Recap: Brooklyn 104, Cavs 95 (Live By The Three, But Mostly Die By It)

(AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

The Cavs wasted a near perfect LeBron James performance. The King put up 30 points on 13-16 shooting to go with six rebounds and five assists. In the third quarter, he scored 15 to help the Cavs fight back from 14 down. The Cavs couldn’t capitalize on their comeback though. In the fourth quarter, they put up just 12 points on 19% shooting, while coughing the ball up four times. Brooklyn pushed the pace early to put up 24 points on 44% shooting. Rondae Hollis Jefferson won the quarter getting six of his eight points off of transition opportunities from turnovers.

The Nets managed to hold the Cavs to 43.8% from the field this game, and allowed them to hit just 10 of their 38 3-points attempts. The Cavs were getting great looks much of the night. They just kept missing them though, and they coughed up the ball 14 times. They also gave up 14 fast break points and 16 second chance points. Even worse, Brooklyn scored 60 in the paint. Brook Lopez guided the Nets throughout the game and ended up with 22 points, seven rebounds , and five assists. Shane Larkin helped too chipping in 16 points and seven dimes.

The Cavaliers started the first quarter out playing sound defense. On the first two Brooklyn possessions, I actually made a note that Kevin Love was fighting against Thad Young. Kyrie scored the first points of the game with a slow-mo euro step to get a layup. Timofey Mozgov then reminded me he has the hardest hands in the league, when he fumbled a pass, blew a rebound, and messed up a pick and roll before two minutes of play had passed. If I had hands as hard as his, I’d bare knuckle box.

LeBron helped Timo redeem himself though with a post up where he found him under the rim after drawing a double team. The King made a clear effort to work from the post early on. He hit a hook over former Cavalier Sergey Karasev, and bested Bojan Bogdanovic from the post too. He even hit one of his patented fading jumpers. He had four assists. The Cavaliers’ offense had five assists on 11 shots and shot 61%.

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Brooklyn hung with the Cavs though, as Cleveland managed to cough the ball up seven times, which led to five points! Brook Lopez helped Brooklyn stay close too. After missing his first three attempts,  he finished the quarter 2-5 for eight points. He also hit Larkin on a quick give and go play. After one, Brooklyn led, 26-23.

Delly started the second quarter off with a lob pass to TT. Then Brooklyn essentially got very lucky. Chris McCullough hit a contested jumper over RJ, and then the next possession Rondae barged into RJ and the ball popped out to Henry Sims for a dunk. Brooklyn used those shots to gain some momentum. To make things even worse, the Cavs kept racking up fouls. They had four in the first three minutes. One was called on a clear Shumping of the ball from Kilpatrick, but the refs thought he hit his hand. Thankfully, Brooklyn didn’t have the smarts to draw fouls to get into the bonus super early.

Midway through the quarter Brooklyn went on a 14-2 run to establish a lead. The Cavs essentially stopped playing defense and fell victim to numerous blow-bys and drive and kicks. Instead of trying to get easy baskets in the paint or on the break, Cleveland took five 3s, three mid-range jumpers (one was a LeBron post up fader that dropped), and one shot at the rim. It was not a winning formula.

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Mozgov ended the run when he hit a turnaround shot over Lopez and drew the foul. After Mozgov hit the freebie, the Cavs played the remaining three minutes evenly. LeBron scored the rest of the points going 3-3. On one play, after sprinting up the court with the ball, he used a Frye screen. He then split Brookyln’s attempt to double team him and flew in for a reverse assault on the rim. The set up to the dunk was so menacing that  three different Nets stepped out of the way. The King followed that play up getting a steal and an And-1 layup.

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Brooklyn spread their scoring around. Ten of their 11 men got involved. After two, Brooklyn led 59-49.

The third quarter was the Cavs’ quarter. The King made sure of that scoring 15 points. Early on, Kyrie drove into the paint, and around the baseline. He fired a pass to the perimeter and the ball rocketed around until Smith found LeBron cutting to the rim. LeBron would go on to hit numerous insane shots. On one layup, he came from the right side and finished on the left with his right hand spinning the ball so much that it seemed to slide a foot on the glass before dropping down. He hit a 30 foot 3-pointer with the shot clock winding down, and he mimicked Love to throw Mozgov a touchdown pass. He also made Sergey wish he was still in Russia. He lowered his head, crossed Sergey over, drove to the paint, and then elevated yelling, “FROM AMERICA WITH LOVE.”

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The King had his first miss of the game with 2:59 left in quarter. J.R. Smith hit two threes and had eight points, while Kyrie had seven points. The Cavs really moved the rock assisting on 57% of their makes. Kyrie’s points were negated by Larkin’s. Larkin routinely blew by him and got six shots at the rim scoring eight points. The Cavs went on a 21-9 run the last eight minutes of the quarter. They started to close out on shooters and actually ran to the ball. Despite outscoring Brooklyn by 13, they entered the final frame barely ahead, 83-80.

Usually in the fourth quarter, the Cavs clamp down and pull games out. Tonight, that didn’t happen. They were just sloppy. In the first four minutes of play, Love blew two layup attempts, and the Cavs turned the ball over two times leading to four easy points. With eight left, Brookyln was ahead by three points, but they were really feeling themselves. They revved up their defense and Cleveland couldn’t get a solid lead. Despite being up by two halfway through after Delly hit a three, the Cavs seemed doomed after they stopped a Brooklyn fast break and eventually ended their new possession with an over and back violation.

LeBron checked in after that play, but the Cavs had lost all their mojo. Earlier in the evening they were trying to move the ball, and the King was working off the ball and running hard in transition. The Wine & Gold stopped doing that the final five minutes of play. The King ran high screen after high screen, while Kyrie started to dribbled the life out of the ball before jacking up 3-pointers. Brooklyn ran away with the game when no shots would drop for Irving or LeBron.
Gripes
1.I give the Cavs credit. They want to shoot the 3-ball, and they are getting open looks. However, they need to make those open looks. Taking 38 3-pointers and hitting just ten isn’t a recipe for success.

2. When they combine their poor 3-shooting with lack luster defense, they are asking to be blown out. The Warriors take lots of threes. Sometimes they fall, and they win by 25. Sometimes they don’t, and they win by four. That’s because no matter what they do offensively, they play defense.

3.Playing defense for 48 minutes is part of this thing called a game plan. Most game plans have parts of them that are easily accomplished, like playing defense. The Cavs haven’t figured out that defense is a good thing to do consistently. That’s fine.

4.However, they haven’t even figured out how to play offense consistently enough for an entire game to cover up their defensive issues. Up until there were five minutes left in the game, the Cavs pushed the paced, looked for threes, and tried to get quality looks. While they got to the free throw line just nine times, I was fine with their offense since the shots it created were clean and in the flow of the game.

5.It’s this “iso, high screen, I got this” mentality at the end of games that drives me nuts. If I can figure out that the LeBron or Kyrie-TT high screen will result in LeBron or Kyrie taking a three or putting their head down and driving to the rim, I’m sure a team actually paying guys to scout will figure that out too.

6.Now, on to Kyrie. Kyrie was owned by Shane Larkin. Larkin scored 16 while Kyrie had just 13. Larkin had seven assists and Kyrie had four. Larkin makes….. I’m not trying to pile on Kyrie, but he needs to have some self-respect. The most unstoppable play in the NBA isn’t the Larkin-Lopez give and go. Despite that, Brooklyn pulled that give and go action three times, twice on Kyrie and once on Delly.

7. Kevin Love didn’t show up. He got 12 rebounds, but he missed all five of his threes and had just 11 points.

8. The Cavs’ ball security didn’t show up either, and they turned it over 14 times.
Hypes

LeBron’s Lab Like Shot Chart

1.For all the talk about LeBron being a social media trolling machine, he sure has been playing quite well lately. His stat line was insane, 30 points on 13-16 shooting. That’s beyond video game numbers. The craziest thing about how LeBron has been playing recently is that he isn’t handling the ball, and he isn’t taking as many 3-pointers. He’s rebounding and running the floor for easy buckets, and he’s cutting hard to the rim. This is the LeBron Cleveland needs. This guy doesn’t take shots away from Irving and Love. Right now he’s dominating games, without dominating the ball. I can ask for nothing more from him. If Kyrie and Love can just get themselves right, this team will be terrifying.

2.The Cavs moved the ball for the third game in a row. They had 22 assists on 39 baskets.

3.The good guys will be in NYC to face the Knicks on Saturday. Let’s hope they can bounce back.