Recap: Cavs 89, Suns 79 (Or, Timofey Goes Dunking)

Should I let someone shoot an uncontested layup? Nyet!

The Phoenix Suns visited “The Q” for a Saturday night spectacle. The Cavaliers wanted to rebound after a tough loss to the Eastern Conference leading Atlanta Hawks. Phoenix continued their tenuous push for the eighth seed in the West with an overtime victory over Jarrett Jack’s Brooklyn Nets. It was clear from the opening tip that both squads were on the second night of a back-to-back. On more than one occasion, it seemed the teams were playing at Headlands Beach Park and not on the hardwood. Still, the Cavaliers gave the hometown crowd a victory for the 13th consecutive time by owning the paint and fighting off a futile rally. Let’s get to it.

1st Quarter: Markieff Morris began the evening’s scoring with a straightaway 18 footer off lazy pick and pop action. The elder Morris twin immediately gave the points back to the Cavs as he vaguely waved at Kyrie on his PnR hedge responsibility. Kyrie got fouled at the end of the open jaunt to the cup and converted both freebies. Defensively, it was very clear that the Cavaliers were going to allow the Suns’ guards to shoot from distance. Knight drained two left corner threes off of soft screen action. On both shots, the Cavalier bigs made literally no effort to close out. The strategy did dissuade Phoenix from living in the paint. The Suns made their first five jumpers, but Eric Bledsoe missed the only open paint attempt of the entire quarter.

Meanwhile, the Cavaliers got whatever they wanted. Timofey Mozgov was a giant down low, continually pinning a helpless defender on his back. Kyrie drove to the hole without any deterrence. J.R. eschewed an open baseline jumper after shaking the defender out of his shoes so that he might watch Kevin Love drain an open right wing three.

The Cavalier offense wasn’t so much buzzing as it was playing against chairs. The Cavs were sloppy with the ball and almost as lethargic as the Suns. Kevin Love hit a left corner three to tie the game at 18. LeBron tossed the ball out of bounds on the next slow motion transition opportunity leading Coach Blatt to call a substitution timeout.

Delly, Shump, and TT brought their customary energy to the contest. The teams’ benches both played with more pace. Kevin Love, drilled a deep three from the top before Delly hit TT for an alley-oop. The Suns knocked down enough three balls of their own to hang in the game. Delly hit a nice runner off PnR action with Mozgov that confused Fred Mcleod. Fred, Delly’s shot always looks like that. I watched it in slow motion. Mathew was looking at the rim. 30-24 Cavs.

2nd Quarter: Delly, Shump, Bron, TT and Moz began the second period. Marcus Morris drilled a jumper on the Suns’ first possession. Those would be their last Phoenix points until 4:09 remained in the quarter.

Delly dug out a loose ball, turned it into a fastbreak and hit Moz for yet another alley-oop — great hustle by both guys. LeBron found Tristan with a sweet bounce pass in transition for an and-1. LeBron had a strong baseline drive to push the lead to double digits at 37-26. The stretch did not feature fantastic offensive play, but the defense was stifling. It shouldn’t be that surprising. That lineup features five plus defenders/workers. With TT and Moz behind them, both Delly and Shump felt confident flying over picks and being their annoying selves. The Cavs iced all PnR. Moz and TT set up better defensive angles than they sometimes do. All of that led to a slowly built 11-0 run for the Wine and Gold.

After LeBron’s rest in the middle of the quarter, the King returned without his headband. J.R. Smith continued to play heady, defensive basketball as a Cavalier. We must reevaluate all that we hold dear. The Suns did nothing to prevent the Cavaliers from easy points in the paint.  The Cavalier trio of Love, Mozgov, and TT combined for 30 first half points. Tristan’s tip shot to end the half pushed the lead to 53-37.

3rd Quarter: Kyrie returned to the game with the rest of the starters. It was somewhat strange to see him only play eight first half minutes. LeBron continued to play an NBA basketball game sans headband. It certainly worked for LeBron in the 2013 Finals. As a bald guy, I like when we see more of his dome. Oh right, back to the game.

The Suns stopped playing. Just simply gave up. Maybe they snacked too much at halftime. Whatever it was, they were abjectly awful for the first eight minutes of the quarter. On my favorite possession, the Suns ran a weave without even attempting to attack the basket. The Cavaliers casually followed the action (OK, “action” is too strong a word) like a bored cat. It culminated with P.J. Tucker throwing the ball away on an awful post entry attempt.

Mozgov didn’t care. He owned those first eight minutes of the quarter, scoring nice points and destroying any paint chance. He altered countless shots and made existence miserable for the lifeless Suns. After affecting two shots at the rim, J.R. Smith grabbed the loose ball and streaked up the left line with Mozgov running the lane for another lob. All hail Mozzilla! The route was on with a 61-37 advantage.

LeBron decided to shoot a bit with all the air rushing by his head. His seventh and eighth point of the quarter came off a broken play highlight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0QaVeY3ou0&t=3m2s

But, the actual highlight of the night came directly after a Delly-trey to push the lead to back over 30 with 14 minutes of game time remaining. Gerald Green likes to remind people that he is a freak of nature every now and then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=645ip37sKv8

I’m with Fred on this one. He just lost it on air. Austin was even a little surprised by Fred’s voice. Good Stuff. Still, going to the fourth, the Cavs up 80-52.

4th Quarter: Delly, Shump, Smith, TT, and Perk began an annoying fourth quarter. I understand how it is fun to reward a big fella with post touches, but can we agree that the Cavs must have a 50 point cushion before Perkins is allowed to touch the ball? Perk was 0-3 from point blank range and minus-14 in only eight minutes. Compare that to Mozgov’s plus-25 in 25 minutes. The Suns 13-0 run that forced Blatt to bring back most of the starters was directly linked to Perk’s immobility and amazingly poor shot. It was not pretty.

It didn’t help that Kyrie couldn’t get anything to fall. Cleveland lacked offensive flow, but there were more than enough open shots that clanged. On the other end, the Suns finally got some bombs to drop. Green, Tucker, and Warren clawed the Suns back to a 10 point deficit with 2:38 remaining. Still, LeBron put a bow on the victory when he drilled a three in Warren’s face to push the lead back to 15 with 2:02 remaining.

Thoughts: 

Tom refers to any lineup without Love, Bron, or Kyrie as Blatt’s heat-check lineup. I would like to make an addendum. Any lineup without those guys and featuring Perkins. It seemed Blatt wanted to keep James Jones out of this game. JJ only got one minute of garbage time. Had the fourth quarter started with Delly, Shump, JR, Jones, and TT, I doubt the Cavs would have needed to bring back the talented trio. Still, the game was never in any real danger.

Markieff Morris played the worst defensive game I have seen this season. He didn’t just blow help assignments. He often didn’t move at all. Kyrie’s early trips to the rim were all red carpet affairs. Without Alex Len, the Suns struggled to  protect the paint, but Keef was the MVP for the Cavs in this one.

Check that, Timofey Mozgov was. Mozgov absolutely dominated his 25 minutes of game time. It continues to baffle everyone why Moz doesn’t play more in the fourth quarter. This game wasn’t really a good barometer considering the circumstances, but he needs more late game burn. He was everything you want from a center against the Suns. Blatt likes to play TT down the stretch so TT can switch out onto guards at a times. Blatt could go with Thompson and Moz up front, but sitting Love can be dicey. Still the success of the Delly, Shump, Bron, TT, Moz lineup must be noted. That is a shut down squad.

LeBron played a 2014-2015 game. Great at times. Not so great at other times. His ball security is a real issue. We shouldn’t be happy that he “only” coughed the ball up four times. Bron continues to lean slightly to the left at the stripe. The weird reload in his release isn’t doing anything to help his knee bend either. He is notorious for changing his foul shot routine. He needs a new one.

Another detail that I don’t understand from LeBron: On baseline screen action, LeBron doesn’t pin his defender under the hoop the moment he gets on the high side of him. Instead, Bron continues coming toward the wing to receive the entry pass. If he were to simply stop at eight to 12 feet instead of coming out to 18, the offense would have better floor balance.

Kevin Love only took six shots but finished with 13, 10 and four. He even had a nice block during the third quarter run. Kevin’s positioning on defense is so much better than it was earlier in the season. Still, it wouldn’t break my heart to see him catch at the actual elbow instead of the extension. Over the past two games, 15 of Love’s 17 field goal attempts have been threes.