delly and Dion need to order different food next time. Wait…what…um…Ryan Anderson? I’m losing my grip on the swirling topical association.
Sad Speights Shoeless Story:
http://espn.go.com/dallas/nba/story/_/id/12023932/tyson-chandler-dallas-mavericks-swats-shoe-air-golden-state-warriors
What happened with Speights on the Cavs? I liked him, and he would sure look good now. Where are the Herculoids when you need them?
He’s been really good this year. Look at the PER and look at the salary. Wish we had someone like that…
http://espn.go.com/nba/player/_/id/3460/marreese-speights
Dion and Delly both hospitalized?
http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/12023139/dion-waiters-matthew-dellavedova-cleveland-cavaliers-hospitalized-stomach-illness
Food poisoning? An evil bug?
Just seen that.! No wonder Delly was off. Geez!
Blame this one on Cols! Delly got sick of being bad rapped.
I didn’t do it
Maybe I did though. These Cavs weaklings need to toughen up. If you got a weak stomach, you got a weak heart!
This bagging on Lebron thing is getting old on here especially when other people on the team are having consistent miserable games.
It’s not so much people bagging on LBJ, as pointing out that sometimes individual awesomeness and efficiency does not translate to a better overall team performance. Nobody would likely dispute that LBJ was awesome last night. The problem was that most of the rest of the guys were standing around on offense and watching LBJ be awesome. Standing around on offense sometimes leads to guys not being fully engaged and lapsing on defense as well. It’s a tricky balancing act.
At least last night’s game produced two other things:
We now know, and will never forget, Babbitt’s first name. LUUUUUUUUKE.
And secondly, Scotch gave us the awesome new term “Sub-fuego” as in Mr. Anderson was so sub-fuego last night that he went into Neo mode against the Matrix (also shout out to Arch Stanton for the Matrix references).
Yes – a shout out to Scotch and Arch Stanton (who joined the conversation late) for last night’s literary and cultural contributions!
Evil – We’re going to have to differentiate between “Sub-fuego” and “Scrub-fuego.” Scrub fuego would be like a ninth man off the bench or lower lighting us up.
I’m not worried about last night. The Cavs just looked tired. The defense has to play better and we need to toughen up . . . but if you can score 110 pts a night your defense does not have to be lock down all the time.
Now that you mention it, I think I’m more partial to “scrub-fuego” since it’s a little more intentionally derogative.
Yes, the officiating was awful (it was almost like watching an NFL game, with phantom calls on pump fakes being the equivalent of this year’s “defensive holding” in the secondary). There were 16 fouls called in the first quarter alone! However, it was more obvious to me than ever last night that this Cavs team is SOFT. I get that it’s not going to be easy to just find or trade for a rim protector, but MAN I would settle for just someone who could actually use their six fouls and be an enforcer on this team. I said it… Read more »
And just to put the two thoughts together, if the refs are going to be blowing their whistles like traffic cops at rush hour anyway, why not make the most of your fouls and make them hard ones that send a message?
Couldn’ta put it any better myself, EG. Way to think like Al does.
Officiating was awful. Complete phantom call on Marion sending Austin Rivers to the line for three free throws. That third foul on Andy was garbage too. I’m baffled that the NBA can’t fix its pump fake problem and that refs are still consistently destroying the flow of the game by whistling guys for jumping on pump fakes while offensive players launch themselves into the airborne defender. In the above two cases, the Cavs didn’t even make contact and got whistled. Also, how many times did Evans take four steps? That being said, the Cavs seemed like they were playing hard… Read more »
I was thinking the same about Marion, but I haven’t been able to watch enough games to see if his defense is enough to balance out his misses on offense. Thoughts? As far as rim protection I would love to see a few more message fouls happening when those guards are driving. Maybe 5 min of Haywood a game to send a message.
That was a rough defensive performance. The offense looks great. But when you’re reviewing tape as a coaching staff, where so you even begin to fix the D? Is it effort? Are the schemes flawed? Can’t keep getting destroyed by random bench players every game.
It’s difficult to classify this as a championship level team after watching last night’s defensive performance. It’s a talented, high scoring, entertaining team, but let’s not kid ourselves.
It also lacks championship level physical toughness. I can’t overstate the importance of physical toughness in the NBA.
Other than that – they’re great!
Totally agree. I like my Cavs D more al dente
I don’t see an “Al Dente” posting here. There should be one though.
Al Dente is my alter ego
Yo! What’s up EG? Bout time you let me out your head!
Well, we knew I could only surpress you for so long, Al. Care to weigh in on the Cavs’ toughness?
What the Cavs should do is bring in Bill Laimbeer and Rick Mahorn as assistant coaches. Their only role should be showing Alex Dirk and Brendan Haywood the art of hard fouls, cheap shots and how to make the refs believe that you got hit first.
Well said, Al. I usually don’t agree with your extreme views on violence in basketball, but that’s an interesting idea…
You should let me out more often, EG. I got lot’s of good ideas
Yeah, but people on this board already think I’m crazy and I don’t need to give them more ammunition.
Al sounds like my kind of guy.
Also agree. It is looking like the Cavs will be a contender for the East, but by no means a sure thing, and a long shot if they reach the Finals. On days when everything is going right, they have a good chance of beating anyone, but on average and bad days, they won’t beat many top teams. The Cavs are seriously shorthanded. They shed a lot of mid level talent to make the LeBron move happen, so they have only four starter level players, four decent reserves, and several guys who have the occasional decent game. It is hard… Read more »
Dude. Ou cannot complain about lebron taking over when he is hot. It does not matter one bit if made shots are by lebron because he is awesome or in the flow of the offense. This isn’t a beauty contest. Ugh on this recap.
You have awesome baseball players making shots and all you do is complain because he took over the game? Ugh
You need to stop watching games in a total vacuum and start paying attention to what happens across the whole court instead of just focusing on the area around LeBron’s crotch.
Was Michael Brantley out there last night? Which awesome baseball players were you referring to?
Marion missed more point blank shots at the rim than anyone I can remember in recent memory. Maybe TT his first couple years in the league but he was learning and not all that skilled offensively. Marion is a vet and shouldn’t miss these bunnies, no matter how old he is. The game would’ve played out slightly different had he hit every one of them but they certainly would have made up a 5 point deficit.
The Matrix… Shooting blanks at bunnies.