Live Thread: Cavs @ Nets

The Cavs are on the road again to face the Brooklyn Nets. Last meeting, the game went down to the final shot. LeBron James sank the game winning shot, but the game was closer than it should have been. The Cavs will be looking for a bounce back win against the 11-31 Nets, after receiving a 34 point beat down from the Warriors on Monday.

Last time the Cavs played the Warriors, they faced the Blazers the very next day and lost by 29. After losing to the Spurs, about a week ago, the Wine & Gold handled business against the Rockets less than 24 hours later. The Cavs need to show some resilience and come out firing for this game to silence the people who keep mentioning the loss to Golden State. I’m already sick of hearing about it from my coworkers and this loss could push their trash talk too far.

On Tuesday, the team had a film session and a practice. Lebron James was pleased.

“We actually had a really, really sharp practice getting back to the basics.” [Chris Fedor, Cleveland.com]

3 Things to Watch

1.Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving need to play defense tonight. Against the Warriors, they were lazy. They got blown by and back cut on far too many possessions. They stopped rotating after the Warriors passed the ball just one time. Love and Irving also need to score. If a player’s strength is scoring and they can’t do that or play defense, they have no reason to be on the floor. Irving and Love combined for just 11 points against Golden State.

2.Brook Lopez isn’t an animal. He’s a slow ground bound guy. The Cavalier bigs can’t bite on his pump fakes and play like they are also running in quick sand when they cover him. Lopez is the only player on Brooklyn who is a true scorer. He had 29 points the last time he was in Cleveland. David Blatt should game plan to stop that.

3. The Cavs need to run an offense. Isolation ball doesn’t work against the Spurs or Warriors, so why not practice something else considering those are the two teams they may face come Finals time? The Cavs had 22 assists against Golden State, which is right around their average (they’re 12th in the league). However, most of those assists came off of drive and kick plays. Blatt should try and get the team back to playing how they did the first couple games of the season when the ball whipped around the perimeter and had opposing defenses constantly rotating.

I’m picking the Cavs to win tonight, 106-99.