Live Thread: Cavs Vs Thunder

Dion Waiters is coming to Cleveland to battle against LeBron James and the Cavaliers today. Except, Dion probably wouldn’t phrase it that way. He would say Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are going into the King’s house.

Waiters seems to have found a spot on the Thunder. He knows he isn’t better than their two stars. On the Cavs, Dion often stated and showed in subtle ways he thought he was better than Kyrie Irving. He may have been at times, but the way he manifested this attitude was by taking ill-thought shots, sulking, and demanding the ball from everyone to make up for perceived slights.

I’m not sure why Dion has fallen in line. Even in his first game with the Thunder against the Jazz, he did what he was asked to do so well that Scott Brooks praised his defense and tenacity. How often did that happen in Cleveland outside of myself and a few bloggers really wanting a legitimate reason to love Dion so much?

Maybe, Dion needed a star point guard to be older than him. Russell is three years older than him, while Kyrie is one year younger than him. Or, and this is the theory I’m pushing, Saint Weirdo is like a spoiled puppy. Starting his career in Cleveland, he was indulged. No one told him “no” very forcefully when he was acting out, and that let him develop some really bad habits. His housemates in Cleveland were all his. When people came into his team’s place, he showed off. “Look at this bad shot I’m taking with MY ball. I’ll even take it off balance to show more autonomy.”

Now, he’s in a new unfamiliar place and isn’t acting out as much. I’m reminded of when I was just ten years old, and my older sister got a little Sharpei puppy. She was caramel and if you listened to my sister, each one of her wrinkles contained a new way to cause household damage. Yet, whenever my sister visited my mom and me with her puppy, the little dog was never terrible. A quick gaze her way and whatever shoe she wanted to chew was instantly forgotten. Kevin Durant’s gaze is doing that to Waiters.

This change of scenery is working for Dion, and he seems happy. I mean, “Listen, they give [him] the ball. Like, [he touches] the ball. Like, [he] actually, like, you know, [touches] the ball.” [Darnell Mayberry] 

And, honestly, I’m not even sure he is touching the ball more. He’s just in a better mental spot not feeling like this team is his and something that he needs to show off for.

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The Cavs are a lot like the Thunder. Andrew Sharp of Grantland tried to make that case during the week, and he had some good points throughout his piece: Both have coaches on the “hot seat,” they have big men that are offensively challenged, have made some questionable trades (James Harden/Andrew Wiggins), have offenses that lack structure, etc…

However, I can’t help but wanting to scream, “The Cavs are just three months old.” The Thunder and Cavs aren’t alike. The Thunder have had these above mentioned issues for years now. They’ve never had an offense. The Cavs can still reasonably say words like “process” without entire flocks of bloggers jumping into a river.

Yeah, the Cavs have problems, but coach wise, the two teams are very different. Sharp says that the pair differ in the sense that Blatt has a complex offense the team doesn’t run and Scott has a non complex offense. No, Scott has a reasonably normal offense, it’s just very poor given that he has two top ten players. It doesn’t utilize them correctly because a seven footer who can dribble shouldn’t be forced to the perimeter in crunch time. The Thunder listen to Scott and run his defense how he wants it to be run. It just stinks.

The Cavs, however, aside from the past four games, have not been executing what Mr. Blatt wants, so they have looked bad without Blatt’s help. I don’t know what Blatt’s offense looks like; although, I’ve seen glimpses of it watching the second unit swing the ball around. It looks pretty smooth. Defensively, Blatt has completely revamped the scheme, and the Cavs have been a top five defense, statistically, the past three games.

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And, finally, the biggest difference between the Thunder and the Cavs is the fact that the Cavs offense is just rounding into “top offense without running plays” status. The Thunder are statistically there. Both of these teams thrive in transition. They’re full of smart, agile guys, that can instinctively do damage on the break.

For the whole season, the Thunder are ranked 13th in fast break points, and the Cavs are ranked 17th. During the past three games though, the Cavs are fourth in transition points and the Thunder are seventh. The Thunder were sixth last season, so this says that their offense is pretty much reaching where it was last year. The Cavs are just rounding into what they might be, and while some may say that talent-wise the Thunder are better than Cleveland, I’d like to think that Cleveland can make up for that through coaching. The coaching just has to be accepted by the team. I don’t think Blatt has called for any of the Le-Iso plays so far this season.

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I’m picking the Cavs to win today, 109-101. Dion will take two ill-advised mid-range jumpers, but he will play insane defense on Kyrie Irving trying to shut him down. I expect Kyrie to do the same to Dion.