Recap: Cavs 91, Nets 78 (Or, They Can Still Win)

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The Cavs showed up tonight and played both defense and offense against one of the lesser teams in the league. That’s all I was hoping for after the Warriors made me question if they still knew how to play basketball. Brooklyn shot 41.7% from the field, while the Cavs hit 46.8% of their shots. Kevin Love bounced back going 5-10 from the floor for 17 points. He also had 18 rebounds, and a double-double by halftime. LeBron James was 7-12 for 17 points, while Kyrie Irving had nine points to go with five assists in just 21 minutes.

The Cavs opened up the first quarter trying to move the ball, but they didn’t see results. They missed their first four attempts. Then Kevin Love stole a pass from Donald Sloan and LeBron jetted the length of the floor to throw it down. The rest of the quarter was played at a decent pace for the Cavaliers. The King went on to get two more fast break buckets and Delly and Love both hit 3s in semi-transition situations.

Love was the clear star of the opening minutes, getting seven points on 3-3 shooting to go with eight rebounds. He hit a fading jump shot off a LeBron pass while running towards the baseline, and he also slammed an oop on an out-of-timeout play where LeBron passed the ball to him from behind the 3-point line (see above).

Defensively, the Cavs held the Nets to 37% shooting, but they still had issues defending the pick and roll. Kyrie continued to put Mozgov into cruel situations. Whenever Mozzy dropped back to prevent Kyrie’s man from going straight to the rim, Kyrie went over the screener and took just a second too long to get back onto his guy. This let Moz’s guy roll to the rim with no resistance. Kyrie tried to make it up to the big guy. After dribbling deep into the paint, Kyrie threaded a pocket pass to Mozgov that ended with free throws. With the help of their transition buckets, the Cavs were up after 12 minutes of play, 23-17. 

The Wine and Gold really tightened up their defense in the second quarter. They ran at Brooklyn every time they spotted up behind the 3-line, and they made sure to prevent their guards from getting deep into the paint, allowing just two shots at the rim. The Nets shot 37% again and were 1-6 from deep. The majority of their made buckets felt really lucky.

Nets’ shot chart from the second quarter

The Cavs couldn’t score for the first few minutes, but then Kyrie drove deep into the paint and threw up a scoop shot to open the flood gates. The next play down the floor Love set a screen for Kyrie. Kyrie passed it back to Love near the 3-line, and Love drove to the hoop when Thad Young lunged for a steal. Willie Reed got a layup the next play for Brooklyn, but Kyrie dribbled down the floor, cut up Brooklyn like one of their resident hipsters cuts up their jeans, and found Tristan rolling to the rim for a dunk.  Brook Lopez then hit a 19-footer to negate the points, but Irving was feeling it. He dribbled into a long three to push the Cavs’ lead to nine, forcing a Brooklyn timeout.

Out of the timeout, TT kept his hands above his head and didn’t leave his feet. Lopez tried to get a good shot, but just put up a miss. With Lopez covering him in transition, the King then dribbled the ball around the court and into the paint, so he could whip it out to the left corner. The ball zipped around before Shumpert caught it, drove in, and hit TT for a reverse layup. Tristan missed his first attempt, but got his own put-back.

The Cavs earned 12 free throws in the final 4:33 of the quarter because they kept getting to the their spots before Brooklyn could set up their defense. They hit eight of them, which helped them end the quarter up big, 51-38.

The third quarter started out quite sloppy for the Wine & Gold. The Nets went on a 9-3 run, which prompted the Cavs to take a timeout. Out of the break, they ran a beautiful play with lots of movement, that ended with Shumpert hitting a wide open shot from beyond the arc to the put the Cavs up by ten again. Love then put the ball on the floor and got fouled by Young to extend the Cavs’ lead to 12.
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The Nets were able to score when they had the ball, but the Cavs kept forcing turnovers and playing perfect defense. During the final four minutes, Brooklyn turned the ball over four times. There were two highlight plays. Shumpert stripped the ball from Thomas Robinson as he was going up for a sure thing put-back layup, and LeBron erased a Markel Brown layup at the rim. The Wine & Gold also forced a 24 second violation on the Nets’ final possession. The Cavs finished on an 8-2 run to go into the fourth with a comfortable lead, 73-55.

David Blatt went with the bench for the entire fourth quarter, and it didn’t look too bad after a few early snafus. J.R. Smith was called upon to make some plays, and he looked decent trying to run the offense. He tried to take his time, although he managed to score just four points on six shots and had zero assists.  Tristan was the star of the quarter. He was on the receiving end of four lob type plays, two from Delly and two from Mo Williams, which led to him getting eight points.

Mo Williams played some pretty ugly ball during his six minutes of action (he was 1-7). He bricked a layup at the rim, and Donald Sloan blew by him for an effortless layup. The Cavs won this one easily, 91-78.

Gripes

1.Kevin Love still can’t play defense at a high level for any stretch of time. He routinely forgets to rotate back after he helps a guard stop penetration. In the 3rd quarter, at the 4:42 mark, Shane Larkin and Brook Lopez ran a dribble hand-off near the corner with Larkin receiving the ball running on the baseline. Love turned his attention to the play and came in from the weak side to help stop penetration, despite Mozgov being close enough to contest a shot. Thomas Robinson, Love’s man, cut to the hoop for two and Love made no attempt to stop him. A little later in the quarter Love was ball watching, and forgot to box out Robinson. Robinson then got a put-back attempt, which he missed. Love gave up, and Robinson grabbed another offensive board. Thankfully, Shumpert stripped Robinson as he went up for the second attempt.

2. Kyrie still doesn’t understand that you have to sprint back to your man after a pick is set on you. He routinely takes his time to recover, and this stresses the Cavaliers’ bigs because they’re forced to allow deep paint access or give up a layup to their own man on the dump off.

3. Mozgov still fumbles the ball far too much. He missed at least two passes because they just bounced off of his hands.  On one occasion he fumbled a pass, recovered it, and then missed a layup. He grabbed his own miss and put it down though.

Hypes

1.Love can still play offense. He hit a running fader. He even drove to the rim past Thad Young after a setting a screen. He used the threat of his dribble drive ability to draw reach-in fouls all game. At the end of the second quarter, he bashed his shoulder in Thomas Robinson to create space for a fading jumper. Love showed that he is a threat from all over the floor tonight and can score in a ton of different ways. He grabbed 18 rebounds too.
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2.Iman stuck to whoever he was on like glue and got two steals, two blocks, three points, and six points.

3.Delly was 3-3 from the field and had eight points. He dished out three assists, and played great defense. I love that when he knows he won’t be able to recover quick enough on a pick and roll he just darts down and covers whoever his big man was covering. Delly doesn’t force his teammates into tough situations.

4.The Cavs had just 15 assists on 36 buckets tonight, but the ball seemed to move much more than it did against the Warriors. Penetration was being used to get the ball out to the perimeter to generate open 3s and to generate easy layups down low.

5. The Cavs hit just 5-17 long balls and still won by a decent amount.

6. TT played great defense on Brook Lopez by staying on the ground and moving his feet. He didn’t bite on pump fakes or rush to close out on Lopez’s slo-mo set shot.  Lopez had just 16 points and ten rebounds. Last game against the Cavs, he had 29 points. Tristan helped the Cavs keep their stars on the bench in the fourth by getting eight of his 14 points then. He had ten rebounds.

7. Timofey Mozgov had 11 points (5-9 shooting) and five rebounds. He hit a jump shot and was rolling hard to the rim tonight. He still fumbled a couple of passes, but he didn’t let that get to him. He tried to dunk the ball every chance he got, which was refreshing.

8. The Cavs host the Clippers tomorrow night and I’m hoping LeBron, Irving, and Love benefit from the fourth quarter rest they got tonight.