Recap: Cleveland 110, Golden State 99 (or “Statement Game”)

Thursday’s showdown between two of the league’s hottest teams was kind of a big deal — so big that LeBron was reportedly out two hours early to practice shooting. The preparation showed, as LeBron shot his way to a season high 42 points on 70% true shooting. After a close first half that saw the Cavs claw their way to a five point lead at the break, Cleveland blew the doors off the Warriors in the third, stretching the lead out to 16 at one point and holding the Warriors to 38% from the floor. The Cavs remained in control the rest of the game, and never let the game get too close. In many ways Cleveland won because they controlled their emotions better than the Warriors, who seemed to lose their composure when the calls weren’t going their way in the third. (To be fair, Cleveland shot 35 free throws to the Warriors 19). Let’s get to it.

First Quarter: LeBron James came out in attack mode and was very aggressive driving to the basket, and getting into the post. As Chris Webber noted, LeBron in the post seemed to energize the whole Cavs offense. He drove, dished, and got to the line throughout the period and finished with 13 (including six in the last minute). Kyrie was similarly aggressive and finished with nine. Despite the post-up basketball, the ball movement was solid, and I even saw some repost passes. Kevin Love didn’t really get involved but J.R. Smith did a nice job of putting the ball on the floor and whipping it to the open man.

LeBron went to “church” two hours before the game.

Unfortunately, this was Cleveland’s weakest defensive quarter. The Warriors rolled to the rim at will, rotated the ball to open jump shooters, and executed crisp interior passes which led to layups and dunks. Cleveland’s guards had a hard time getting off screens to check the Splash Brothers defensively. Of Golden State’s 33 points, only two came on two-point jumpers. The rest were a parade of buckets at the basket, threes, and free throws. Cleveland did a poor job of chucking the roller, and the Cavs bigs did a bad job of helping out on Klay and Curry when the Warriors set screens for them to set up three point shots. Tristan Thompson failed to do this towards the end of the quarter and it led to J.R. Smith fouling Steph on a 3-point try (even though it was probably the worst foul call I’ve ever seen). The point is, that even away from the ball, those two guys are so good that bigs have to help rather than give up open threes. I know, it’s a “pick your poison.” It’s hard for the big to challenge shooters and chuck the roller, but Cleveland was doing neither. The Dubs eked ahead to a 33-32 lead.

Second Quarter: The King turned it over and bricked early then went on a tear. Fearing his deadly drives, the Warriors backed way off him and allowed him to set his feet on three pointers in the pick and roll. LeBron swished the shots. On the strength of two triples and a layup, James notched nine in the first four minutes. Kevin Love buried two 3-pointers this quarter off nice ball rotation, and did a nice job of picking up the defense. He hedged well on screens and offered adequate help defense. Why they weren’t getting Kevin the ball at the elbow more was a bit baffling though. Check out this play with Love a little higher than the elbow, late in the quarter. He faked the handoff to Kyrie. Irving went to the left corner, and set a screen for LeBron who C-cut off the screen to the basket. Kevin dropped a perfect bounce pass, and LeBron hit Tristan for a dunk. That, my friends, was beautiful basketball.

Kendrick Perkins checked in at 5:16, picked up an offensive foul on a screen, and then got whistled for a questionable call on Klay thompson. He was pissed, and fearing a loss of team focus, Blatt pulled him at 3:03. Good thing, too, cause Steve Kerr started going off on Bennett Salvatore about a minute later, and drew a tech. Now, anyone who knows the NBA knows that Salvatore is the biggest homer in the league when it comes to officiating, especially in big games. Steve should have known this. I guess he was just trying to get his team fired up, but I felt like this exchange led to the Warriors playing angry instead of playing smart during this game. Cleveland was able to use the Warriors aggressiveness against them for the rest of the game.

For example, take this permutation of the the earlier Love play. Right after Kerr’s tech. Kevin set up at the elbow before Green pushed him to the three point line. Kevin got the ball, and set up the handoff again, but LeBron went to the post early. Kevin hit Kyrie with a great back-cut pass, and then the Warriors trapped Irving, then trapped LeBron, and ‘Bron hit Kevin who’d set up at the top-right of the three point line. K-Love canned the 3-bomb against the over-trapping Warriors. That was gorgeous. After trading a couple baskets, Golden state drew up this play: Curry to Iggy to Curry to Green to Klay Thompson for the dunk… And it only took 5 seconds. Good God, these two teams are fun to watch. Cavs went in to the locker room up 61-56.

Third Quarter: After Kyrie and Timo hit midrangers, the Cavs lost Klay Thompson in transition, and he buried a three. “Uh, oh,” I thought. “It’s on.” But then Draymond Green picked up a tech and the Warriors lost their heads and started to get a little haphazard on offense. It didn’t help that LeBron started launching NBA Jam style flaming jump shots. Clevland ran off a 12-0 run and LeBron had nine of those and also set up Mozzy for a feathery right baseline jump shot. LeBron buried jumper after jumper throughout the quarter, and despite missing a couple heat checks, he was the straw that stirred the drink offensively for the Cavs.

Defensively, the Cavs did a good job of running the Splash Brothers off the line, and scrambling on defense. Shump, Kyrie, and J.R. were all key. Cleveland also dodged some bullets because the Warriors were cold in this stretch. Steph Curry bricked a wide open three as badly as I’ve ever seen him brick one before. Despite LeBron’s hot shooting, the Warrior’s offensive rebounding and Klay Thompson being Klay Thompson (as in hitting two straight triples) helped Golden State cut the lead to 10. Fortunately, a where-the-eff-did-that-come-from? 13-footer from Tristan and a LeBron steal-and-dunk helped put the Cavs up 90-78 as the quarter closed.

Fourth Quarter: Cleveland kicked it off with a fun motion-offense set on the left side which led to a Mozgov post-up. Mozzy waited till Iguodala pinched in just a bit, then Mozzy pitched it to LeBron and the King glided to a right side layup. In the wordes of Sidney Dean, “It’s so pretty!” Is anyone saying that Blatt can’t coach anymore? (And yes, I just referenced a 23-year-old basketball movie).

Leandro Barbosa exploited the old flaw in the Cavs defense — the left corner three — and cut he the lead to nine. Dellavedova took that bucket personally, and decided to take Leandro into his house of pain: the right block. Delly backed him down and then hit a Hellofadova! turnaround jump-shot from the baseline for my fifth favorite play of the game. (I am actually just really glad that went in. I did not want to have to defend that shot at work, Friday.)

James went to the bench, and the Cavs offense actually started humming. Kevin Love set up in the high and low post and scored and also set up Tristan for buckets. Kyrie kept the Warriors on their heels and kept getting to the line. Andre Iguodala tried to keep it close: first with this gorgeous dunk, and then by nailing (yet another) left corner three. The Warriors couldn’t stop fouling though, and the Cavs kept at least splitting the freebies.

LeBron checked back in at 5:25 with the Cavs up 11, and was two points shy of his season high. You could tell he wanted it. Finally, after a missed J and two missed freebies, ‘Bron ‘Bron hit a lefty hook off a repost and hit his nut. The bucket stretched the lead to 13 with just over three minutes left and sealed the game. After several missed shots by both teams, James set up Kevin Love for a trey with 39 seconds left. Gotta Love Garbage time (pun intended).

The Good:

Cleveland’s was 22-23 from the free throw stripe at one point in the game. The good guys finished 29-35. The Cavs outscored the warriors by 18 at the line. That will usually win ballgames.

Shump, despite a scoreless 31 minutes helped harass the Splash Brothers into 10-30 shooting, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention J.R. Smith. Despite going 1-5, Smith had a fantastic floor game, and consistently made the extra pass and hawked the ball on defense. He finished four points, four boards, five dimes, and four steals. That’s better than a double/double. That’s a quad/quad.

Draymond Green is as relentless an individual defender as there is in the league right now. He rarely takes a play off and uses his body and wingspan to attack the ball and the offensive player on defense. In addition, he has the ability to step out on power forwards and score with his dribble-drive game — and he’s just good enough as a shooter to get away with it. Green finished 16 points, eight boards, four dimes, five steals, four fouls. That’s cinco/quad! …or something.

Despite’s Green’s D, Kevin Love posted 68 TS% and scored 16 points and grabbed eight rebounds. He did a great job moving without the ball to get open for three treys. Kevin was efficient everywhere he touched the ball: the perimeter, the elbow, the low post. The Cavs ought to think about running more offense through him. I think he has the potential to be an all-star. Defensively, Love did a really nice job stepping out on three point shooters, and contesting. More than once he came off the screener to contest a shot from a smaller man. Check out this play where Love gets isolated against Curry on the wing and holds his own.

Timofey, as many an announcer noted, has changed the entire complexion of the Cavs offense and defense. On offense, he’s a multiple screener. It’s not uncommon to see him set three screens on a play. His (and Tristan’s) ability to catch lobs and finish in the paint has also given the Cavs the ability to throw the ball over the top of the defense, and has forced defenses to keep a man back. Defensively, he contests everything, and even though he gets in foul trouble, he anchors the Cavs defense. Opponents always seem to feel more comfortable when Moz is out of the game. I can’t believe the dude is only making $4.7 million this year, and $5 million next (a team option). What a steal. Are the Nuggets the worst run organization in the league right now? The dude was +17 in 25 minutes.

Kyrie was 6-17 from the floor, and settled for a few too many jumpers. But 10-10 at the line? That’s focus (and not Focus like that horrible looking Will Smith / Margo Robbie (who?!) movie that’s being unabashedly pimped right now. I haven’t seen such a mediocre looking movie horribly overexposed like this since After Earth…). Unlike Big Willy Style, Kyrie was in his prime, attacking, and seemingly focused more on defense than offense. He finished with 24. He also dribbled a lot, and only had one assist, but he did set up Tristan to go to the line more than once. Buddy ball free throw dimes count, right?

Sometimes it’s easy to forget how good Andre Iguodala can be. He was the Warriors best guy this game. Iggy has become the ‘Dubs de facto second string point guard and is a top notch utility bench defender. Oh, and he’s an all-time great finisher. He only scored nine but added five points and five rebounds. He just seemed more engaged mentally than the rest of the Warriors. As evidence, he was +2 in his 30 minutes of play — the only Warrior with significant minutes who finished in the positive.

David Blatt and the Cavs coaching staff, while the benefactors of some home cooking, definitely outcoached Steve Kerr and Co. The Warriors run some fantastic plays, and I’m always really impressed with how good their inbounds plays look, but Blatt’s even keel has the Cavs in the right mental space, and the Cavs had their own share of clipboard masterpieces. Additionally, the Cavs pick-and-roll defense was so solid. They are icing so well and forcing almost every p/r to one side of the floor where it’s easier to defend. There was lots of talk this game that Blatt had agreed to be Kerr’s assistant before the Cavs hired him, and the exchange between he and Kerr was fun. Kerr basically congratulated him on, “being able to coach now.” (paraphrasing). After the game, Kerr said, “I’m happy to see he’s on smoother water now.” Ironically, it was Blatt who seemed a little more composed and experienced (he does have 20 years of non-NBA coaching under his belt). I always say that teams reflect the attitude of their head coach. Blatt never gets too up or too down, especially about calls or how the team is playing in the moment, and that “steady as she goes” approach really helped Cleveland come out on top.

The Bad:

Kyrie injured his shoulder in the late third. He returned but will not travel with the team to Indianapolis, today. He’s scheduled for an MRI today.

Kendrick Perkins just seemed old and slow and mean, which he is, but his couple minutes were…underwhelming. Want to see a little more, I don’t know… headiness… from Perk.

Steph Curry and Klay Thompson are not going to go 10-30 every night. Yes, the Cavs defended well at times, but they both missed more open looks than they normally do.

The Cavs inability to consistently rotate to the left corner is going to cost them a playoff game or two. I don’t care who it is, it just seems like the Cavs over-help on penetration on that side, and always end up with a guy out of position. The left corner is statistically a slightly “cooler” area to shoot from than the right corner in the NBA, but that’s no excuse for leaving wide open (incidentally the Warriors shoot slightly better from the left than the right).

The Ugly Beautiful:

The only ugly thing tonight was having to watch Russell Westbrook go 12-38 in the late game and watching Dion get his weak layup stuffed by Eric Bledsoe late. Shaq said in the postgame, “Nobody has missed more layups on Shaqtin’ [the fool] this year than Dion.” I think we were all drunk for two and a half seasons.

Everything else tonight was “life affirmingly awesome.” Which is, incidentally, the only way to describe Iman Shumpert‘s hair lately. It defies gravity. He looks like he could be an Egyptian prince. He may have even surpassed Kid and Gerald from Hey Arnold! Also, those navy uniforms have really grown on me.

Anderson Varejao‘s ensemble: a v-neck t-shirt and pink sport coat from the Don Johnson circa 1987 collection. It’s official. Andy’s appearing as a heavy in an upcoming Miami Vice reboot. All he needs is a rockin’ medallion. (If someone can email me a pic of these glorious duds, I will definitely post it. I had a hard time finding one. Honestly, that’s a big reason this recap was an hour-and-a-half late.)

LeBron couldn’t miss, though, at times, he drove me nuts. He obviously was dialed in on his shot, but his six turnovers were frustrating. For instance that pocket pass he tries on every single high pick-and-roll? Teams are just waiting to pick it off. He has to have like a 20% success rate with that thing in 2015. Also, I’m a guy who hates hates heat checks. LeBron’s 30-footers and his “hijack the offense” heaves make me cringe every time. I asked Tom after the game, “am I nitpicking?”

“Dude, LeBron had a monster game at both ends.”

“I thought I saw LeBron fail to close out on second shots and get to proper defensive rebounding position,” I replied in the chat window. I could feel Tom rolling his eyes from 200 miles away. So, yeah, maybe I was nitpicking. The King was transcendent: 42, 11 boards, five dimes, three steals (and man did he ever lay in the weeds for them. They were just filthy.) His jumper was pure silk, too.

This was an enormous win against the NBA’s best team. The Cavs beat the best. They’re in the discussion to be the best. Meanwhile, there’s a revenge game against the Pacers tonight in Indy. See you at seven.