Recap: Cavs 111, Magic 76 (Or, DOMINATION)
2015-12-12
John Raoux/AP PHOTO
The Cavs dominated the Magic in nearly every facet of the game tonight, and they won by 35. They could have won by fifty, but their domination was just for 40 minutes, not 48. The King led the team with 25 points on 10-15 shooting to go with eight assists. Timofey Mozgov shed the title of Timofey the Terrible putting up 17 points, hitting eight of his nine shots. The Cavs shot 56.9% from the floor, while the Magic shot just 38.9%.
First Quarter
The Cavs started the night off hot, dropping seven of their first eight shots to race out to a 16-6 lead. They were driving and kicking the ball out to shooters, and finding the roll man whenever there was a clear path to the basket. They assisted on all but one of their nine made baskets in the quarter. Mozgov was the Cavs’ leading scorer with six points.
The Cavs offense sputtered about halfway through the first 12 minutes of action, so the Magic were able to make up some ground. Elfrid Payton did a good of getting deep in the paint to draw the attention of the Cavalier bigs. Nikola Vucevic kept the Magic close with six points. Cavs up, 22-20.
Second Quarter
The Cavs’ momentum built slowly in the second quarter. Iman Shumpert sparked the Cavs early on by chasing down Victor Oladipo after Victor stole a pass. Iman knocked the ball off of Vic’s leg and then scored the first bucket of the quarter, driving with his left hand on the left baseline for a layup. Matthew then turned that spark into a small pile of burning wood by tossing an oop to Canadian Dynamite to extend the Cavs’ lead to eight. The Cavs then went on a 23-15 run. LeBron was the main man pouring gas on the Cavs’ all engulfing flame. He was 6-6 for 16 points on shots all at the rim.
In the span of just two minutes, the King scored five points and drew a charge. For his first two points, he received a pass sprinting down court from Mozgov where he danced past two defenders for a layup. On the following play, he knocked an Evan Fournier pass loose, and Jared Cunningham hit him with the ball down court, so he could lay the ball in and get fouled to add three points to the score. Fearing that he was focusing too much on the offensive end of the floor, the King then took a charge from Aaron Gordon, who was trying to do his best impression of LeBron rumbling through the paint.
The King even caught a TD from Kevin Manning on an inbounds play near the end of the quarter ! Of course it was a 3-point play.
Kevin Love with the full court pass to LeBron! #CavsNation #Cavs #Magic #NBA https://t.co/uvAJjt07g0
— Cavs Nation (@CavsNationNet) December 12, 2015
The Magic ended the quarter hitting two 3s in the final minute to make the game seem closer than it was. Cavs 53, Magic 37.
Third Quarter
Whatever the Geneva Conventions of basketball are, the Cavs violated them in some way this quarter. They shot 58% from the floor and assisted on seven of their 10 buckets. They scored 19 straight. The Cavs sagged off on pick and rolls, and made Payton’s life miserable. The Magic shot just 38.9%. They scored just four points in the first six minutes of action and 15 in the whole quarter. The Cavs had almost too many highlights to recall. Love had six points, including a nice pop out 3-pointer. Iman hit a 3 and a second left hand drive to the hoop.
Shumpert and 1! #CavsNation #Cavs #Magic #NBA https://t.co/I0hBWs1a9B — Cavs Nation (@CavsNationNet) December 12, 2015
Timo was the real super star of the quarter though getting nine points. He was a mad man. He finished in traffic for a 3-point play, caught a Delly oop, tossed in a James’ pass over his head without touching the ground, and put down a tip-slam when Iman missed a spinning layup. The tip-slam is such a vicious play I heard Russia banned it years ago, hence the Mozerati wanting to play in the NBA.
Mozgov with the putback dunk! #CavsNation #Cavs #Magic #NBA https://t.co/k1wlz1lC2a
— Cavs Nation (@CavsNationNet) December 12, 2015
Other highlights of the quarter included the King hitting a shot from 20 feet out and behind the basket while falling away, and Mo getting a lucky 3-point play on a fast break due to a goal tending call on Dewayne Dedmon. The Cavs ended the quarter up huge, 85-52.
Fourth Quarter
The fourth quarter was actually all garbage time for the Cavs. Love and James sat the whole time, and Iman eventually sat with the Cavs up by 36 with eight minutes to go. Iman shined during his few minutes of play scoring eight points, including a 3-pointer and And-1 play. Anderson Varejao got a tip in bucket and technical foul for pushing against the Magic’s Jason Smith. Smith put up nine garbage points, but that was nothing compared to James Jones’ late game performance . Jones, who was cold all night, went James G-Dang-F’in-I’m your daddy-Jones for 15 points. At one point, he hit back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back shots. Four of them were threes. The Cavs bench went bananas, and all was right as the Cavs cruised to victory.
Gripes
1.The Cavs let Elfrid Payton penetrate into the paint too much. Delly went over some screens on him, and I have no idea why. Teams should let their point guard wander around the floor and annoy other players when covering Payton. He just doesn’t have a shot to make teams pay for sagging off of him.
2.James Jones went bonkers in the fourth, but he had trouble during the rest of the game. If he isn’t hitting his 3s, he’s useless. Defensively, he’s very hard to cover up for. He failed the Jason Smith challenge. Smith is a plodding big who likes taking mid-range 2s because no one covers them and he can’t get any other shot. He blew by James Jones. JJ was 5-10 tonight.
Hypes
1. The King is the man. Just look at his shot chart from the second quarter. It’s so clean. LeBron worked his but off sprinting down the floor tonight to get easy buckets, and driving into the paint to dish the ball out. While his initial pass didn’t always lead to a bucket, it often started the passing that did.
LeBron 2nd Quarter Shot Chart
2. Iman Shumpert is the Shumpman and shumping is what he does. Iman looked just as good as he did at any point last year in his return. He was 5-7 from the floor and hit two of his three 3s for 14 points. On top of that, he played amazing defense on whomever he was matched up on. Shump didn’t record any steals, but he had at least two knock aways off guys resulting in a turnover. Also, Shump has turned his left hand into a plus. His two left hand dribble drives caught guys off guard.
3. The Cavs made the Magic pay for their 20 turnovers by scoring 31 points off of them. The Cavs had 19 turnovers for the evening, but seven of them came during the fourth quarter.
4.Defensively, the Cavs were amazing, holding Orlando to 38.9% shooting from the field. The bigs consistently dropped back to defend pick and rolls. And, they were able to contest shots safely because teammates rotated over and prevented the Magic from getting easy offensive boards and drop off passes.
5. The Cavs assisted on 28 of their 41 made baskets, which is what they need to do if they want to blow opponents out nightly.
6. Both Love and James were able to play less than 30 minutes tonight. They did their part to build a lead, but the bench (mainly Shumpert) provided baskets to keep the lead growing.
7. Timo went to the mall before the game today. He stopped in Bath & Body works first to do some Christmas shopping. Wanting to make sure he got great smells for his family, he tried on numerous lotions. This made his hands very soft. However, he didn’t find a scent worthy of his wife, so he headed to the Pottery Barn to look for some household decorations that might be suitable presents. While looking at towels, he became enraged because they were expensive and felt like sand paper. He wanted to leave immediately. Then he smelled a wonderful smell. It was a lemon lotion that the Pottery Barn had set next to the towels. After all, all nice bathrooms need even nicer lotions. Timo put it on his hands and felt relaxed as he left the mall prepared to just shop online for his wife’s present. When he arrived to shootaround, the ball felt amazing in his hands. He was catching every pass from the ball boys. That carried over into the game for Timo. Timo’s touch was extremely soft all night, as he held onto the ball and treated it like a princess being put to bed each time he directed it towards the hoop. Timo the Terrific is back!
8. Love had just eight points, but he had six assists and 13 rebounds. He wasn’t actively chasing shots and let the game come to him. It was awesome seeing him make such an effort to get Mozgov involved tonight.
9. Delly played what is now a typical Delly game. He defended well, dished the ball out six times, and got 12 points on 5-7 shooting. He hit two of his three 3s.
10. The Cavs take on the Celtics Tuesday. The Celtics lost a grueling double overtime game to the Warriors tonight, so they’ll be looking for a revenge win.
Man…I really think Kyrie should get to the court in real minutes soon. It is not important that we win on Christmas Day. It won’t have a bit of effect on what happens should we meet in the title series.
But good lord it would be nice to lay a shellacking on them with both teams at full health.
McMenamin is pretty trustworthy. But I don’t think a Kyrie sighting is too far off. I’d like to see him get in a couple games before Golden State.
Warriors lose two starters and it falls apart. Cavs have been down 2-3 starters all year.
Right? Gee, I wonder if people are going to take back the crap they’ve said about GSW not being “lucky” with injuries. I won’t hold my breath…
LOL. Slow Down Rodney Mac.
I’m not convinced the Warriors even lost. Maybe Anonymous got bored and hacked all the NBA sites.
Sleep good Cav fans! I know we wanted to beat them on Christmas, which we still can, but Warriors were denied the 7 game road win record by an EC team. Fired up!
Can’t figure out if I’m happy that they lost or not! Would have loved the Cavs to burst their bubble, but they still run their faces in it I guess.
Errrr………..rub.
Anybody enjoying the Bucks game. Second favorite team taking it to the warriors, come on knock them off their pedastal
We will see what the future brings. But I feel like the rest of the Cavs feed off Shumperts energy on the defensive end. The high top has magical powers and must be recognized. Shumpert may be even more important than what he brings individually as a player!
That is a really good point. While the Cavs have maybe the best “Big Three”, the “Next Five” (IS, MD, JR, TT, TM) might also be he best going!.
The Dion + pick for IS, JR, and TM trade might go down as better than Ron Harper + 3 picks for Danny Ferry, and this time the Cavs are on the winning end!
Nice work by the Cavs and David! Delly is coming through nicely . . . In an unrelated note, who do we think are the most improved teams this year? Just read an article that suggested the Wolves and Hornets . . .
I think the Hornets get my vote, they seem to have gotten a nice group going.
I agree with those two. And while they’re not necessarily improved, the Mavs are playing much better than I expected them to.
ALL WE NEED BACK NOW IS COLS !!!—-COLS—– DELLY SAID HE IS NOT PLAYING ANYMORE UNTIL WE ALL HEAR FROM YOU !!
I think a healthy Cavs team matches up well with the Warriors, perhaps better than any team in the league.
Good stuff DW! Maybe the most dominant game yet by the Cavs, and still without Kyrie (and JR for this one). When this team is locked in and giving effort like they did last night, they are going to be pretty hard to beat.
Love that Shump came back strong (maybe stronger with the left hand dribble… the good by-product of injury), love that Moz got his hands back (lemon lotion indeed!), and love that LBJ is destroying the post.
Also, JFJ might need a cape for fourth quarters…
It’s rather comforting that after the Blazer’s game, when I was absolutely positive we were switching to a smaller lineup, we didn’t deviate from what got us into the finals last year and kept our identity. Yes we can win smallball, but we can be destructive with a healthy/able/committed Moz.
Please Kyrie be 100% ready for Xmas day!!!
That’s all I want for Xmas ;)
BUY A 100 GALLON BARRELL OF LEMON LOTION FOR THE MOZ ——” THE BREW GARDEN MOZ IS BACK ” HOPEFULLY TO STAY !!!
Looking forward to Tuesday in Boston. I predict Delly and JR to start then Blatt brings in Shump and Kyrie in tandem.
Great win. Welcome back Shump. I hope (well all of us) this is the start Timo needed to get back the old Mozzy.. Nothing to gripe much about, well maybe it’s only Orlando, but a win is a win. Let’s go Cavs!!!
Uh, calling Cols…. guess who is #5?
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2597678-off-the-grid-nba-players-who-are-quietly-doing-big-things/page/5
Wow. Knew Delly had a good +/- but to see it split offense and defense points per 100. Impressive.
The good news is that Cavs are about to be near full strength for the stretch run. But now the brain trust at CtB is down a man with Cols being AWOL. He might be out with a repetitive motion injury to his typing fingers, probably the left ring finger, which does 40% of the heavy lifting when typing “sucks”. Maybe the gang can chip in on some professional PT, and get him ready for the stretch run. In a perfect world, he will come back during the Christmas day game at GSW. Maybe not as a starter, but come… Read more »
That was the first cavs game I’ve really enjoyed in a while. Great ball movement, insanely efficient offensively, a nice mix of 3s and penetration and some of that defence in the middle of the game was ridiculously good.
Like how Mo “chose” to come off the bench in preparation for Kyrie’s return. If he takes minutes off Delly I would be stunned.
Mo looked just right leading the garbage time crew. I’d prefer Delly get most of the back up minutes and run Mo only when the team needs a scoring punch.
Yep agree. He is still better at getting his own shot but Delly just moves the ball so well! With a bench unit, I’d say that’s almost more important than with the starters as there are generally no superstars coming off the bench who can iso their way to victory.
It’s amazing what a little defense from the guard position can do. Delly + Shump can actually start shutting some teams down from the outside now. Super exciting.
Yeah those two are a formidable defensive backcourt.
The story of the night is Moz. He makes things so much easier for everyone else when he’s playing well. Need to get him back to doing stuff like this regularly.
That lemon lotion story was bizarre and random. Lemon has been known to be an energy and mood enhancer. But I think I’m going with Shump impact. LoL
Many great positives about this game, but perhaps the best one is what Moz did. He looked so much better. Anyone know what happened that might have got him going again? We NEED him to be his old self….tonight was a reminder of what he is capable of.
And very nice recap David….the Moz hand lotion story was a gem!
Moz’s reappearance and Shump’s confidence in his shot were tied at #1 for me
Delly 5-7 for 12 points, 2-3 from deep. 6 assists. And no mentions? Save for criticizing he P&R defense on Payton? Do I smell a hater? Or is this just a ‘normal’ Delly game now and not worth mentioning for the man who leads the league in assist/TO ratio?
Don’t be paranoid, this is now whats expected. Delly is incredible. So check this out for players with at least 500 minutes played Delly is 7th in plus minus per 100 possessions. But what makes him particularily remarkable is that the 6 players in front of him are 5 warriors who’s team is averaging +14.2 a game and Duncan who’s team is +11.7 a game. The Cavs however are only +5 a game. So if you do the net ratings but subtract the team net rating Delly is ahead of everyone (that I checked, I eyeballed the top 30 top… Read more »
Last game there was a new tone even coming from Lebron when asked about Delly. He’s a productive starter. He’s one of them now. It’s almost becoming silly for reporters to keep asking Lebron about Delly’s performance because he doesn’t get asked about Love’s . Why? Because they’re good and yes it’s expected. Delly is legit now. I bet eventually he will be the backup PG as well down the road.
That’s a miss by me. I wrote the article saying Delly was better than Klay Thompson, which prompted someone to say the blog has gone Full Metal Delly, no hating here. Delly was awesome though and honestly this type of game is what I expect from him now.I added a little section. Gotta spread the gospel of Delly whenever possible.
Thompson is a bit much, I would definitely take Klay over Delly. But there aren’t a lot of pg’s I’d take trade Delly for.
This was an awesome game and my only gripe are that all of are shooters hesitate too much and end up passing up great looks for not so great looks. Delly needs to realize he’s shooting 48% from three since the start of November and a scorching 64% in december and let it fly when he’s open. Mo needs to realize a wide open 3 is a better shot than a runner from 18 feet and shoot the 3. He was like 40% 3 point shooter last time around right? If he isn’t an elite 3 point shooter anymore that… Read more »
The Mo thing seems like its probably knee related. Before he was injured he was taking way more 3’s per game so hopefully it comes back. The idea was to have several dead eye shooters, right now we only have one who doesn’t act like one. Not too worried about Love, RJ and Mo, natural shooters that should come around. Lebron is pretty concerning but he doesn’t have to be a great 3 point shooter right now.
Delly is confident in his 3 point shot. He knows he needs to get better a closer ranges. This was the perfect to experiment with that. I think the same holds true with Love.