The Point Four-ward: #HardAssBlatt

Four points I’m thinking about the Cleveland Cavaliers…

1.) I’ve had almost a week to digest the David Blatt firing, at this point, and I still feel pretty much the same as when I first heard the news: shocked as hell, but not surprised at all.

The fact that no one has asked Griffin whether or not he approached Blatt about the fissures the GM witnessed while in the locker room still seems fishy. I, like Tom Pestak, would have liked to have seen a month or so of “hard ass Blatt” coaching when he knew his job was on the line… when he knew that winning games wasn’t enough.

[Note: the phrase “hard ass Blatt” was used by Tom in Monday’s podcast and it seemed so hashtag worthy I couldn’t resist stealing it for the title of this post.]

However, the move — while wholly unfair — isn’t completely devoid of sense and foresight either.

After watching the Golden State Warriors dismantle the Cavs in Cleveland last week, it was pretty clear that any hopes that the defending champs would take their foot off the gas and catch up with the Cavs in the loss column in order to give the wine and gold a shot at home court throughout the playoffs seemed more and more far-fetched. Since the Cavs weren’t playing up to Griffin’s standards, weren’t going to be a threat to beat the Warriors or the Spurs with how they were playing, and were led by a coach who, the story goes, wasn’t respected enough by the players to change the way his players played, the GM decided that there was no time like the present.

If that’s true and if you think you have a better fit in Tyronn Lue, now was probably the right  time to make the change. Cleveland is only 2.5 games up on the surging Toronto Raptors in the Eastern Conference, but even with Blatt at the helm they would have been the prohibitive favorites to make it out of the East come playoff time. The Cavs can afford to drop games now in the service of getting better in the long-run.

But that’s the trick. They actually have to get better. And the jury is still out on whether or not Lue and his focus on a faster pace and using Kevin Love at the elbows will be enough to turn the Cavs into a legitimate threat to the best in the West.

2.) In Nate’s fantastic recap of Monday night’s 114-107 Cavs win over the T-Wolves in Cleveland, he pointed out some potential inconsistencies to the changes in style that Lue is preaching — specifically, to the insinuation that Lue doesn’t believe Love can thrive in an up-tempo system because he wants the 6-10 forward to play slower with second unit.

It looks like I’m already taking on the role of Lue Apologist for the blog, so let me offer a different way of looking at Lue’s plans for Love:

Of course, Love thrives in an up-tempo system specifically because so much of the Cavs’ ability to push the pace and get out in transition is based on the former Bruin’s outlet passing. Terry Pluto wrote about how the Cavs are first in transition efficiency mostly because of LeBron James’ and Kyrie Irving’s amazing finishing ability on the break. But, as I wrote a few weeks ago in regards to Love’s outlet passing, the outlet pass is a measure of unselfishness because it pretty much guarantees that the passer will not get the ball back.

Also, while Love can be effective in transition, he is arguably a more effective player in the half court, where he can take advantage of his post game, his passing and his mid-range shot.

So, it makes sense for Love to kick off a lot of what Lue wants the team to do pace-wise, while sharing the court with James and Irving, and then becoming the focal point (finally!!) of a slower version of the offense — something closer to what he was asked to do in Minnesota — when those two rest.

Not that I think Lue is immediately the second coming of Phil Jackson or anything… but I think, in this case, he might be onto something. We’ll have to see how pace v. Love continues to play out in tonight’s game against the Phoenix Suns.

3.) Oh, and what about those Golden State Warriors?

Well, there’s no slowing them down. Not right now, anyway. The Bay Area Bombers just capped off a week in which they beat the Cavs by 34, the Bulls by 31 and now the Spurs by 30. The question is no longer whether or not the Warriors are a great team. They are. Steph Curry is as deadly an offensive player as peak LeBron… and he may even be a more difficult cover. Klay Thompson and Draymond Green are very, very good complimentary pieces — perhaps not as purely talented as the running mates James has in Irving and Love, but arguably a better fit. And the Warriors have managed to maintain a high-octane offense while developing a league-leading defense, as well. No easy feat.

So, yes, the Warriors are a great team. But the question that the Cavs and Spurs have to be asking themselves about the Warriors going forward is simple: have they peaked?

The Warriors held the machine-like Spurs offense to 41.9% shooting and crushed them on the boards 45-38. They eviscerated a very good Bulls defense, shooting 52.6% from the field and, again, winning the battle of the boards. And then, of course, shot nearly 50% from three (47.5% to be precise) in that laugher at The Q.

Had the Warriors been sleepwalking through the start of their road trip in dropping two out of the first three games and just turned it back on to prove a point to their would-be challengers? Can they really play any better than they did against the Cavs, Bulls and Spurs? If they can, it’s tough to see how — and, maybe, that’s what the folks in San Antonio and Cleveland are hoping for.

By the time the playoffs roll around, the Spurs will no longer be resting Tim Duncan (presumably), Tony Parker might not be coming off a couple games off due to injury (although, he might), and Gregg Popovich will make sure that Kawhi Leonard makes a bigger impact on the game. By the time the playoffs roll around, the Cavs might be clicking with a geared-up offensive system and might have figured out a way to balance that with a sturdy defense, as well.

Either way, the Warriors’ two biggest “threats” will look different come June than they did this past week. Whether or not “different” equals “better” remains to be seen.

They just better hope they’ve already seen the best of the Warriors.

4.) Some people believe that the Cavs will be able to adjust to a different offensive approach on the fly, while others think that, without the benefit of a training camp to install Lue’s sets and philosophy, the team is destined to be a chem lab on wheels for the remainder of the season.

Over the weekend, Mike Fratello was a guest on ESPN Cleveland radio and, while talking about the Cavs’ head coaching change, offered up a story from his own time in the Cavs’ lead chair to illustrate that in-season changes are, in fact, possible.

The Cavs started the 1995-96 season by dropping their first five games by a combined 66 points. They’d wanted to run, but they just weren’t built for it. They’d lost Mark Price, Brad Daugherty, Larry Nance and John “Hot Rod” Williams and replaced them with (the still under-appreciated) Terrell Brandon, Tyrone Hill, Michael Cage, Chris Mills and Bobby Phills.

Fratello could see that his team just didn’t have the talent to compete if the tempo ever rose above that of a still-warm corpse, but he thought that they could still win some games if they slowed the game down (slowed it down “a bit” he said in the interview, though Cavs fans who remember those teams might remember it as a bit more than that) and became a great defensive team. He said he approached the players with that idea and told them it was up to them to decided. Did they want to lose playing fast and loose? Or did they want to win ugly?

Fratello left the locker room. Later, Phills, the team’s captain, called him back in and the team had come to a decision. They wanted to win.

In total, the Cavs dropped their first seven games that year before finishing the year by winning 47 of the remaining 75 games and made the playoffs. That team ranked last in pace at 82.3 possessions per game, but first in points allowed at 88.5. Fratello left it up to his team to decide their fate and, in doing so, made sure they all bought in to a plan that became widely decried.

His point: if the players buy in, winning change can happen mid-season. Hopefully, that’s what the 2015-16 Cavs have now done.

Oh, the 95-96 Cavs were swept in the playoffs 0-3 by the New York Knicks.