Five Up, Five Down

The Cleveland Cavaliers are two games into their playoff run, and so far there’s a lot to be happy about. After all, when a team is up 2-0 in their playoff series, everything is perfect, right? Well, yes and no. Obviously, many important things must be going well for the Cavs to be up 2-0, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for improvement in several critical areas. Without further ado, here’s this week’s Five Up, Five Down, a list of the things that are going well, and not so well, for the Cleveland Cavaliers in their first-round series against the Detroit Pistons.

Five Up

1. Kevin Love, Stretch Five.

Love at the center spot has been absolutely devastating to the Pistons. No matter who Stan Van Gundy puts on him, Love seems to have the advantage. If the Pistons go with Andre Drummond, Love is able to pull him away from the basket, eliminating Detroit’s last and most important line of defense. If they put a forward such as Marcus Morris or Tobias Harris on Love, he uses his strength and skill in the post to bully them and get whatever he wants. This is the way many people have been waiting for the Cavaliers to use Love since he came to Cleveland nearly two years ago. The Pistons have a good young front court, but Love and James are taking them apart.

2. The Cavs are executing their defensive plan, even when it doesn’t work.

No one was more upset watching Detroit can three pointer after three pointer in Game One than this writer. I have two young children, and I can tell you without a doubt that their father was the least mature person in the house during Sunday’s game. Emotion aside though, letting a Pistons team that ranked 22nd in the league in three-point percentage this season fire away from deep makes perfect sense. The first thing the Cavaliers want to take away from the Pistons is their ability to move the ball and get out in transition. The second is the Jackson-Drummond pick-and-roll. Any team can get hot for a game or two, but if the Pistons have to resort to taking isolation threes, the Cavaliers will be happy to live with the result.

3. Tyronn Lue isn’t looking overwhelmed.

Whether it’s a game plan that forces the Pistons to take—and surprisingly make—outside shots, playing Kevin Love at center, or refusing to allow Andre Drummond to hide on Iman Shumpert, Lue has done a nice job of making the right adjustments for the Cavaliers. Stan Van Gundy is as good a tactician as there is in the NBA, and Lue has been more than a match for him in this series. Part of this is obviously due to the Cavaliers’ sizable talent advantage, but Lue certainly deserves some credit for a job well done.

4. Stanley Johnson has poked the bear.

You don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit in the wind, and you don’t give LeBron James even more incentive to destroy you on the court than he already has. Johnson may be right about one thing, he probably is in LeBron’s head. Of course, the Stanley Johnson that LeBron will see in his head will have a bullseye on his back for the rest of this series, and possibly for the next several seasons. The most surprising thing with this new development is that Tobias Harris didn’t warn Johnson about the consequences of talking trash to James.

5. The next round is looking good.

No matter who wins the Hawks-Celtics series (Atlanta), I’m really liking this matchup for the Cavaliers. The Celtics are banged up, don’t have the star power or experience to match the Cavs, and Iman Shumpert does a terrific job defending Isaiah Thomas. The Hawks have played as well as any team in the league over the last two months. Al Horford and Paul Millsap are absolute beasts and my pick for the best front court in the NBA. Mike Budenholzer is a great coach, and they’ve built a terrific culture.

And, the Cavs own them. Body and soul. Tristan Thompson has had Millsap’s number for a year now, which is really amazing when you think about how great Millsap is. The Cavs have won their last seven against the Hawks, and there’s no reason to believe that this dominance won’t continue, even if the Hawks get a couple of wins in a series. Don’t believe everything you hear, the Atlanta Hawks are not a real threat.

Five Down

1. Why play Mozgov?

I will be the first to admit the Tyronn Lue knows way more about basketball than I do. I am fine with Kevin Love eating into Channing Frye’s minutes because he is tearing the Pistons apart. I can understand Lue playing Richard Jefferson over Frye because he feels that Jefferson has a better chance of guarding Marcus Morris and Tobias Harris. I cannot understand Timofey Mozgov playing over Frye under any circumstances. For those who would argue that Mozgov is a better defender, there’s very little evidence that Mozgov has been better than Frye on that end this season. If you’re worried about Aaron Baynes torching you with Frye in, I have two counters. One, Frye’s ability to pull Baynes away from the basket with his shooting would be a huge help to the Cavaliers. Two, it’s Aaron Freakin’ Baynes. He’s a good backup center, but he’s not the kind of mismatch that’s going to hurt the Cavs or any other playoff team. Even if he was, there’s simply no reason to play Mozgov. Whether or not the Cavs should have taken a different approach with Timo after his knee surgery is irrelevant, in the playoffs you have to stick with the players who have shown this season that they can help you win, regardless of what has happened in the past. Timofey Mozgov hasn’t done that. Look no further than the plus-minus from Game 2 for further proof.

2. The focus remains inconsistent.

As Jason Lloyd pointed out in his final thoughts, the Pistons are shooting 56% in the first halves of this series, versus only 38% in the second half. Part of this can be explained by the Cavaliers making adjustments and the Pistons regressing to the mean after hot starts, but there’s also no doubt that the Cavs haven’t shown much urgency on the defensive end to start either game. While it hasn’t hurt them against the Pistons, it will when they move on to later rounds and face better competition.

3. Kyrie Irving’s defense and passing.

Irving’s lack of focus and effort on the defensive end has been discussed ad nauseam, so there’s no point in beating that dead horse. He’s never going to be a stopper on that end, but he needs to make the effort to be in the right place at the right time in terms of the Cavaliers’ defensive rotations. He was better defensively in Game Two, but there’s still plenty of room for improvement. On offense, Irving may feel that he is in a bit of a catch-22 situation in terms of passing versus shooting. When Irving is on the floor with James, he seems more willing to pass because he trusts that James will be able to either score or create a good look for a teammate. When James is resting and Irving is leading the unit on the floor—a sound decision by Lue to make sure one of James or Irving is always on the floor—he seems to be looking to score more than facilitate. This is likely because he doesn’t trust his teammates enough, and he feels that it’s on him to make sure the Cavaliers get their points. Meanwhile, this increased isolation play causes the Cavs’ offense to become stagnant, and Irving looks like a selfish player, rather than the misguided one he likely is. The best option to help this would likely be to make sure that one of Frye and Love is always on the floor with Irving when James sits, as he does seem a bit more comfortable in pick-and-pop situations than he does in the regular pick-and-roll. It also gives him another plus offensive player to trust if James and J.R. Smith are on the bench.

4. Iman Shumpert’s shooting.

Shumpert’s never been a good offensive player, and this season he’s been a bad one, shooting just 37.4% from the field and 29.5% from three. This kind of shooting is an issue in the regular season, and an outright problem in the playoffs, where teams have more time to scheme for non-threats like Shumpert. In an appearance on the Really Big Show on Monday, Brian Windhorst speculated that Stan Van Gundy may have center Andre Drummond guard Shumpert so that he can help off of him on defense and serve as the Piston’s rim protector without hurting the team by leaving his man. Sure enough, that exact thing happened in Game 2, and it allowed Detroit to come back from a six-point deficit in the second quarter to briefly take the lead. Lue quickly brought in Matthew Dellavedova for Shumpert, but the problem will be there any time Shumpert is on the floor. With each round of the playoffs, Shumpert’s shooting will become more and more of a problem, and it was a problem you could see coming all the way back on Media Day.

5. Tyronn Lue’s rotations.

For all the good things in Lue’s game plan, his rotations remain something of a mystery. Besides the inexplicable minutes for Mozgov, Lue seems to have no set rotation. I was as happy as anyone to see Frye start the second quarter and play 11 minutes Wednesday night, but that’s far from the only issue. LeBron rested to start the second quarter of Game One, Irving and Love did so for Game Two. Some of these rotation changes were due to Tristan Thompson’s foul trouble, some because of the chess match that is the NBA playoffs, but it sometimes seems as if Lue just throws lineups at the wall and goes with what sticks. One could easily argue that this strategy has worked, but this was a criticism of David Blatt early in his tenure with the Cavaliers, and it’s a bit surprising that Lue gets away with it, even if the players do love him.

I’ve been watching basketball for over 30 years, but every year the jump in intensity from the regular season to the playoffs is shocking to me. From the increased physicality to the stronger emphasis on mismatches, it’s just a different game. The Cavs haven’t been perfect, but they’ve done a nice job executing their game plan and not getting rattled in the moment. If they keep this up, the Cavaliers have an excellent shot of playing well into June.