The Point Four-ward: Keep Streak Alive!

Four things I’m thinking about the NBA and the Cleveland Cavaliers…

1.) Thursday’s game against the Clippers will be a good measuring stick for these Cavs — and it comes at just the right time. The Cavs just played three of the worst teams in the league in the Sixers, Wolves and Kings and, while it would be unfair to say that the team has gotten bored of Avenge-a-palooza 2015, serving steaming piles of roundball comeuppance to a rogues gallery of disheartening losses, finally seeing a team that also plans to be playing deep into May and June (and one looking to avenge its own disheartening loss, a 126-121 Cavs win in L.A. on January 16th) is exactly what the Cavs need to resharpen their focus and keep this winning streak going.

Thus far, the Cavs have had some trouble piling it on against lesser 0pponents. Last Friday against Sacramento, the Cavs managed only 15 points in the fourth quarter, letting the Kings back into a game that should have been well out of reach. The next night in Minnesota, the young Wolves team (sporting the league’s worst defense) were actually leading the Cavs in the second half, before the Cavs defense (still sporting its new car smell) put the strangle hold on in the fourth. Then Monday night, those scrappy Sixers, got within two points in the fourth before Matthew Dellavedova stepped in to blow their candles out.

2.) But am I concerned about the lack of complete domination by the Cavs during this recent stretch? No, not really. Or, at least, not yet.

Nothing I’ve seen against the Kings, Wolves and Sixers reminds me of watching the Cavs of the recent past, where they would get up for good teams, but then relax against bad teams, forgetting the key point that a bad team is exactly what they were, as well.

And there were plenty of bad losses earlier in the season where the team seemed convinced that its wealth of talent would make up for a complete lack of engagement and/or competitiveness.

None of that has seemed to be the case in these past three games. What they’re experiencing now is what it’s like to be targeted. Andrew Wiggins will be going at the Cavs hard for the next decade or so (quick aside: what do you think Wiggins’ career high against the Cavs will be when his career is said and done? Anyone see him sniffing Michael Jordan’s 69?). The Sixers compete (for some reason) and the Kings actually do have some good NBA talent on their roster.

So, what Cavs fans have seen over these past three games is what happens when an underdog goes against a team that’s really clicking: the underdog gets up for the game, keeps it close through three quarters, but just doesn’t have enough to finish it off.

That’s a flipped script on what we’ve come to expect from Cavaliers teams recently, but it’s where the team is now. Thankfully…

3.) Ooo-ooo-ooo, what a little 11-game winning streak can do.

The Cavs woke up Tuesday morning to find their place in the Eastern Conference much closer to what everyone thought it would be like when the season began.

The Bulls have continued their up-and-down season and now sit just half a game ahead of the Cavs in the fourth spot in the East. But home court in the first round of the playoffs isn’t the only thing in the Cavs sights. The team now sits only 3.5 games behind second place Toronto. Washington currently sits in third, a game and a half up on the Cavs. So, a hot finish by the Cavs to their pre-All-Star stretch could very realistically see the team wrest control of the conference’s second best record by the time things break and James and Irving head to NYC.

It would take a mighty swoon by the Hawks to put the conference’s top spot in play, but the conference’s second seed — considering all of the trips, tumbles and falls the Cavs have endured over the first half of the season — would be a huge achievement.

Another bit of context: there are only three teams in the entire league who are more than three games up on the Cavs in the win column: Atlanta, Golden State and Memphis. Their 30 wins are tied with the Spurs and are right behind the Blazers (32), Mavericks (33), Clippers (33) and Rockets (33).

The Cavs have feasted on an easy schedule recently… but that’s what they needed to do and exactly what they weren’t doing earlier in the season. They’re also going to have to continue to separate themselves from all but the very top teams in their much weaker conference in order to baby-step their way back into the championship conversation.

But the Cavs have put themselves in the position to speed into the All-Star break — a break they will have very much earned this year — and then keep their collective foot on the pedal once the games matter more.

4.) A lot of readers have questioned (and, to be honest, I have too) why the Cavs, who could still benefit from plucking a good, young big man from the D-League, were entirely mum on that front even before they traded for Timofey Mozgov. It’s easy to look at what Hassan Whiteside has been doing for the Miami Heat (just under 13 points and 11 boards with 3.4 blocks in 25 minutes a game over his last 10) and assume that there must be a player even remotely comparable to Whiteside out there in the D-League sea just waiting for the right savvy GM to pack up his tackle box and go fishing.

But the reality is that the big-man crop in the D-League is least pulled from, with call-ups usually measuring 6-8 and below. Apart from Whiteside, the only bigs called up this year (per RealGM) have been 6-8 PF JaMychal Green (who I liked when I saw him play for the Spurs summer league unit this past year), 6-9 James McAdoo and 6-10 NBA retread Tyrus Thomas.

Also, look at the teams who called those players up: the Spurs (Green), the Warriors (McAdoo) and the Grizzlies (Thomas). Those teams are three of the top teams in the league, two of which (the Spurs and Grizzlies) have the benefit of years of systemic and roster continuity and the third (the Warriors) has roster continuity and has played like a top two team for most of this year. Even Whiteside was able to walk into a situation with tremendous continuity and definition in Miami.

So, while Cavs fans were all clamoring for help from below, what most of us were missing was this seeming fact of D-League call-ups: you don’t just go to that well without knowing the team you have first. The Sixers and Knicks may have been able to find some good players in the minors this year (Robert Covington and Langston Galloway respectively), but they knew what their teams were. Their teams were a mess.

The Cavs, meanwhile, have only just begun to flash anything resembling a team identity — and you don’t fix a hopeful contender with D-League call-ups. You can augment a contender that way, but you can’t fix one.