Miami 122, Cleveland 101 (or, Smarter, Bigger, Faster, Stronger)

That’s right. This game was so bad it deserves a Kanye video. Cleveland got outplayed in every phase of the game by the Miami Heat who, despite losing three of their last five, looked like an Eastern Conference title contender Saturday night. The Cavs were competitive for about the first eight minutes, trailing 20-17 at the 4:24 mark, before an 11-2 run by the Heat closed the quarter and put the Heat up 31-19. South Beach never looked back, going up by as much as 33 in second half.

What’s scary is that this wasn’t like Portland, Golden State, or Memphis, where the Cavs failed to show up and compete. Clevelad was trying, especially in the first half. But Miami was… well, just listen to Daft Punk lay down the opening lyric.

Smarter: I know, I know. The lyric is “harder” but the Heat were tougher and much much smarter tonight than the wine and gold. Ty Lue didn’t get outcoached by Eric Spoelstra, he got outcoached by common sense and good management practices. First off, Timofey Mozgov was scheduled to start. Then, an hour and a half before the game, coach changed his mind, and started Shumpert to go small against the Heat starting linep of Stoudemire, Deng, Joe Johnson, Wade, and Dragic. Then Moz didn’t even sniff the floor till garbage time, despite Miami giving significant minutes to the gargantuan Hassan Whiteside. Cleveland certainly could have used Moz’s help around the basket on defense to counter Wade’s 10-17, Goran Dragic’s 7-12, Stoudemire’s 3-4, and Whiteside’s 6-9 shooting inside the arc. Instead, Cleveland started Kevin “accordian arms” Love at the five.

Moz has struggled of late, but the absolute last thing you do a guy and a team who are struggling with mental toughness and preparedness is to jerk around guys’ roles at the last minute. Then, to not even let that guy play in the first half? That’s just about the worst kind of management.

Only one guy on this team knows what his job will entail. Everyone else is guessing as it changes every other week.

— realcavsfans.com (@realcavsfans) March 20, 2016

That tweet understates the Cavs’ problems with players their roles. It’s not every other week, it’s game to freaking game, quarter to freaking quarter. You don’t tell a guy he’s starting and then not play him! Yeah, the Spurs did that with Boris Diaw and Tim Duncan last night, benching Duncan, but Spurs and Duncan is just a leetle less mentally fragile than the Cavs and Mozgov. Also, Duncan actually, you know, got to play.

Speaking of roles, Can we talk about offensive roles? Does anyone know what Kevin Love’s role in the offense supposed to be game to game? Saturday, he got one shot inside the first 15 minutes and didn’t touch the ball at the elbow or on the low post in the first half. Why the hell are you playing Kevin Love as a stretch five when he’s been struggling with his shot? Why aren’t you punishing Miami for going small against you? Cleveland ran lots and lots of Isolation for LeBron, sending four guys to the other side of the court. The Cavs were partying like it was 1999.

Le-Iso was effective from the standpoint of LeBron’s offensive game. He went 13-20 for 26 points. But with no one on the strong side to set up for open jumpers when the doubles came, the Cavs offense was stagnant when LeBron and Kyrie weren’t scoring. J.R. Smith got two shots all game (yes, that J.R. Smith – the one who’s averaging 14 points a game since the all-star break). LeBron also hit some incredibly difficult turnarounds that will make highlight reel lovers swoon, but belie the problem of the Cavs settling for difficult baskets instead of running the offense for easy ones. The ball did not move side to side.

The Cavs failed to set up plays for the red hot Channing Frye, too, who didn’t get a triple till garbage time, and who the Cavs tried to match up with Hassan Whiteside (to disastrous results).

Defensively, LeBron was either ignorant, stupid, or lazy off the ball. He consistently kept leaving Josh Richardson who’s shooting 67% percent from three in the month of March! Josh scorched him for six to start the three train rolling. And if you think it was just Josh, here’s Joe Johnson getting a free pass from the King on a three.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzFB0jbpQGA

Is this a case of the Cavs not reading or having a proper scouting report? (Again… I’m looking at you, Mike Longabardi.) Is it laziness? I don’t know. I guess I’ll go with laziness. Oh, and LeBron reverted to his old habit of not boxing out for defensive rebounds. The Heat were smarter and harder.

Kyrie was not the main culprit on defense. He actually, consistently competed on the defensive end, made a concerted effort to get around screens, and maintained proper defensive stance most of the game. When he did get beat, he switched onto a big, and tried to make an impact on defense. He has also gotten very good at unexpectedly doubling down on bigs to force turnovers. His active hands netted him three steals tonight. Kyrie still isn’t great when he tries on that side of the court, but he’s not awful. He was at least better than the other Cavs, tonight.

How else was Miami smarter? Just look at where they’re getting contributions from. Josh Richardson? The 40th pick of 2015 draft. Hassan Whiteside? A not even in the D-League free agent? Joe Johnson? Luol Deng? Miami is clearly very very good at identifying guys who can help their team and then putting them into positions to succeed. Meanwhile, the last two seasons has seen the end of the Cavs’ roster become a wasteland where guys go to end their careers or not develop. (I’ll make an exception for the pleasantly surprising Richard Jefferson who had 20 points tonight).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzKQRxBm_54

Bigger: Hassan Whiteside was a beast tonight, putting a lid on the rim and going for 16 points, 13 rebounds, two dimes, and according to the box score, two blocks. But I counted at least three obliterations. Cleveland had no answer for him, though as I noted earlier, they didn’t bother to try Mozgov until late. Tristan Thompson just wasn’t big enough to get to the rebounds Whiteside was gathering, or to stop Hassan around the basket. He was getting buckets or getting to the free throw line at will. TT finished with two points and two rebounds in 18 minutes. Whiteside’s four offensive rebounds were part of Miami’s 13 overall, which led to 14 second chance points to Cleveland’s six.

Six-foot-six inch backup point guard Josh Richardson had the size to bother the Cavs too. Aside from making his triples apparently unblockable on his way to 19 points, Josh’s size gives the Heat the ability to switch anything when he’s playing with Wade, Johnson, and Deng. Aside from Dragic and Josh McRoberts, the Heat have a roster full of big, athletic players who can guard multiple positions and then funnel to defensive anchor Hassan Whiteside. They’re going to be a tough playoff out in the new positionless NBA.

Faster: Cleveland was beaten down the floor all night, giving Miami a 14-6 fast break advantage. These came off Miami’s 11-14 turnover advantage, and 42-26 rebound advantage. Goran Dragic seems freed in Miami’s new spread offense. Because Stoudemire (and in the future, Bosh) can spread the floor along, with Deng, Jones, and Wade, Dragic’s poor three point shooting isn’t as big of an issue as it was earlier this year. Miami has found the shooters they were missing, and Dragic has the speed to drive and kick to find them. Goran finished with 15 and 11 dimes with only two turnovers, while Miami went 11-19 from behind the arc.

Cleveland playing it’s fifth game in seven nights while Miami was ending a leisurely three-games-in-a-week home stand certainly had something to do with Miami’s speed advantage. One almost wonders if the Cavs would have been better sitting some guys like Love. Kevin was almost unplayable in the role Cleveland was using him. He was too small to do anything at center, and two slow at the power forward spot. He had no energy, collecting one rebound and seven points in 16 minutes, and was consistently late in three-point closeouts (a team trend).

Delly seemed gassed too, and led Cleveland with a game high -24 (as compared to Kyrie’s -21, and LeBron’s -23). He had a hard time keeping up with his defensive assignments, and was as culpable in high, pick-and-roll defense as anyone (though Cleveland’s bigs seemed especially awful at doing anything useful defensively on those possessions). Delly was 4-12, and was forced throw up a lot of shots in Cleveland’s haphazard garbage time play, where nary a play was run for anyone.

Stronger: We already touched on the rebound advantage Miami had: 42-26 and Love and TT’s relative ineffectiveness, but LeBron’s three rebounds didn’t exactly set the bar high when he was starting at the four. Amare (five boards), Whiteside (13), and Wade (4) led Miami’s impressive team rebounding, and eight guys had an o-board. Cleveland’s got to work on boxing out.

Speaking of boxing out, Delly boxed out Goran Dragic on a play and got reviewed for a flagrant: probably the most ridiculous flagrant review I’ve ever seen. Goran went flying on a routine box out, and our old pal Tony Brothers just had to review it. Dellavadova clearly has a target on his back from the NBA officials. Tony Brother and Co. were pretty awful all night: missing Heat players clearly out of bounds, calling phantom fouls, and generally making an incompetent mess of things.

Anyway. Cleveland has a real problem on it’s hands. The NBA changes rapidly, and Kevin Love, who two years ago seemed like one of the best players in the NBA, seems almost unplayable against certain matchups, and seems to wear down quite easily on the second end of back-to-backs. Is he weaker? Is his his cardio worse? Does he just need more bulk? Is it all in his head? I’m not a physiologist or psychologist, but he doesn’t seem nearly as strong as he used to be on the boards, around the basket, and in the head. Sure Kevin can look like an all-star against the David Lees and Chandler Parsons of the league, but when he can’t use his shooting and face-up game against guys like Stoudemire, or the Cavs refuse to match him up on guys like Deng – and when he doesn’t rebound – he’s unplayable.

My fear now is that Cleveland will never get an offer again that matches what they could’ve gotten in February, if Kevin’s poor play continues. The Cavs are committed to LeBron James for good or ill, and Kevin Love may be a very lousy fit next to him, especially if his jumper isn’t dropping. Further, that isn’t going to happen if Cleveland puts him in a completely different role every single game.

Miami has copied the blueprint for the new NBA: two combo forwards, and defenses that can switch anything. The question in the playoffs will be, can Cleveland force other teams to adjust to them, or will they constantly be adjusting to other teams and trying to re-tool on the fly?

I’m a firm believer that teams adopt the personality of their head coach. Cleveland seems to have adopted the attitude of thrashing about in terms of execution and preparedness from game to game – playing with a complete lack of emotion, intelligence, and mental toughness. I hope these aren’t Ty Lue’s traits, because if they are, then he, like his team, is completely overwhelmed. I think Mr. West sumed up in 2007 how we all feel as fans. Will Cleveland even make it out of the second round of the playoffs? Take it, Kanye.

That that don’t kill me
Can only make me stronger
I need you to hurry up now
‘Cause I can’t wait much longer
I know I got to be right now
‘Cause I can’t get much wronger
Man I’ve been waiting all night now
That’s how long I been on ya
I need you right now

You know how long I’ve been on ya?
Since Prince was on Apollonia
Since O.J. had isotoners
Don’t act like I never told ya.