Recap: Cavs 115, Suns 93 (or, Movin’? Yeah! Groovin’? Yeah!)

Just like LeBron, this exuberant young Cavs fan felt like dancing…

In his 1982 stand up concert film Delirious, Eddie Murphy used the subtitle of this piece in his imitation of the great James Brown having an interaction with his band members. The joke was that, even though the guys couldn’t understand everything that James was saying, it was all working well enough for them to just keep shouting along in agreement… and it helped that they were all getting paid and having a good time. Similarly, even though the Cavs are still in the process of learning new Coach Tyronn Lue’s uptempo motion offense, it came together enough against the Phoenix Suns to get everybody up and shouting in assent. And, for the most part, the guys in wine & gold were movin’ (both themselves and the ball) around the court, and groovin’ to a fairly easy victory over the tired and sinking Suns… all while having a pretty good time. Everybody say “Yeah!”

It’s Too Funky In Here

In game three of the Ty Lue era, the Cavs came out looking to run and gun with the Suns, but turnovers, miscommunication and the officiating crew got in the way, and turned the fun into funk. Kyrie kicked off the festivities with some signature Uncle Drew moves for a score, and Kevin Love hit an early three, but the Cavs seemed to be overthinking and trying too hard to make the right decisions with the ball. Even though seven of their 10 baskets in the quarter were assisted, they also turned the ball over five times. Not that the Suns were much better in the early going, as they also had a quartet of coughups themselves. The lowlight for both teams was a back-to-back sequence of 24-second violations that seemed to have less to do with the opposing defenses, and more to do with general indecision about what to do with the ball. Halfway through the period, the score was tied at 11, and the game was more of a funky slow jam than an up-tempo shootout. Part of this could be ascribed to the quick whistles of the officiating crew, who seemed intent on keeping dance partners from getting too close, calling nine fouls in the first 10 minutes. Even old pal Lauren Holtkamp got in on the act, sending both J.R. and KLove to the bench with early trouble. Fortunately, Timofey Mozgov checked in with his dancing shoes on, and tossed in six quick points, including two dunks off of dives to the hoop.

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An unfortunate by-product of the Cavs focusing on running more of a motion offense, however, is that they’ve let their defensive intensity and rotations lapse, especially early in games. They left the paint open for a Devin Booker backdoor cut, a Tyson Chandler dunk, and a steady parade to the foul line by Archie Goodwin. They also failed to close out on not one… not two… but three P.J. Tucker corner threes. LeBron hit a tough stepback J to keep the Cavs close, but they trailed 26-23 after one.

Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag

Maybe it was because of foul trouble… or maybe he just planned it this way, but Ty Lue dug into his expanding rotational bag of tricks in quarter two, and pulled out an old dog and a Wild Thing. For the first time in a week (and the first time since Lue took over), Richard Jefferson saw the court, and shortly thereafter, Andy Varejao joined him. AV brought some defensive energy and rebounding, and R.J. showed no ill-effects from his recent inactivity, knocking down the first two of his four shots on the way to a near perfect night. Despite a 1-5 bricklaying display from Kyrie to start the period, the Cavs kept moving the ball, sandwiching the two R.J. buckets with assisted J.R. bombs from downtown. In fact, 10 of the 11 Cavs’ scores were assisted in this quarter, giving them 17 in the first 24 minutes. LeBron alone had four in the second, including a throwback dish in the lane to Andy, a sick no-look bee-bee to a cutting R.J., and a nice set-up pass to KLove at the elbow (or at least elbow-adjacent… you be the judge).

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Still, the Cavs were much too generous on the other end, allowing a couple of dunks in transition, and failing to close out on Goodwin and Booker from distance. They allowed the Suns to shoot 50% from the field in the first half, which kept Phoenix in the game. Although a runout throwdown by Iman Shumpert (off of a Moz-block) pushed the lead to five to close the scoring. Cavs led 55-50 at halftime.

Get Up Offa That Thing!

The Cavs got on up (and quickly) to start the second half, tightening the screws on defense and forcing the Suns into a multitude of poor decisions with the rock. J.R. (3) and Kyrie (2) took turns committing grand theft Spalding as well to kick start a series of fastbreak getaways. In all, the Suns turned the ball over nine times in the quarter, most of them forced by the Cavs (although a few were just careless throwaways). The Cavs took full advantage, exploding for 12 straight points (including a couple threes from KLove), and forcing Jeff Hornacek into consecutive timeouts to stop the bleeding. The highlight of the barrage though, was the very thing that got the kid in the title picture up and dancing like crazy… a little Globetrotter action between J.R. and LBJ…

The Suns recovered somewhat behind the efforts of T.J. Warren (who scored nine points in the quarter) and Markieff Morris (in his unofficial audition for the Cavs), but LeBron finished the period with a five point flourish of his own. Coupled with an R.J. triple, the Cavs pushed out to a 19 point lead, before a phantom foul on Matthew Dellavedova sent Devin Booker to the line for three shots. Cavs still led 87-71 at the end of three.

I Got You (I Feel Good)

Delly quickly rectified his mistake from the end of the third quarter by nailing his one triple (and only basket) of the game. Though he didn’t shoot well, he still dished out seven assists and was +17 on the night. Coach Lue opted to keep Kevin Love on the floor with the second unit (maybe because of his earlier foul trouble, or maybe to try out his rotational experiment), and it really seemed to work well. KLove continued his aggression, pulling down five of his game-high 11 boards, and getting inside for the last four of his 21 points. After a couple more easy Timo buckets, basically insuring LBJ’s night was over, J.R. tagged in for KLove, and hit one more triple to give him four for the game and 18 points. At that point, R.J., Andy and even Mo checked in to mop things up, ballooning the lead to as much as 28 points before sending the Suns packing. Cavs win 115-93.

The Evil:

By The Time I Get To Phoenix. The weary Suns are in the midst of a four game road-trip, and have only played five home games in January… not that they’ve fared much better in the Valley of the Sun. Phoenix is just 3-17 in their last 20 contests, as injury and discontent have decimated their once promising team. As such, it’s tough to take too much from this game from a Cavalier perspective. The good news is that Cleveland beat a team that it should have, and handled them pretty easily from the outset of the second half. The tempered news is that the Suns had mostly lost their legs by that time since they were on the second night of a back-to-back. The bad news is that the Suns got a lot of uncontested shots both inside and out in the first half, as the Cavs’ defensive rotations left something to be desired. Still, it was a win on a night that the Cavs took another step forward in getting Ty Lue’s motion offense down.

Cold Sweat. Jeff Hornacek has been on the hot seat for some time now, but you have to wonder how much hotter it’s gotten since the surprise firing of David Blatt. Odds are that he’s probably the next neck on the coaching chopping block. Wonder if he makes it to All-Star weekend?

Please, Please, Please. I find myself saying this refrain a lot lately when Kyrie shoots the ball. It’s clear that he’s in a bit of a slump lately… but he also doesn’t seem to have quite bought into the full share the ball offense that Coach Lue is trying to install. Much of KI’s wizardry comes from his remarkable handles, but the downside is that he doesn’t always seem to have a good exit plan on his ISO possessions. Especially in games like this one where his shot isn’t falling, it would be a real positive for the Cavs if Kyrie turned his focus to setting up his teammates a bit more. On a night where his team logged a whopping 34 assists, he should have more than just three of them.

The Genius:

Superbad. LeBron James flirted with efficiency perfection tonight, scoring 21 points on a scant eight shots from the field. He hit 7-8 (the only miss being a three ball), and 7-7 from the charity stripe. Despite only three boards, he led the team with nine dimes, and was a freaking runaway locomotive on the fast break. He squeezed every ounce of productivity out of his 31 minutes, and as a result, got to take the final 12 off to chill on the sidelines. Well… not quite chill… he did take some time to playfully dance around to Super Freak during a timeout. In lieu (or Lue if you prefer) of finding the actual footage of that, here’s an older reference that should provide a reasonable facsimile…

It’s A Man’s World. The young skinny armed kid from the Hoopers took the night off, and the real Kevin Love showed up for this game. This was the KLove we wanted. The one who balls out in the paint as well as from the arc. A rebounding machine. A focal point of the offense. Kevin took 17 shots tonight (making eight), compared to just eight for LBJ and 11 each for Kyrie and J.R. He took a beating early on from the Suns’ big men of Chandler and Alex Len, but responded strong, pulling down a game-high 11 boards. Kev also blocked two shots, snagged two steals and dished out four assists. It was one of his better all-around games of the season.

Ain’t That A Groove. J.R. didn’t let early foul trouble (however egregious) get him down. He not only did a terrific job mixing up his knock-down catch-and-shoot triples with his drives, but he also excelled in getting his hands in the Suns’ passing lanes. At one point in the third, he had three straight steals that led to runouts. He’s also an underrated passer, particularly on the fast break. Oddly, during the time of the biggest upheaval within the organization, J.R. has seemingly been one of the most consistent Cavs.

The Payback. You can sit them on the bench, and forget about them for games at a time, but both R.J. and Andy played like they had never heard of the term DNP-CD. All Jefferson did was knock down every shot he took (4-4, 2-2 from deep), and almost every free throw (4-5) for 14 points in 23 minutes. Andy was also highly efficient (3-4 from the field) with three boards and a steal. It’s great to see both of these guys contribute, and justify Coach Lue’s decision to expand his rotations.

Living In America. The other two foreign big men both had quiet nights if you only looked at the box score. However, TT had a terrific run of rebounds in the second quarter, and Timo brought both offensive energy by diving to the hoop off pick and rolls (hitting 5-7 shots for 10 points), and defensive presence to help protect the rim. When each of them is contributing, and bolstered by some minutes from Andy, this can still be a formidable big man rotation.

Give It Up Or Turn It Loose. The Cavs tied their season high with 34 assists, and did it on 45 made baskets. Every one of their 11 three-pointers was assisted. This is the kind of ball movement that Coach Lue has been preaching, and the results have been promising thus far. They also scored 33 points off of the Suns’ 23 turnovers, and dominated Phoenix on points in the paint 48-38. They shot nearly 56% from the field for the game and right around 40% from downtown. Granted, it was against one of the poorer defensive teams in the league, but those are still some robust offensive numbers.

There Must Be A Reason. Despite having only coached three games, Ty Lue was officially named as the Head Coach for the Eastern Conference for the All Star Game.

“He’s won 66 percent of his games so far,” joked Kevin Love after the game. “I don’t think it’ll be his last time coaching the All-Star game. We’re happy for him.”

Lue had originally wanted to avoid coaching in the game, suggesting that the NBA should allow David Blatt to still take the honors. But, since the NBA wouldn’t consider that as an option, Lue wanted to make sure the Cavs’ coaching staff got the opportunity to be rewarded for their hard work.

“It’s a tribute to Coach Blatt and the players and the hard work the assistant coaches put in to get us to this point,” Lue said. “It’s going to be a great honor to represent the Cleveland Cavaliers and having a chance to do this, I know my coaches are excited, and I know it’s going to be a surreal moment.”

Parting Shot:

As much fun as the second half of this game was, there’s still the caveat that it was against a far inferior team with tired legs. In fact, both of the last two games were a welcome respite of lottery teams for the Cavs to play with and recover from the aftermath of a seismic coaching change. The true tests are coming… and they will be stout. It begins with a tough back-to-back at Detroit and back home for the Spurs (who blew the Rockets out by 30 after their humiliation at Oracle). The last two games have been encouraging steps forward, and hopefully, the Cavs can continue to move the ball as they groove into the All Star Break.