Live Thread: Cavs vs Timberwolves
2016-01-25G’Day! These fit as a Mallee bull Cavs fans traveled over 10,000 miles to be in Cleveland for Australia day at the Q, and ended up getting to meet their countryman, Matthew Dellavedova. You may think they’re as mad as a meat-axe, but let’s hope that kind of good karma pervades the arena tonight as the Cavaliers celebrate the holiday that started on January 26th, 1788. A couple of CtB commenters and even a staffer are in the arena bringing the #CavsGoodKarma, too. Hope the lads stone the crows for you, mates.
In other news, the Cavs are saying all the right things about their commitment to pushing the pace. As Joe Vardon reported for Cleveland.com, ‘Bron is fully committed to coach Lue’s vision of moving the Cavs out of 27th place in speed of play in the NBA. Hopefully, no one chunders.
This is what coach wants to do and this is what we’re going to do. This isn’t a LeBron thing. I’m talking out of IQ of the game, but this is what coach wants to do, so this is what we’re going to do.
So here’s to these these new look Cavs going off like a frog in a sock for the Aussies watching down under. I’m going to click “post” now so I can listen to the Wombat address the crowd. May your chooks turn into emus and kick your dunny door down, Andrew Wiggins. In other words, Go Cavs.
Steph went over and back. No call!
You have to foul him harder than that. He should have bruises on his arms after a game.
Need Nate on the Cavs as designated fouler…it’d be worth the contract…
Iso play by Curry…
I would be more than willing to sign a 10-day contract to take over Delly’s “Dirtiest Player” helm and injure a Dub or two.
If that’s a flagrant on Smith the other night, that should a flagrant on Bogut.
I think a big reason why the Dubs shoot so well is because they play in rythm and put other teams out of rythm. You need to slow the pace, disrupt their rythm, then run half court sets.
Lol…classic Manu play…
I wish Braymond had stuck to this…
This game might break cols if the spurs lose by 30.
Nah…he’ll still think the Cavs will beat the Dubs…he’s the Black Knight from The Holy Grail…
Bwahawa, great analogy.
I’m pretty convinced…the Dubs are winning the title, and may sweep their way…unless someone gets injured…
This is ridiculous.
You guys are all silly. Pop is the mastermind. He’s luring the entire Warriors team into a false sense of security then when the play in the WCF he’s going to go all super saiyan on the Dubs and that’ll be that… errr… uhhh… I’m a nerd…
Parker kills teams with dribble penetration…Kyrie does, sometimes, too…but that weak crap won’t fly against this team…it just leads to TOs…
Maybe the Dubs will wear themselves out.
Damn simmons, wowser!!
Wow… Braymond getting a phantom foul call…
Phantom call on Draymond!
Parker has been taken out of this game…quite a contrast to what he did to the Cavs…
I don’t know why, but this game makes me depressed too.
I understand completely. Would hoping the spurs would be competitive at least so we could see how they handled the dubs and steal some ideas. Instead we finding out that compared to the dubs they look like mortals.
Steph really needs to up his game and shoot it from half court…
He must get bored shooting these easy 3s…
You wouldn’t even need half court sets… just jack it up coming over the timeline…
Pop should never have Parker on Curry.
How the hell does he make those circus shots?
Seriously…wtf Curry…
Draymond getting in the refs face. And of course no technical called.
How the hell is.he going to argue that call?
It’s seriously like watching the Harlem Globetrotters… or a weird basketball circus…
I am praying hard to the basketball gods that they burn themselves out going for the record…
I think only injury stops them… Coach Lue is right about that…
Cols still thinks Cavs win is five or six…I am unconcerned…
Who ya gonna call? KNEE BUSTERS!
Hey guy, made it back from the Q tonight. Boy, should that game not have been so close. Was great to see Delly go off and hear his support in the arena. I noticed in the first quarter and a half and didn’t see any of you guys comment on it, but we ran two or three distinct sets for Love at the elbow and they didn’t work (it looked like things were just too cluttered up there), after that, nothing back there again. Still had long stretches of ISO ball and a lot of bad turnovers and D which… Read more »
Yep baby steps is my zen motto when thinking about this team now.
Like this Princeton offense with the center at the elbow?
I bet Blatt knew how to do that.
(Yes, I will keep beating this particular dead horse.)
Keep beating it, I’m in your corner on this one.
The 3 sec call should have instead been a reach on curry
Or a three second call on the Dubs…
Dubs D is on an entirely different level from the Cavs
Geez, Parker, shoot that…wtf is wrong with you?
Ridiculous blocking foul, utterly ridiculous. Any team that faces them is going to also overcome there favor from the refs as well.
Wish the Cavs had Kawhi…he’s been incredible this year
Even Kawhi can’t stop the Dubs…
It’s such a paradox… I hate Braymond so intensely… but his ball movement is really hard to not appreciate…
Think Leonard needs to go off for the spurs to have a chance
Big three from Kawhi…
Hey look they used Aldridge in the post.
The more I watch this, the more I believe the only way to beat the Warriors is to slow the pace and grind it out. I also think someone’s gotta go Van Gundy on the refs to get a fairly officiated series.
I agree. Have to make it as ugly as possible. That’s how the Grizz hung with them last year in the playoffs. Uphill battle even doing that.
Completely agree with that. If they think speeding up the pace is the solution, then they are sorely mistaken. If they can play the way they had last finals but someone incorporate an efficient Kyrie and Love then they have a shot.
Although speeding up the pace should help them get to the Finals a little easier…
I guess? I didn’t think the East was competitive enough.
Yeah, you can’t let them get out and run like this… it’s like playing an avalanche…
Props to Blatt for figuring this out last year. Although with the injuries maybe there was no choice either. If I was an opposing coach, I would take a T in the first quarter on the first uncalled moving screen.
Yep, and think christmas day. Really, cavs may have unlocked the secret last year in the finals without most of the league realizing it.
Who? /s
Kind of ironic: The injuries forced the Cavs to be a defensive grinding team — and also left LeBron in his version of a dream offense, where he initiated everything.
West 6/7 in the first. Me thinks the spurs need to exploit that matchup a bit more.
If the Cavs had David West, he wouldn’t have let any of this crap this year go down.
I’d love to have him, but sort of a logjam at the position. His spirit animal is strong, though.
Yep, agree a hundred percent, but he went to the organization he thought was stronger, despite Cleveland’s performance in the finals.
After watching this half, for the first time I think the dubs do break the Bulls record. That is barring any injuries of course per Ty Lue.
Hard to imagine them losing games unless they are resting a key guy, or have some injury.
I console myself with the fact that Kyrie is four years younger than Curry. Curry was not nearly as good as he is now four years ago.
Until they trade him away for CP3…
But he probably was close to being as good of a shooter as he is now. Certainly he was not utilized very well by Jackson. But yeah, passing, defense, iq, penetration, he definitively was not as good back then. But let us be real, Curry’s greatest ability is still his otherworldly shooting. Not sure anyone, even Klay Thompson is or will be near him in that regard anytime soon.
What’s amazing about this game – other than how much GS moves, how well they move without the ball, and how well they shoot – is that a strategy to beat them really isn’t clear. Obviously it’s not trying to run with them. You have to somehow clamp down on D. But on offense, I think Blatt had it right – to try to turn it, as much as possible, into a slow grinding game. This put us in a position to win in the finals. And in the Christmas game, it worked relatively well. The other night – who… Read more »
Yep, certainly we are looked better at christmas than the spurs have this far.
Curry with some pretty great 1 on 1 d on manu. Dude is an all around player, turned himself into a legit defender
Yea, I was just thinking the same thing. Curry is absolutely not a liability on defense anymore. He’s become a very good defender.
Kevin Love is sitting in a nice leather recliner somewhere cheering every LMA brick.
Sipping on a chocolate milk…
So LeBron looked pretty grumpy with Mo in that interview.
Who isn’t Lebron grumpy with? Who the heck even cares anymore? It doesn’t matter, nothing with him matters.
Maybe LeBron got tired of grumpy Mo. Hard to believe Mo and RJ could have been part of the Blatt coup.
Lebron is pretty miserable in the months of January to All Star. Always some kind of drama.
I wish Kyrie ran around half as much off the ball as Curry does…
At least the Spurs don’t quit on their coach, despite being down 15.
+ freaking one billion…I’ve been thinking that all season…
We would need sets that allow him to do that, or rather players that ran sets that would allow him to do that
Nobody ever stops moving on either end for the Warriors… it’s kind of amazing…
Dude, they are just playing iso ball…/s (/s for Nate)
Per my earlier Princess Bride graphic… I really don’t think Cols knows what that term means…
Steve Kerr lost his pocket protector and got a tech.
What did Kerr do to get that T?
Uh oh. Popovich might get fired after this game.
We’ll take him!
Lebron couldn’t work with him…he never played in the NBA…
His spirit seems galvanized and intact.
Lol, where is cols when we need him
Even freaking Brandon Rush turns to gold for them…
Remember when Brandon Rush went on a Twitter tirade.
Dubs look like one of those historically dominant college team that just coasts through the tourny…
I’m down right frightened right now. I don’t know how I will sleep…..
The only way to stop Steph might be to poison his mouthguard…
Pretty much tearing down the rules of basketball and rebuilding them the way he wants. God, thought he might be pretty good coming out of college, but did anyone see this coming including jerry west?
I mean… how the hell does he hit these shots?
He went down to the crossroads…
Gravity, now we see the meaning of the term. That speights jumper was so wide open cause of curry’s gravity, he could of set up camp
This game is rattling me, I won’t lie.
It’s like men against boys…and this Spurs team is freaking good…
I’m sorry fellas, Jordan’s ’90s Bulls are the only team that could take down the Warriors.
I think the Spurs can, but gonna have to play better than this. I don’t think anyone else can.
80s Lakers and Celtics, back when the NBA wasn’t so diluted.
How is the NBA diluted now? Only two teams are legitimate championship contenders. That’s pretty concentrated.
Yeah, not even sure that…nevermind I won’t finish that thought.
But who coaches the Warriors, then?
Aldridge looks lost!!!!!
Cheap foul in favor of Braymond…
Uncalled foul, moving screen, layup. A classic Warriors fast break.
Yeah I really don’t know what’s going on with this? Do coaches not complain to the league about the Warriors bias?
Green is such a punk!
How do they let him get away with just chucking the ball at the hoop like that?
Not going to lie, that last play makes me think curry might also have the best handles in the league
He is as good a candidate as anyone
Spurs getting rattled…
Yeah that livingsotn dunk, wow, not something u see often from the spurs
Every single Warriors players looks like he is 6 foot 7in,, can guard all five positions, and hit shots from anywhere on the floor. Like what in the world?
It’s crazy…I have no idea how they assembled that team…
Destroyed the Cavs in the 2011 draft, that how. Drafted two of the three best players. The other one plays for the spurs. Freaking Chris Grant.
Yeah, what an amazing draft for them…
Yeah that was a weird interaction with Mo.
Way to build chemistry. /s
Does he know what cerebral means?
I can’t stand the guy, but I can’t believe how good Green is…it’s like black magic, or a deal with the devil…
David might be right about the box and 1.
Worth a try. And changing up looks.
We did play them really well defensively that first game, better than the spurs have thus far. People have seemed to forget that.
Biggest lead of the night… and Curry not even on the floor…
Good god that was a ridiculous pass
Iso ball on the Klay layup…per Cols…