Who Should The Cavs Put On The Floor?

Back in September, I took the time to try and figure out which Cavs five man units would be the most effective for the 2014-2015 season. I used plus-minus data for individual players and plus-minus data for five man units from the Miami Heat and Minnesota Timberwolves.  To make some sense of that information, a little math was required.  Plus-minus (PM) numbers don’t take into account how many minutes players and lineups played, so they need to be adjusted to per 48 minute rates.  Once those rates are figured out, they can be used for all sorts of fun stuff.  By comparing players’ expected PM/48 in lineups to their lineup’s actual on the court PM/48, you can see how well the players meshed.  If the numbers match up, then the unit played to the players’ averages, but if the two numbers are drastically different, the unit either under-performed or over-performed.

During my first exercise with this data, this is what I concluded about the probable best lineup for this season:

“David Blatt plays Kyrie Irving, Dion Waiters, LeBron James, Shawn Marion, and Kevin Love. It is going to be successful if only because it mimics pretty nearly what the Heat had with Allen, Bosh, Chalmers, Battier, and James on the floor.  There’s a good chance it might even be superior considering every player that is mentioned is being replaced by someone better. Battier being replaced by Marion could be argued to be a toss-up, but Battier ultimately retired and Marion didn’t.  That says something right?  Bosh and Love may seem like a wash, but Love’s ability to shoot the ball so well and rebound pushes him ahead of the dinosaur man, as he will help to stretch the opposition’s defense so much more.  Defensively, Bosh is ahead of Love currently, but this will be the first season where Love has ever had a reason to play defense.”

Let’s not dwell on the past, especially since I was very wrong. While Shawn Marion and Dion Waiters were big parts of the team in the first half of the season, neither one played meaningful second half-of-the-season minutes. Dion was traded, and the Matrix looked three years overdone. The Cavs actually played .500 ball for that first half of the season, and they ended up making a major trade and a second half push.

Because the team has had what amounts to almost two separate seasons, I looked at plus-minus data from January 15th-April 15th. January 15th was the Cavs win against the Lakers. This is the game when the team essentially clicked and went on a 12 win run. Timofey Mozgov turned into an anti-layup artillery battery, LeBron morphed back to King mode, and the rest of the guys meshed to finish the season 33-9.

With the second half lineup data, we can figure out what unit was the best for this season. I’m also going to send the ultimate sans-Kevin-Love lineup to David Blatt. That way the Cavs can win the title this year without much of a headache. I don’t want Blatt to strain his eyes figuring out this stuff on his own.

What were the best Cavs lineups with Love since “the trade?”

When the Cavs trotted out Kyrie Irving, LeBron James, Kevin Love, Iman Shumpert, and J.R. Smith good things happened. The Cavs put up 51.84 points/48 minutes more than their opponents with this group. This lineup actually over-performed expectations by 39.93 points. They were supposed to outscore teams by 11.91 points/48 minutes.

The Second best lineup for the Cavs featured Love, James, Shumpert, Matthew Dellavedova, and Tristan Thompson. They outscored opponents to the tune of 49.85/48 and over performed their expected output by 39.92 points.

It’s troubling that both of the best lineups feature Love. The Cavs really aren’t better without him contrary to what some people may believe. When looking at these two groups of players, one thing stood out to me. The Cavs are capable of playing two styles. That first lineup slots Love in the five spot and LeBron at the four. That equals almost zero rim protection; however, it features a lot of three point shooting. How do you stop a group of guys who are all capable of shooting the 3-ball? You don’t. Those numbers are ridiculous.

The second best lineup features arguably the three best pure defense guys on the Cavaliers: Dellavedova, Shumpert, and TT. This Cavs lineup got by on their young defensive energy with a lineup that could switch every single pick and roll.

Delly fears nothing.

Who should the Cavs play with Kevin Love out?

One lineup really stood out. It happens to be one that relies solely on LeBron James to score points and four other guys to defend their little hearts out. When the Cavs played Matthew Dellavedova, Lebron, Iman Shumpert, Tristan Thompson, and Timofey Mozgov, they outscored the opposition by 40 points over a 48 minute stretch. On paper, if you just combined each of these individual players’ plus-minus/48 minutes, they should have only outscored opponents by 10 points a game.

My guess is that switching on pick and rolls neutralizes a lot of opposing offense. Whenever Dellavedova and Shumpert share the floor David Blatt has them play a zone above the arc. You can’t run either Cavs guard off a screen for an easy three pointer. If you try to penetrate the ball, there’s a really good chance Tristan switches onto the ball handler and uses his length to prevent an easy shot. And, if the ball handler makes it past TT, the Mozerati is perfectly happy swatting a shot all the way back to Russia. All the Matty D and clogged floor haters must acknowledge one of the best Cavs lineups features no stretch four and two bigs with almost zero range. The Cavs might have to Mike Brown their way through this series.

The most striking part of that group is that Matty D and Iman Shumpert are a huge part of why it works. When the Cavs trotted out Mozgov, Love, James, Irving, and Smith, the unit scored -4.48 points per 48. Just swapping out Smith and Irving for Delly and Shump caused a 40 point swing in that unit. Defense really matters.

What have the playoffs told the Cavs?

While the non-Love unit identified above isn’t the best unit so far in the playoffs, some of that unit carries over. In the playoffs, Irving, James, Shumpert, Mozgov, and Thompson are world beaters. They are +50.82. They’re over performing by 39.31 points. That’s almost an extra point per minute of the game. Irving has performed very well during his first playoff series scoring more than he did during the regular season and turning the ball over less, which is why slotting him in for Dellavedova isn’t causing a dramatic change from the best regular season non-Love group.

Observations

1. Only eight of the top twenty most used lineups this season actually under-performed. Kyrie was in five of those lineups. Why did Kyrie sink the lineups? Here’s my theory: Kyrie feels guilty going into isolation, which makes him hesitant causing further offensive problems on the floor. LeBron feels no shame whatsoever dribbling for 20 seconds.

The Kyrie lineup with Smith, Shump, Love, and Thompson underperformed by 10.53 points, even though they still essentially broke even points wise. They put up zero points/48 minutes. The LeBron lineup with Love, Shumpert, Matthew Dellavedova, and Tristan Thompson was the second best lineup for the Cavaliers. LeBron and Matty D are swapped in for Irving and JR Smith. This switch amounts to a wash. LeBron’s and Delly’s defense make up for the offensive downgrade between JR Smith/Kyrie and Delly.

This is the face of a man who doesn’t want to go ISO every chance possible.

It’s possible that Kyrie’s unit doesn’t score points because Irving only ran isolation plays 3.2* times a game during the season. LeBron, on the other hand, isolated 6.6* times a game. While LeBron wasn’t as efficient as Kyrie when Isolating, he probably went to himself for points when he felt the other guys on the floor struggling sooner than the Cavs star guard. This kept the team’s pace and basket count up. Kyrie might need to iso more.

*the only available isolation statistics are for the whole season through NBA.com*

2. LeBron James is the Batman who makes this team work. Iman Shumpert is his Robin. The top quarter of the lineups in PM/48 have Shumpert and James in them. There are few reason these guys work so well together. Shumpert can cover the best player on the floor instead of LeBron. This saves LeBron’s energy for offense, which results in better overall point production.

On offense, Iman doesn’t demand the ball, but he demands enough attention to keep defenses honest. He is the ultimate wing man. He won’t steal the defense’s attention entirely, but sometimes they’ll see him spotted up for a three and move his way. Iman has shot 33% from beyond the arc this year with the Cavs.

3. If you look at the standalone stats for PM/48, Timofey Mozgov was the best Cavalier, at 15.36 points a game. This is because he is erasing 1.2 shots a game. Nylon Calculus says he saved 1.2 points/36 minutes. It’s also because  Mozgov’s playing in dominant early game lineups. The Cavs were fourth in the NBA in average first quarter margin.

4. Don’t knock little Matthew Dellavedova. Just for fun, I calculated the plus-minus information for point guards on Western Conference title contending teams: Shaun Livingston of the Warriors, Austin Rivers of the Clippers, and Nick Calathes of the Grizzlies. Matty did pretty well coming in second place with 4.41 points/48 minutes. That’s better than Livingston’s 3.90. Weird.

This meme may be retired after the season ends.

5. Let’s hold retirement ceremonies for Mike Miller and James Jones before the game tonight. When Mr. Jones and Mr. Miller saw floor time during the playoffs bad stuff happened. In fact, the two units they played minutes with without Love combined to under perform by 96 points. That is not a typo. Those two guys are just ready to stop playing. Also, Mike Dunleavy scored 13 points in one quarter with Miller guarding him. Again, not a a typo.

Conclusion

The most difficult part of the post-Love playoff run for David Blatt is changing the team’s mentality. There is no doubt in my mind that this team identifies themselves as offensively minded. The best regular season group with James, Love, Shumpert, Smith, and Irving weren’t outscoring teams with their defense. Love at the rim is a soft pillow to cushion an opposing big man’s back from the air when backing into the restricted area. Kyrie and James both felt more than comfortable letting guys blow by them a few times a game throughout the year. Smith and Shumpert were the only two guys in that group that would consistently attempt to play hard defense. However, this group was just raining three point shots from every position on the floor to create trouble. It created enough trouble to get wins.

The new-wave unit for the playoffs featuring James, Shumpert, Irving, Mozgov and Thompson is ready to grind. Shumpert, Mozgov, and Thompson need help to score. They aren’t taking people off the dribble, that’s Irving’s and James’ job. The guys on this unit defend, and they do it extremely well. They all show the ability to switch and intuitively know where to be at all times to interrupt the game. In game two, When the Cavs added Tristan to the starting lineup against the Bulls, the team outscored the Bulls by twenty points in the first quarter, 38-18.

So, while the Love injury is a tragedy, the new lineups and the resulting defensive mindset will help this team. David Blatt is learning how to grind in the postseason. It’s not ideal, but it’s the Cavs only chance to win a title now.

Numbers for this piece came from NBA.com, ESPN.com, 82games.com, and basketball-reference.com